Past Lives?

[DC1346]

I have read several posts on different boards at this site referencing past lives ... so I'm curious ... do any of you have actual memories of past lives experience?

I do.

I experienced my first past lives memory while I was in junior high. My father was a doctor in the U.S. military service and we had been stationed in San Salvador, El Salvador (before the revolution). I was a student at La Escuela Americana and one day during lunch, I was sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of the library (avoiding crowds and the tropical heat). While idly thumbing through back issues of Life Magazine, I saw a picture that really scared me.

It was World War II and Paris was on the verge of liberation by allied troops. The French Resistance had started a campaign against the occupying Germans and in a series of 2 or 3 pictures, two members of the German Wehrmacht were caught by a kubelwagen (jeep) in a courtyard surrounded by tall buildings. French snipers had pinned them down and in the last picture, both soldiers were shown to be dead - crumbled by their vehicle.

I saw the picture (which is not the one I included below) and the next thing I know, the librarian's aide was yelling at me to be quiet. She claims that I jumped to my feet and began shouting in German. I DO NOT SPEAK GERMAN. Since she was fluent in German, she told me that I had been yelling, "Damn it! I TOLD YOU we should have left earlier!"

The woman snatched the magazine from my hands and kicked me out of the library for having been so rude and disruptive. I remember being confused and not knowing what to think. I remember having been really upset at the sight of the pictures but don't recall anything else.

Years later I had a dream. It was incredibly vivid. It was the late 19th century and I appeared to be wearing a gentleman's clothing. I was in a metropolitan area and I was following another man who wore a black top hat and had mutton chop whiskers. I followed the man through the revolving glass doors of a hotel into an immaculate lobby with marble floors. As I entered the hotel, I reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a derringer - a small pistol with a large bore. I quickly stepped behind the man I had been following. I raised my weapon, aimed it at point blank range at the back of the man's head, and pulled the trigger. I woke up literally bathed in sweat.

A few years after that experience, I had another equally vivid dream. This time I was a Roman optio centuriae, a senior non-commissioned officer. I was angrily shouting at some recruits over their blatant ignorance, stupidity, and clumsiness.

I had been trying to teach the recruits how to form a testudo formation. A testudo is a tortoise and in this formation, the men along the outside of the formation would have held their shields facing outwards whilst the men inside this group would have had the shields carried overhead.

As an enthusiast who studies ancient military history, I knew that a testudo was useful for storming enemy fortresses. This formation gave the Romans some measure of protection from slings and arrows as they approached the enemy walls.

I remember being angry at the recruits because those idiots couldn't remember which way to hold their shields. Some of them banged the heads of their fellow legionnaires in the head with their shields as they lifted them. It's a good thing they were wearing helmets. Other men managed to tangle their shields, disrupting the smooth movements that should have occurred. I woke up shouting in anger and since I keep a notepad and pencil by my bed, I wrote down my last raging thoughts as the dream faded from my mind.

I got a drink of water and went back to sleep and when I woke up, I found that I had scribbled something in Latin on the note pad.

I DO NOT SPEAK LATIN.

I googled a translation online and found that the words translated as, "You idiots! SHIELDS UP! SHIELDS UP! How many times do I (untranslatable) have to (untranslatable) tell you? SHIELDS UP"

I have no explanation for these experiences. The only thing they appear to have in common is that I experienced very strong emotions. The picture of the German soldiers in the Life Magazine frightened me. In the Victorian dream I felt coldly angry. In the Roman dream I was a clearly pissed off non-com.

I do not speak German or Latin.

Friends who have heard this story have suggested the possibility that I had perhaps dredged up a memory from a movie ... but I honestly can't think of any WWII movie in which an actor playing a German soldier says, Damn it! I TOLD YOU we should have left earlier!" I also don't know of ANY movie about the ancient Romans in which anyone actually spoke Latin.

I would be greatly interested in hearing your thoughts or comments or hearing about similar experiences.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I've had a couple of flashbacks of going overboard--and I haven't been on an oceangoing vessel since I was two, and I'm an adult when I remember the feeling. But that's all I have. I don't know if I survived. I do have a peculiar response to water: I can swim, but I am very aware of being both in and not-in my element.

 

[Spiller]

I remember being thrown form the parapet of a castle - I visited Corfe castle in the UK years ago and felt.. Ownership.. fear, pain, numbing, for the rest of the day.
I'm very afraid of heights and I have nightmares of falling.

I remember hanging.. being hung.. couldn't
Don't wear things on my neck

 

[DC1346]

I have never quite understood the Christian concept of Heaven or Hell. In Christian theology, souls are either rewarded with access to Heaven or are condemned to Hell for all of eternity. When measured against the length of eternity, the length of an average human life is insignificant against the vastness of forever ... and yet a loving and merciful God will condemn a soul to Hell for all eternity without the possibility of redemption? That seems unduly harsh.

In Taoism there are 10 Courts of Hell. Before a soul can be reincarnated, it must be judged and each court has jurisdiction over various aspects of human lives. Souls found to be guilty of various infractions are subject to punishment. For example, sinners may be fried in cauldrons of oil or be dismembered by saws or crushed by rocks and boulders.

