So my latest “vision”. I saw a huge sea-blue scaled dragon upon some sort of ledge, just like me she had white hair but hers ran down her spine and tail, she looked at me, smiling. She them seemed to talk to me but I couldnt hear her. She let out a short burst of flame and the vision faded to black. It all repeated once more before toing for good. I seem to recal and feel a sence of her being my mother
memories
Wow …
So i just experienced something amazing, ill explain what i saw. A turquoise body that smoothly transitions to a pearl blue with spine feathers that match. A white moheaken like hair, a long snout and from the side a narrow yet long face. Large wings but i couldnt get the details of his wings or tail
He was flying at spead through a deep blue sky, just above cloud level. Iv drempt this countless times in first person view but iv never seen him/me before. Im new to most of this and was wondering if you had thoughts/advice
Cryptoamnesia and Past Life Memories
[note: This article is in no way meant to debunk past life memories, so much as it is meant to address a potential problem with remembering and offer a sane and rational way of approaching and accepting the real stuff.]
Past life material is tricky stuff to deal with. First and foremost, there is always the question: is this memory something real, or is it the product of my imagination? This question is difficult enough to deal with, but there is a psychological phenomenon known as cryptoamnesia which can make nearly all past life memories suspect.
In cryptoamnesia, an individual is exposed to certain information, forgets that this was learned information, and it reappears sometime later as a constructed memory. With memories created through cryptoamnesia, the individual will have no idea that the memory is a fabrication of their own mind and that they never actually experienced the content of the memory.
How does this work exactly? Say, for example, as a child, you saw a special on ancient Ireland on the Discovery Channel. Your little mind soaked up all of that information, even if you didn’t understand it all at the time, and stored it away in the back of your brain. Years later, you have forgotten ever watching that particular show, but the information you learned from it is still hanging around in your unconscious mind. When you start thinking back to who you may have been in a past life, your mind finds the images from the Discovery Channel special and starts feeding them back to you. However, you’ve forgotten that you saw all these on a television show. And so, as you remember details of what life was like in ancient Ireland and you see images of the land, perhaps some standing stones, or some artifacts, you assume that these memories are coming to you from the long distant past.
It is nearly impossible to differentiate memories created through cryptoamnesia from real memories. In the case of created memories just from this lifetime, such as created memories of ritual abuse or childhood molestation, the psychological repercussions can be just as severe as if the individual had actually gone through the imagined trauma. This is one reason why many psychologists are largely skeptical of “repressed” memories recalled under hypnosis. It is a generally held belief that most memories dredged up in this manner are actually imaginative content fabricated by the unconscious from learned information inspired by unintentional cues from the hypnotherapist.
Where does this leave us for legitimate past life memories? On very shaky ground, I’m afraid. From my observations and personal experiences, one is often drawn to read about a particular time period or a particular country when one has a strong past life connection to it. However, the very act of reading up on these strangely fascinating times makes the legitimacy of any past life content very suspect. There is no way to prove or to guarantee that you did not digest the information from a book or a show, imaginatively fill in a few gaps, and re-present it to yourself as a past life memory. And since very few past lifetimes are such that you can actually look up people you knew or go visit the town you once lived in, there is almost no chance of proving the validity of the memories – to yourself or to anyone else.
How then, can you ever know that what you’re remembering is real or imagined? In black and white, real-world terms, you can’t. You will never know, and you will never be able to prove it. Does this mean that past life memories are a bunch of poppycock? That is another issue entirely, and it boils down to a matter of faith.
Once you stop questioning the validity of a particular memory and stop trying to prove or disprove its legitimacy to yourself, then and only then can you objectively look at the content of the memory itself. And it’s the content that matters most anyway.
I look at past life memories like this: my mind is fixating on this image or set of images for a reason. Whether you take a metaphysical point of view and say that I’m remembering these things because there are karmic issues I still have to settle from that past life, or if you take the psychological point of view and say that my unconscious mind is trying to get me to deal with repressed personal issues that are coming through in the language of dream and symbol, the result is the same. I must look carefully over these images and try to see what they’re telling me about me. And that’s the key to past lives right there. What can they tell you about your life right now? If there isn’t something you can learn from them, then they’re just useless curiosities – they might as well be idle daydreams that you’re using to waste an afternoon.
