The echo of the past

I have no direct memory of any past life.  But I still have reason to believe that I lived at least once before.  Or let me take that back and put it another way -- I have reason to believe I have had at least one chance to accrue plenty of karma, whether through living a material life or by other means.

To reconstruct the case, I have had to go through several dreams and experiences.  The first was a kind of visionary experience when I was very young.  I don't know how old I was for certain, but I do know that it happened in the Victorian era house my mother's parents owned when I was very small.  It is odd how I can see parts of that house so clearly -- I remember the crystal doorknobs on the solid wooden doors.  I remember the wooden floors.  I remember the antique furniture -- not bought antiques, mind you, but true pieces hand-me-down antiquity.  I also remember the constant smell of vinegar, because that was the disinfectant of choice in those days.

But the main memory is of looking up at the ceiling and seeing a round hole in it, over which peered several angels, who I believed had come to punish me.  Further, for some reason, I felt that I wanted them to.

This is an odd vision for a two or three year old!

Now go forward thirty some odd years, and I have a dream that might tell something about this situation.

January 16, 2004 

I was under house arrest for ten days.  I’m not sure what I did to get myself arrested, or under whose authority.. But it was strange.  I was in the bedroom of a huge house.  The first floor looked like a very busy mall.  Along a catwalk like hallway I could go toward my parents room.  At the other end was the room I was confined to, which also had a long bathroom off to the right.  I knew that I was going to have to go through an act that pretended to cut off my head on the 6th day.  I would wear a whole head mask that had a metal ring around the neck to protect me against the axe stroke.  Like a magicians illusion, my body would appear to drop away, leaving only my head.  I was afriad, though, because I couldn’t figure out how the mask had anything to do with protecting me.  Under that scenario, how does my body drop away without actually being separated from my head?  As I was worrying about this, a young and beautiful lady came in from the other side of my bathroom.  She looked a bit like a girl I had known named Mara.  In the dream, I know this girl well and I’m surprised but happy to see her.  I’m pretty sure she’s not supposed to be there.  But back up -- before this I had gotten some ridicule from some hostile people from down below.  I said to them, “God loves you AND me, so why should we be ugly to each other?”  I said this with some emotion, and it seemed to at least puzzle my abusers.  Anyway, after that, in comes Mara.  We talk for a minute about a book, but then she jumps on me, unbuttoning my shirt – obviously sexual.  She also undoes my pants, but as she traces her hand down my chest she gets to my stomach and stops.  I say, “I haven’t quite gotten rid of it yet.”  She looks displeased and stops her advances, but in a good humored way.  I think, “Well, when I slim down, she’ll have sex with me.”  She gets up to go but asks me my phone number.  (Amazingly, to my waking self, I remember my cellphone number exactly.)  I tell her, then I ask her for hers, but she demurs.. I say, “I know you can give it to me, your phone is right there,” but she just continues on her way, casting back something like, “then don’t press.”  I call back, “Oh, I get it!” realizing I’d been rude.  A scene after this has to do with checking on my parent’s room to see if they are sleeping.  I only see them in silhoutte.. They are just waking up and I run back to my prison room.

Eeesh!  Not looking forward to that 6th day..

A little earlier I had this dream:

I was in the shower.  Right next to my shower stall (which was really a bathtub with a curtain such as we had where I was living at the time) there was another shower enclosure with that dimpled glass/plastic exterior and a door.  It had an odd shape, which may be important, so I have drawn it in my journal (see figure there).  As I got into the shower, I saw that there was a young man in the stall glaring at me with eyes unblinking, intent upon me, full of hate.  I drew my curtain to shut out the sight of him, but then I worried that he could easily open his door and stab through the curtain with a knife.  I opened my curtain again, and there he was with naked loathing of such intensity it shuddered me.  Then I thought to make some humorous movements, to see if he could be loosened up, or shaken from his baleful gaze for even a moment.  He followed my movement with his eyes, but his expression never changed.  There was no human warmth in him.

Sometimes these figures that hate you are really just part of you -- and that could be in this case because he looked enough like a young me, but I didn't consider that in the dream.

Here are more references to punishment:

June 2, 2009
Dreamed once again about having your body chopped off -- to me this is a metaphor for death.  Since you continue on after death in spirit/mind, it’s like having your body chopped off.  There is always a sense that this is a penalty for some transgression.  Then I dreamed of having to choose between two swats with a paddle or a long time incarcerated.  I was leaning toward taking the paddle swats and getting them over with but I was afraid they would hurt too much.

I have plenty of dreams that might relate to this -- one I can't find now had a sort of criminal catch hold of me, raise up a pistol and say, "come on man, just two in the head and it'll be all over!"

In other dreams, I become aware that the police can be criminals too; in fact in one, some legit police say they aren't looking for me because I haven't done anything wrong, but another one comes along and holds me at gun point, considering whether he'll shoot me or not.  In this dream, he's a rogue cop, or a cop on the take.

So what did I do in a previous incarnation?  Was it really something bad, or just something that certain criminal types seem to know they can shoot me for and get away with it?