In Buddhism there are 18 levels of Hell. The Buddhist concept of Hell is similar to Taoism in that each level has punishments for different types of sins. The first floor is the chamber of tongue ripping where those who stir up trouble with evil gossip have their tongues cut out. On another level, those who break the marriage of others through sins of infidelity have their fingers cut off.

In Asian belief systems, Hell is gruesome ... but it doesn't last forever. As I understand it, souls are purged of their sins through punishment but at some point, the punishments will end and the soul will drink from the milk of forgetfulness and be reborn. In being reborn the soul will have another opportunity to get things right and to learn lessons that he/she did not learn during a previous life.

I don't know if there is any truth to the idea of 10 Courts of Hell or 18 Levels. If there is, I'm sure that at least one of them must include trying to get your car registered at the DMV. Another might include trying to get a medical appointment at the VA. (Eye roll)

One thing I've noted in what everyone has said is that we all seem to remember traumatic experiences or very strong emotions. I say this because when I think about my early childhood, all of my early memories relate to something that was so traumatic that the memory of what happened is something I can never forget.

I remember for example being a baby. My parents had put me in my crib face down ... AND I COULDN'T BREATHE. I wasn't strong or coordinated enough to roll onto my side. The weight of my head was pressing my nose into the bottom of the crib and I COULDN'T BREATHE. I tried to cry out but I couldn't get enough air ... and then someone reached into the crib, turned my head to the side and I could suddenly breathe. What a relief.

I remember being 3 years old in Ghana. My father had driven a land rover out onto a plain to look at a huge mound. My father told me that this was an ant hill. Years later I realized it was actually a termite mound. I knew what ants were and it occurred to me that a giant "ant hill" must surely have giant ants. I PANICKED and told my father that we had to go. Since I was only three, my vocabulary was very limited and it frustrated me to know that I didn't know how to tell my father that there were giant ants in the ant hill. I grabbed his hand and began yelling, "WE GO! WE GO! WE GO!"

I weighed all of 30 pounds and my father was at least 5 times my size. He wouldn't budge. What made me ever more upset was that he wouldn't take me seriously because he started to laugh. Here I was, a 3 year old kid trying to save his life and he was laughing at me. I remember having a melt down ... not a temper tantrum but a screaming and yelling meltdown because I was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions ... anger, fear, irritation ..

My father promptly stopped laughing, upended me over his knee, and delivered two quick swats to my backside. I don't remember anything after that ... but the memory of the termite mound and my father's amusement have stayed with me throughout my life.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I wonder if traumatic life experiences stay with us through rebirth just as traumatic events from our childhood stay with us through adulthood.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I like to joke that I used to be a reindeer or goat because of how noisy my joints are, but I have no real memories that aren't mine. The closest I get is when I look at scenery from certain other parts of the world and I get an overwhelming sensation of HOME.

Okay, I do have one that's never made any sense. When I was perhaps 3 or 4, my parents took me down to the Gulf on one of the few family vacations we've ever taken. My mom says I slipped and went under only a few inches, but I remember from that time looking up a good 20-30 feet at the surface of the water above me and seeing a silhouetted figure swimming/dog-paddling as best they could to the surface. I don't remember any sensations other than I couldn't hear anything and I couldn't breathe. It was neither warm nor cold and I can't remember if I was feeling great pressure or I had gone numb. It was a beautiful crystal blue that was nearly white near where the sun hit the water and faded to a bluish-black where I was. My mother has never lied to me and she'd never lie about something like that, so I'm sure when I was little I didn't wind up way down there or had a near-death experience. I often have strange dreams involving being deep under the water, half of which start off fearfully from being rapidly sucked under, but since my dreams are weird I usually end up breathing like a fish or something. It's really strange to have a bit of a deep water phobia because I have never in my life had a bad experience with the water, especially deep water. Whether it's just a strange phobia or a glimpse into a past life I cannot say because I neither believe nor disbelieve in the possibility of reincarnation.

My baby memory is a good one. I was about a year and a half old. I had a pastel polka dot bed sheet in a honey-coloured wooden crib that set right under the light switch next to the door. I remember laying there feeling very peaceful as I looked at my sheets, my crib, and my room.

In Taoism there are 10 Courts of Hell. Before a soul can be reincarnated, it must be judged and each court has jurisdiction over various aspects of human lives. Souls found to be guilty of various infractions are subject to punishment. For example, sinners may be fried in cauldrons of oil or be dismembered by saws or crushed by rocks and boulders.

I find religious Taoism very fascinating in addition to the philosophical side of it, but very few people to talk about it with since most practitioners I find are vehemently anti-religion in any manner.

If there is, I'm sure that at least one of them must include trying to get your car registered at the DMV. Another might include trying to get a medical appointment at the VA. (Eye roll)

All government facilities surely lie in the 13th level of hell. Because 13 tends to be considered unlucky and what more unfortunate torture to put on the 13th circle than government like the DMV, Medicaid, or the VA?