I’ve seen far too many people get caught up in their past lives and fixate on a time so long ago that it crippled their ability to interact with the reality of here and now. They were worse than the kind of elderly folk who are so busy mourning the loss of the old days that they allow the new age to pass them by. These people got themselves stuck in a time completely removed from their current life, and they just could not get past it.
Past lives in that respect are a total waste of time. You have to always remember: you are living your life here, now. You are in this age for a reason. There is a great deal for you to do, much to experience, and much to learn. If you spend all of your time looking backward along the lost corridor of years, you will not see what’s in front of you, and you are most likely going to run into something very solid and bang your head — hard.
The use of past life memories is what they can teach you about where you are now and where you may be going. A lot of us made mistakes in the past. If we lived in the past at all, we made mistakes. Mistakes are part and parcel of living. Very often, we recall the circumstances of these past mistakes as a guidepost to help us avoid those same mistakes in the present and the future. In this respect, past lives can be very useful. They can reveal to us hidden aspects of ourselves, and provide insight into dealing with our current problems.
Past life work should therefore always be an exercise in observation. If the memories come to you, explore them as fully as you can. Analyze them. Pay attention to details, especially how you feel in those remembered moments and the circumstances which stand out to you. Later, analyze those feelings and circumstances in relation to your life as it is now. Look for parallels in your current situation, in the way you relate to the people around you, in your choices of dealing with the world at large. Even if the content is some half-imagined fantasy that your unconscious brain has cooked up for you, it will still reveal a great deal of your troubles and issues in the symbols and stories that are chosen.
Above all, do not fixate on the memories. Do not try to recreate yourself as you see you in the past. Live your life now and for the future. Learn what you can, but accept that the past is in the past. The memories might linger, but who you are can always be changed.
Michelle Belanger 23 March 2001
How Do I Tell?
Dark, foreboding shadows steal my sleep and nght
Leave me with an empty gnawing at first morning’s light
Memories of forgotten times laying just beyond recall
Teasing my memory and sanity, hauntingly they call
Broken flashes of long ago break the sullen, silent air
Glimpses caught out of the corner of my eye, turning around, they’re not there.
Long buried thoughts and memories, nightmares come to life
Burst of fear and woe and loss and grief, indecision, doubt and strife
Or are they merely senseless images? Imagination become real
Flights of boyhood fancy? Someone tell me. How do I tell?
Remember
Surrounded on all sides
With a feeling of unease
I don’t belong here
Get me out please
A hand appears in the crowd
I hold on tight and run away
Then I realize that what I’ve seen
Is the dream on the end of day
Surrounded by freezing water
Rising fast with numbing slice
Dark restless shapes swim beside me
As the ones I once knew walk on ice
Footsteps pounding everywhere
Mudslide, avalanche, flood
Covered and tarnished with knowledge
That I’m lost in false blood
I can never go back to my self
I have to cover difference or die
Wings beat at my shoulders
But I’m not allowed to fly
The shining beacon is blinking
But it’s lost in foggy night
There is pitch black all around me
And I know I hold the light
But for tomorrow and tomorrow
I’ll shut my eyes to this hurt
Lost in a world I never wanted
A gold statue covered in dirt
So I’ll remember a time, long ago
When voices sang and the world was fair
For when this one comes crashing down,
I know I will return there.
The Perils of Remembering
First, you will know sorrow. And not just any sorrow, but the longing sorrow that comes with unfulfillment. Your soul will recall things that not even you can name, and it will want them back again. Sometimes, the old ways becomes an addiction, with all the problems an addiction brings: estrangement, loneliness, craving, even ruthlessness and double-dealing. Oh yes, double-dealing can be one of the first symptoms.
Other times, the past brings fear. Fear can be one of the worst things, in my opinion, having seen so many truly talented people stifle themselves and hide out of fear. Could they have been something great? Did they have a destiny to claim? Oh, most assuredly. We all have our destinies. The world can never know just how wonderful the fearful’s destiny was, because he chose not to claim it and he stagnated.
Most times, though, you will forget to look for joy. There are happy memories as well as sad, yet most people, myself included, seem to hover over the dark and still thoughts. The emotions connected with these are much stronger, this is true. But joy also has the power to bring forth tears. To keep perspective, one has to remember to search for such memories alongside the bad ones.
