I began having a recurring dream, starting in very early childhood with very vivid memories of it dating at about age 3. It is a terrifying dream, details not relevant to this post other than two features: (1) I die at the end of the dream waking in a state of sheer terror and (2) it involves a very complex setting at a nuclear weapons facility and field of missile silos, something I could not have understood at that age based on real life experiences. I do not buy the explanation that in about 1960 or so when the cold war was raging I embedded scenes from TV or some other media source into my subconsious. The content of this dream is so complex and involves images and content that would not be found in conventional media, moreover, I was obviously too young, unable to read, lacked the neural development and intellectual maturity to investigate the topics involved or conjure up the plot and content of the dream. I still have the dream, unaltered in content over >50 years but find it less terrorizing given my familiarity with it although the content is absolutely unchanged
Why to I tell this story? I,too, have traveled extensively in asia and a s a result became very interested in Buddhism. Central to this Buddhism the concept of reincarnation of the soul which I find an appealing concept. About 2 years ago, I ran across a hypnotherapist who did regression hypnotherapy, mainly to examine tramatic earlier life events. In talking with her, she brought up the fact that she had done some past life regressions in several of her clients with very interesting results. I was very skeptical this but had read of a number of remarkable examples of children recalled images and scenes of otherwise unknowable facts, later proven to be true, dating to what would have been an historical past life. By the end of the conversation, I had agreed to have a regression hypnosis session to see what we would find.
I was not sure I would be hypnotizable but she was very skillful and turned out I was. To make a long story short, There was a memory which surrounded the same images involved in my dream which datad to probably the early to mid 1950's. I could not make out exactly what role I had but it seemed I was an engineer or scientist involved in classified nuclear weapons programs. I could not gain any additional insight into the dream other than that.
In the course of the session, I discovered another set of images, which were much more limited, older, probably late 19th century or early 20th century. I was a scientist, chemist most probably, perhaps about early 30's in age (early career), attending a formal gathering of colleagues. I judge the era from the dress worn and their styles of grooming by the men in attendance. It was very stuffy, lots of cigar smoking, and socially I did not feel well accepted to the point of be marginalized. In this scene, I eventually was so physically and socially uncomfortable, I had to briefly leave, retreating to the rest room for a respite from the event. As this part of the image played out I realized that much of my discomfort was from my clothing which to my shock in reliving this scene through the hypnosis, was a very tight bodice elaborate formal gown. I was a woman! I was quite attractive as well.
I further realized I was marginalized in large part as a consequence of the misogyny of the era toward women in science. I was very frustrated by the tendency of colleagues to be dismissive of my work on this basis. I can remember the though "old fools!"
At the end of the session, I was shaken by these images. I have given this result much thought and don't quite know now 2 years later what to make of it. At soem level I'd like to say this helps explain my TG issues but on the other hand, I am inclined to downplay the significance to simply the rich content of my subconscious, nothing more that dream material. It is a haunting possibility that I might have had a glimpse of a past life.
