I went into my poly a month ago trying to be honest about everything so I didn't look up anything about polygraphs at all before going in.  I only knew what I knew from popular culture and my gut instinct that in general they were just a test of your reactions to the questions and not much more.

So I go in and promptly just not able to keep calm.  I'm just the sort of person who reacts to this situation I guess.  I can honestly say I pretty much squeaky in my cleanness.  According to my interrogator I failed on about half the questions majorly in the serious crimes question and the drugs question.  So I have never done drugs in my life (not even so much as smoking and I've had alcohol around a dozen times).  As for crimes I don't even speed any more (did a little as a teenager) much less kill/rape/burn down houses/steal major items as per the question I "failed".

The whole thing turned into a 6 hour long interrogation that was simply one of the worst experiences of my life and something I would never want to repeat again.  I left feeling like a criminal, and generally a bad person.  I couldn't even face people around me for a while I felt like such a terrible and unworthy person.

I wish I had read up on other peoples experiences and take on the whole thing here first.  I feel like maybe I would have been more calm in the whole thing.  I think it's pathetic and just sad that they would reject (yeah got my rejection letter) people like myself based on something that clearly isn't as accurate as some would claim as I can testify personally.