Second, you will know confusion. The human brain, for all its wonderful complexities, is also short-circuited. One watches Star Wars and they want so much to be like Luke that they fabricate memories for themselves. The human brain has this power; it is a protection device. And there are a lot of things in this crazy world to be protected from, even yourself.
It begins with the longing, the wishing, and then the deep soul-searching until “memories” spring forth. (I was there, George Lucas must be Otherkin, how else could he get the ways of the Force so accurately? I had a teacher just like Kenobi…) It is true there are a lot of creators who may “remember”. But most times they’ll take one memory, one fragment of a spark, and build their entire tale around it. In the telling, details change to become bigger and brighter and bolder. This phenomenon can be illustrated in the old gossip game where everyone sits in a circle and a statement is whispered in someone’s ear. The whisper-recipient then whispers it to another, then the statement is whispered to another, until the final player recites out loud what he was told. Rarely is the statement accurately passed around. This is what happens during the creative process.
Confusion can be just as dangerous as addiction. One should take their memories slowly, very very slowly, and watch their step. One step too far and you might topple into the abyss, into insanity, and only mighty strength can pull you back out again. Then you will know the pain of sorrow again, for you must damn what you remembered and start from scratch. You must be careful what you read and watch and think, for any of those might be false.
Third, and finally, you will know change. They say change is a good thing. Most times, your heart would argue with that. When lovers part forever, that is change and it brings pain and sadness, even if that relationship was bad and breaking up is the good way. It is so with anything else. Your baby turns one, you’re happy and sad. After all, although your child is healthy and growing up strong as he should, he is no longer your tiny infant to suckle at your breast. There has been a gradual change, and it has brought both happiness and sadness.
Remembering brings about changes in personality, perspective and environment. Once, you were timid. Then, you remembered squelching mighty armadas under your technological thumb. Something inside you clicks; you change, you revert. The next person who harrasses you suddenly experiences surprise: you punch his nose.
Perspective is affected in the same moment. You once saw yourself as bottom wolf, as the titmouse to hide from the owls. Now you know you were once an owl, the pack leader, and you are driven to command that power again. You see the world as your oyster, and you want pearls.
Environment tumbles in after. Pearls are riches. What is around you, your environment, is no longer adequate. You begin to change things to suit yourself. Sometimes it comes in small ways: the planting of a special tree or moving closer to the forest. Other times, it comes in tragic ways: you leave your spouse, you homeschool your children, you run for President.
And all the world is affected. It can be in an obvious or hidden manner. Obvious: the book you write, the people you contact through the e-list you’ve begun, those who follow you faithfully into Waco. Hidden: the influential person you support, the canvas you colored and gave to the rich plantation owner, the insane babble spouted across the board, ignored by most.
The world cannot help this. We are all in a helpless circle.
In conclusion, beware the perils of remembering. It is a blackberry-brambled path. You’re going to be nicked and are bound to bleed. You run the chance of being scarred, or your skin becoming too tough to absorb the next lesson. Learn to not skirt these dangers, but look through them and find the berries they protect. Sometimes they can be sour; many times they can be sweet. All will be earned in the right way, and it will be worth it.
Remembering – When Waking up hurts
(For Rialian, who always was a godsblasted catalyst)
I suppose I should start this off with an introduction. Hi, I’m Tirani. I’ve been Otherkin snice I was about three or so, and have walked lots of different paths in the intervining years, and learned lots of things. Until two months ago, much of my self-identity was based in a strong seelie sidhe aspect that was very active in my magikal and mundane world. Then something triggered a change – a shift in the currents that surrounded my life, to use Rialian’s turn of phrase. My astral form shifted to one I did not recognize and could not control. I lost touch with the part of me that I had known since before I could read. Nightmares that I had always had intesified and darkened. I stopped being able to sleep at night and started going just a little bit mad. I started feeling emotions and had thoughts that were nearly alien to me and my usual thought-processes. Then someone sugguested that I was re-Awakening. That’s when I started writing. It kept me sane enough to work through this. Below is the record of what I wrote and the feelings and thoughts that can sometimes come with a traumatic Awakening.
