Past lives

[ChloeBee]

All right so here's the story: (Trigger Warnings for War, PTSD, Dementia, and Mental Illness in general, and I'm SERIOUS about it too, don't read this if you're not in a good place mentally)

Spoiler

 

At age 14 I had the flu and had an intense, vivid past life regression where I had been a soldier on the western front of World War 1. I was possibly American, though I have a strong feeling I might have been British. The "dream", or whatever you would call it, probably only lasted an hour at most but felt like it went on for literally days or even weeks. I remember the browns and the greys, huddling in the trenches and talking to each other at night about our comrades who had died. It was deep, horrifying, and sophisticated in a way my 14 year old brain was simply not capable of.

 

So much later I pieced together some facts about this hypothesized previous life. I was born in the late 1890s, possibly in northwest England but I'm not sure. I don't know much about my childhood but I served in World War 1 and was at the front for a very long time. However, I survived the war, and despite my trauma I actually went on to lead a fairly happy and successful life. I married a woman and we were still together when I was old; we had children and grandchildren. I loved and was loved. However, the worst was yet to come.

 

When I was around the age of 70 in the late 1960s I developed dementia. Possibly Alzheimer's, I'm not sure. At the time I felt safe because there were people around me who could look after me. This began my 10-year descent into the absolute hell that is dementia. I remember bits and flashes of what it was like with startling clarity. I can't even adequately describe it to someone who hasn't experienced it and since I desire to sleep tonight I'm not going to dig deep enough to give it a good try. It's kind of like a fog of confusion so thick that your thoughts are just fragments that don't connect to anything or each other; you just feel fear and confusion and the sensation of "threat" with nothing to connect it to.

 

After ten years my mind was basically completely gone and I died in or shortly before 1980. My soul spent 6 years outside this world trying to recover; that was the kind of life that leaves an indentation forever. But my soul desired to live again so in 1986 I was born again and began this current life. I feel like this entire life so far has been rehabilitation for the last one, and although my soul is very old I'm learning to human all over again. Though my mind is (more or less) sound in this life it's haunted by the shadow of dementia and some of the depression, anxiety, and ADD-like behaviors I sometimes have are a reflection of that.

 

All the stuff about dementia recently clicked into place when I found a work of art that brought it all back to me and caused me the most acute existential terror I have felt since I was 6 years old and first understood that I was someday going to die. I won't even say what this work of art is because I don't even want to think about it much less talk about it or spread it, even though the work is worthy of attention based on its artistic merit.

 

Despite saying all this I want you all to know that I am okay, I'm safe and doing fine. I hope if you read this you received some benefit from it. I received benefits from telling it. I still don't know if I fully believe in past lives but this all feels very, very real to me.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by September13

[Glaurung26]

8 minutes ago, September13 said:

All right so here's the story: (Trigger Warnings for War, PTSD, Dementia, and Mental Illness in general, and I'm SERIOUS about it too, don't read this if you're not in a good place mentally)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

At age 14 I had the flu and had an intense, vivid past life regression where I had been a soldier on the western front of World War 1. I was possibly American, though I have a strong feeling I might have been British. The "dream", or whatever you would call it, probably only lasted an hour at most but felt like it went on for literally days or even weeks. I remember the browns and the greys, huddling in the trenches and talking to each other at night about our comrades who had died. It was deep, horrifying, and sophisticated in a way my 14 year old brain was simply not capable of.

 

So much later I pieced together some facts about this hypothesized previous life. I was born in the late 1890s, possibly in northwest England but I'm not sure. I don't know much about my childhood but I served in World War 1 and was at the front for a very long time. However, I survived the war, and despite my trauma I actually went on to lead a fairly happy and successful life. I married a woman and we were still together when I was old; we had children and grandchildren. I loved and was loved. However, the worst was yet to come.

 

When I was around the age of 70 in the late 1960s I developed dementia. Possibly Alzheimer's, I'm not sure. At the time I felt safe because there were people around me who could look after me. This began my 10-year descent into the absolute hell that is dementia. I remember bits and flashes of what it was like with startling clarity. I can't even adequately describe it to someone who hasn't experienced it and since I desire to sleep tonight I'm not going to dig deep enough to give it a good try. It's kind of like a fog of confusion so thick that your thoughts are just fragments that don't connect to anything or each other; you just feel fear and confusion and the sensation of "threat" with nothing to connect it to.

 

After ten years my mind was basically completely gone and I died in or shortly before 1980. My soul spent 6 years outside this world trying to recover; that was the kind of life that leaves an indentation forever. But my soul desired to live again so in 1986 I was born again and began this current life. I feel like this entire life so far has been rehabilitation for the last one, and although my soul is very old I'm learning to human all over again. Though my mind is (more or less) sound in this life it's haunted by the shadow of dementia and some of the depression, anxiety, and ADD-like behaviors I sometimes have are a reflection of that.

 

All the stuff about dementia recently clicked into place when I found a work of art that brought it all back to me and caused me the most acute existential terror I have felt since I was 6 years old and first understood that I was someday going to die. I won't even say what this work of art is because I don't even want to think about it much less talk about it or spread it, even though the work is worthy of attention based on its artistic merit.

 

Despite saying all this I want you all to know that I am okay, I'm safe and doing fine. I hope if you read this you received some benefit from it. I received benefits from telling it. I still don't know if I fully believe in past lives but this all feels very, very real to me.

 

 

Thank you for sharing! *hugs* You're among friends. 😊

 

Losing my mind is I think one of the things that would break me. I know my body will only last for so long but I want to experience my life. My heart goes out to those and their loved ones who suffer with those issues. I hope this life gives you peace and prosperity! 😃

[Etna]

Thank you for sharing, @September13. Some memories are more difficult than others.

 

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Because the character that later became FAM the soulbond was born in the 1890s in a real part of the world, and I've always had such an easy time learning about him as a person, that sometimes I wonder if I'm channelling a past life experience. Like, I've always had to really think and consciously choose what a character likes, dislikes, what's happened to them in the past etc., whereas with him? It's so close to the surface that it's almost like I'm remembering. I don't have to go e.g. "hmmm, what would be this person's favourite colour?" because as soon as I thought of the question, I knew the answer. No matter how trivial. It's fascinating to me, because it's literally never happened before.

 

I don't think it's likely, because I've never encountered his life while doing past life regressions before, and unless you subscribe to the idea that your soul can split into several parts and you can live several lives at the same time then as far as I'm aware I was busy being someone completely different at that point. I encountered the idea of a soul being split in a book. It was explained that souls are really part of a whole. We're all drops in one big ocean, so that the Earth has a larger population now doesn't matter, because we're part of an infinite supply, so to speak. There aren't a set number. It also suggested that you can be alive in several bodies at once, so you are effectively like fingers of a hand. The hand is your soul, but you can branch into subsections. So even if the memory I've found happens to be within the same timeframe as FAM's life, I could have been him as well. Intriguing thought.

 

She's forgetting of course that my family name was picked in conjunction with two other people, from a limited pool of options. There's also the fact that me and my cousins are meant to be the cousins of a real life person around at the time, and while there are historical records of him, there are zero historical records of the three of us and our respective families. We're far more prominent than the actual historical person was at that time as well. It's wishful thinking, nothing more. I do admire her for it, though. It's cute. /FAM

Edited June 19, 2021 by Etna
Typos.