I’m no psychologist. I can’t tell you the best way to handle someone who’s been through a traumatic expreince, other than be gentle, love them, keep the lights low and don’t make any sudden moves. I can tell you that most ‘kin who have to wake up this way tend to need a little more love than most, and a gentle arm to put around their real-world shoulders when they need to talk out or work out or cry out the pain that can come. If you’re comfortable with it, encourage them to talk, or write, or rant and rave. The more it gets out of their system, the more they can start living again.
It should be noted that most Awakenings are not traumatic at all. Most of the time they’re a little scary, but more from a “who the hell am I turning into?” point of view rather than an “ohfuckohfuckohfuck” aspect. Sometimes, through, it can hurt, and it can take months or years to deal with the psychological scar tissue. This re-Awakening happened almost three months ago [as of June 2000], and only now can I bring myself to finish this and write out what happened the final night I worked through this. I still haven’t figured out all the niceities of this new form. I still haven’t figured out what it is. But I don’t twitch anymore when I think about what I remember. And I’m learning to fly again with these new wings.
What is writen below may be disturbing to some. Please keep in mind that this was a stream-of-consciousness-type writing from someone who, at the time, was going a little mad.
Bliss, Blessings and a little love,
Alyannael Shadowalker
remembering 2:51 AM 3/12/00
i don’t know what ri did last night, but it broke open something. a gate, a doorway, a wall that was holding back this. i’m almost wishing he hadn’t. these new wings, they’re heavey, a weight on me. i’m aware of them all the time, and they’re like something that’s tugging at me, forcing me to a place i couldn’t go before and I don’t want to go now. this new awakinging is somethign that i didn’t see coming, it’s something that’s either going to be really really good or really fucking bad.
my raven totem has been around constanly since last night, watching, perching, always in the corner of my eye. i wonder if SHe saw this coming and that’s why she sent me her dark messenger. i haven’t had a change to talk to him, or the others, and i don’t know what they’ll say. i can already feel Ra’rok pulling away, and it’s scaring me as he chose me, not the other way around. the brush of phantom fur assures me that ba’teth still walks at my side, but he’s silent. that scares me too. he’s my voice of sanity half the time, chasing the dreams away if he can.
i close my eyes to sleep tonight curled up with the others and all i can see is blood. blood and there’s rage, and pain and a sorrow so deep it makes me shake and I don’t know what it’s coming from. there’s a creavice somewhere in my soul now and it’s all pouring from it. this is different from the dreams, this is a memory. of what, I don’t know, of who, i don’t know. this isn’t tirani and this isn’t kitten and this isn’t ME. or at least what I thought was me until last night.
I refuse to entertian for a SECOND the idea that I might be Fallen, especially coming so soon after the big long debate on the list about them and Lulu and other’s insistance that they can’t inhabit a human body. I’d love to be able to talk to Ri’s friend that he holds authoratavive on the Fallen, because he might be able to tell me. Gods I don’t want to beleive that I was ever Yahew’s. never in the lives that I can remember did I belong to him and the ones i did i probably don’t remember for a reason, as they were probably dull and mundane and pointless. i respect christians, but I don’t have much respect for their god of death and devine suffering. I’d much rather beleive that the gods don’t wnat us to suffer unless it’s to learn. I’d much rather give my love and my joy and my pleasure as joyful open sacrifices.
two weeks then i can get away. two weeks, then I can find the answers in the forests of the peaks. two weeks and I can walk in the woods and talk to my goddess where i love her the best in the light of the sun and the smell of the trees and the brightness of spring tide come again. i don’t know if i can make it two weeks with these memories flooding at me everytime i stop and don’t think about my lovers or my job or what i need to get done now.
the worst part is i can feel part of my fae soul quieting, like it’s not quite there anymore. like it’s fading in the face of this new revalation. i can’t even force manifest the fae wings right at the moment. i can’t decide if that’s the worst of all becuase it’s something that’s been a part of me for years. something that i relied on and defined me within myself.
i do’nt fucking know and I can’t even talk to phril about it because ‘he doesn’t beleive in faeries’. the one i talk to the most, and i can’t tell him.
remembering 11:18 PM 3/12/00
napped today because i was just that exhausted. slept about an hour. then i woke up and tried to go back to sleep. then it started again.
I saw a little more. started with a falling feeling, like a free fall and then an impact. it hurt alot. lifed my head and looked around. i could see blood every where. in puddle on the ground, on the bodys of those around me, falling like rain from the sky. my wings were burning. my gods it hurt. i was physically clawing at my pillow it hurt so badly. i had a sword in my hand, it was made of something i couldn’t identify. looking up i could see others in the same form in the sky, flying, fighting burning like i was. around me were bodies of ones like me, dead and cold. they were my brothers and sisters. i raised the sword and screamed because my wings wouldn’t work and i couldn’t take off again to rejoin the fight. looking behind me i can see one is at a nasty angle, with bone poking through the flesh.
i clawed awake, scaring the hell out of phril and nearly screaming.
remembering 12:27 PM 3/14/00
observatons, so far, on this new form. The body is alot like the fae one I had. astrally it’s slim, very angular, and very very pale. the skin is so pale there’s almost a blue cast to it. the hands and arms are slender as well, with elongated fingers, four and a thumb. the legs, like the arms, are slim and slightly enlongated, and there’s a more pronounced, almost clawlike heel, with normal porportioned toes. the body has a kind of wiry strength to it. The face is like the body, very angular, but not so as to be unattractive. The cheek bones are pronounced, and the ears are upswept. the eyes are violet, so dark as to be almost purple. the hair is a silvery-moonlight grey, falling to just above the shoulders (about what I have physically now). the mouth is small, and well formed, but like the rest of the form it’s very very pale.
the most striking part is the wings. they’re angelic in form, maybe a touch more angular, and jet black. they shed consantly on the astral, but never go bald. They’re about a foot taller than the form, peaking when they’re folded against the back, and drop down until they’re about 4″ from brushing the floor. All this is subjective, given how fluid distance and size in the astral can be. Across the right (my right) wing is a scar from being broken a long time ago.
there are something like arm gaurds on the forearm in a material I can’t identify, kind of a silverly-black material. set into them are blue-green stones, kind of like laborite with a more pronounced blue flash. there’s an arm band of some kind with a design I can’t quite make out on my left arm, with three feathers dangling from it. One, the largest, is white, the middle, smallest, is black, and the last is blood red, medium sized between the other two. On my right hand is a fingerless glove of a kind, made of a mesh of the unidenitifed material. I carry my sword in my left hand. Set in the back of the glove is the same kind of symbol as the arm band, but I can’t quite make it out as before. over the right shoulder is a protector of sorts, kinda like the shoulder armour of the gaurdian chick in Heavey metal. the strap from it comes down around under the left breast and secures in the back. the material it’s made of is soft as down, but virtirually uncutable, and a blue-ish black. I have no clue what it is. Around the waist is a belt of leather and that cloth, with the sword’s sheath hanging from it. The sheath is black leatehr lined with metal, and tooled with a pattern I can’t make out. There’s another band around the right leg above the knee, tied of the same cloth material, with a pattern woven into it, and it fairly glows with energy. hell, every bit of adornment on this figure glows fairly well. Attached to the band of cloth is a sheath with about a 6″ dagger in it. The leather is black, and tooled intricately. the handle of the dagger is strickly plain, made of the same odd metal with a leather wrap. If I draw it, light casts off it bright as day. around the left ankle is a silver chain with a teardrop amythest set into it. Other than what was just described, the form is naked and most definately female.
the sword is worthy of a discription all it’s own. it’s about the general size and shape of a ‘modern’ long sword, and glows faintly blue, except in battle when it flames a blue-purple, almost faefire like effect. the cross bar is a standard cross shape, ending in two smallish eggs of the same blueflashing stone. on the hand, which is perfectly shaped for my hand, is a design much like the one on the band and glove. the pommel is a curved spike, and wickedly sharp. It could be easily used to rip out someone’s throat or scalp them. the blade is peuternatually balanced and feels very very familar. etched on the metal, which is the same silvery-black as the rest, are runes and sigils that again, I can’t make out. I don’t know if I’m not ready for them or i’m not allowed to remember them.
remembering 12:42 AM 3/15/00
talked to Ri for a while tonight. worked out some things in my head talking with him. I think the key of fully intregrating this new form is going to be getting a clear image of the sigils and etchings on the armourments of new form. Also, he concures that I am not Fallen, nor am I an angel, but there is a possiblity of some other kind of angelic. He’s going to get me some reasources to see if we can figure this out. He also says that this feels familar to him, which means I’m not utterly fucking nuts.
no matter what, this is going to take a good bit of time to work through, and until I can get this new one intergrated into me, i don’t think i’m going to be able to go back to my fae form.
remembering 11:58 AM 3/21/00
I remembered a little more over the weekend. Not much, though. This battle that I keep seeing is a battle between us, the darkwings, and them, the light (white?) wings. we are all children of the goddess. for some reason, though, the light wings have become corrupted. we’re fighting them because they attacked us and we retailated against what whe thought weren’t pure anymore. Gah, it’s very muddled in my head, and i know it will come clearer in in the future.
i can feel the story of what happened teasing in the back of my mind, and i know it’s close to coming out. soon, i hope. i hate it when my brain itches.
remembering 1:28 PM 6/4/00
(this is what happened a few nights after my last entry. Until now, I haven’t been able to bring myself to write it out. Ri came over and helped me sink into an energy trace and mesh with him (for stablity, I was anything but stable.) This is what I saw that night. I haven’t had a nightmare since then. Referenced below: “Her” is She Who Is, the Mother of all. “HER” is Guen, a demonic current that I had extensive dealings with in this life, and apparently others.)
Darkness, falling in darkness, there’s nothign, i can almost hear wind whistling by my face… then light… brigh flash of light.. i’m flying! I’m flying!!! wings spread wide on the wind… sun on my back, warm and comforting… there’s a bright blue sky.. clouds like puffs of cotton.. trees, like pines, only not… a forest at the base of a cliff… silver-grey stone, and a water fall falling over the clif, tehre’s a rainbow on the air above it… bright light.. around the pool at the base of the waterfall is a village… both sides of the bank.. smoke rising for chimmenies.. I know this is my home… no walls around this village, it’s a place of peace, of refuge, of love. my sword is by my side, like it always is… i understand it now. on one side are the warriors, the black wings, who fight for peace in her name. on the other are the white wings, the healers who heal them when tehy come home from those battles.. and who keep her peace sacred.. and rarely when a white and a black join, the grey wings who are taken into Her service in the temple behind the waterfall. she who is rules us with love and justice. we are Her children who are Her own and no one else’s. but something’s happened, something’s not right, I can feel HER here, and she doesn’t belong. why the hell does she haunt me, even back through time. i have to stop her before this starts, before light and dark fight and before we are corrupted. falling, falling, landing at the base of the cliff, the others are walking up to the temple, to see what has come, the preists have called everyone together.. i can feel HER more strongly, i know have to stop this. stop it now stop it now to keep the dreams from coming true. the dreams were a warning, then and now. there’s two me’s. the me of now that’s known her very reall in this life and the me of then that was this winged angelic warrior.. the two are merging.. i can feel the mesh completing… She is me and me is she… i walk up the path into the temple, there are banners with the symbol of She Who Is there. she’s our mother and we love her. the smell of HER is there, reeking and sour, and i can’t understand why no one else notices it, why only i am upset and angered by it. i walk into the meeeting hall, the sacred place where we all come together, and i can see HER, a cloud of black on the silver stone, behind the high preist, and tainting all the others there that follow him… we’re not human, but we’re mortal and just as prone to mortal failings… i push my way to the front, the red torches are staining the silverstone blood red.. it’s dark and the others are confused, it’s never flet like this here before… She Who is can’t be felt, and Her children are scared… I push my way to the front, anger and fury building in our meshed mind.. the preist starts talking about a better way, and a new future… and how something stronger has come to save us…. and i can hear HER laughing, mocking.. i step up and draw my sword, breaking the Law of she who is, that weapons never be bared in the place where she dwells… and I scream at HER to leave, that she is not welcome and i will not let this happen here… i will not let her corrupt me a second time… and i feel a light filling me and spilling out over my words, blasting away the darkness… SHE fights and claws and i scream, but I fight because this CAN NOT happen. SHE can not do this. and the others run away from me because I shine light that is not my own, HER preist flies at me, but is thrown back by the light… finally SHE fades away, and is gone, i can’t feel HER here anymore…. and I collapse, bloody and bruised… the last thing i remember seeing clearly is the sign of She Who Is.
I came awake, panting and nearly crying, but i didn’t feel so insane anymore. And I was fullying joined with this new aspect. I haven’t gone back since. I rather like my new wings.