Who Here Believes Their Past Life Was An American Soldier During The Civil War?

Apart from the strong winds, rain, bitter cold and hostility towards the English it is a pretty nice place…just joking, in all seriousness I love Scotland, my mother is a Scot (Glaswegian) so I used to spend a lot of time visiting my Scottish relatives, they always made me feel welcome.
Considering their history, hostility towards the English isn't difficult to explain. Surely this is an example of historical experience rather than some inherited memory. 😌
 
Considering their history, hostility towards the English isn't difficult to explain. Surely this is an example of historical experience rather than some inherited memory. 😌
That’s definitely historical experience, not that we’re paranoid or anything but we actually made a TV program asking the question ‘why does everyone hate the English’. This particular episode focuses on Scotland.

 
Considering their history, hostility towards the English isn't difficult to explain. Surely this is an example of historical experience rather than some inherited memory. 😌
That’s definitely historical experience, not that we’re paranoid or anything but we actually made a TV program asking the question ‘why does everybody hate the English’. This particular episode focuses on Scotland.
 
Yet what I felt at the time, was to me more than an affinity.
I know exactly what you mean.
I felt the same here. I could not give directions when there, but I wanted all my life to visit Potsdam. Due to the Iron Curtain and Cold War it was impossible back then, Potsdam was GDR and impossible to access for me, but I developed a strong interest in Prussian history and especially Frederic the Great that was more than unusual for a teen in the 1970s.
After the wall came down and Germany was reunited and we finally had the chance to go there I had a strong feeling of "coming home" that I cannot explain to this day.
Thank you so much @Waterloo50 for giving explanations for that phenomenon. I believe every single word you wrote!!
 
I'm not sure of much so I can't say that I lived in past lives. My wife says I'm "not of this time. She says I probably should have been.born a lot time ago. I'm not sure if it's that or if become so immersed in history. Either way it's a strange thing.
 
I do not believe in ghosts, and I have no idea if people had previous lives or that there is such a thing as reincarnation.
However, I do feel a "presence".... an "empathy" ... when I am alone on a battlefield (Gettysburg, Antietam, Omaha Beach) or at a place like the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
 
For some reason this thread bumped back up in my notifications and I am now re-reading the later responses.

I believe genetic memory is real, the issue is that we dont know enough about the power of our brains to take advantage of being able to recall these memories willingly or in real time. Someone made the comment earlier in this thread to the effect that an interest in a battlefield or interest in the CW will stir these feelings that can be misunderstood as a "past life". I agree that the concept of a past life or reincarnation may be hard to accept, but this is vastly different than the concept of genetic memory.

What I believe happens is that an intense study, interest or passion in a subject may inadvertently open a pathway to bits and pieces of this genetic memory and give us the smallest glimpse that may only manifest itself as simply a "feeling" in most people. I am convinced I have a snapshot in time, a view of the light/ground at Vicksburg that came from my GGGrandfather, its really just an camera obscurra looking image of light and earth that could be anywhere, but I am convinced of what it is, as it simply manifested itself in my memory several years ago. I believe I could be able to see more, but I dont know how. I also believe that my intense passion and study for the war, Vicksburg and my Ancestors somehow made this connection without my will or knowledge.

If my passion was shoe making and I spent most of my life thinking about and researching the subject, then possibly this could have occurred with a feint image from the mind of an Ancestor who was cobbler. We may never know.
 
I'm more inclined to belive in genetic memory. And I certainly, from almost the day I could walk, was fascinated by those gray uniforms and the Hollywood accents on the silver screen.
 
For some reason this thread bumped back up in my notifications and I am now re-reading the later responses.

I believe genetic memory is real, the issue is that we dont know enough about the power of our brains to take advantage of being able to recall these memories willingly or in real time. Someone made the comment earlier in this thread to the effect that an interest in a battlefield or interest in the CW will stir these feelings that can be misunderstood as a "past life". I agree that the concept of a past life or reincarnation may be hard to accept, but this is vastly different than the concept of genetic memory.

What I believe happens is that an intense study, interest or passion in a subject may inadvertently open a pathway to bits and pieces of this genetic memory and give us the smallest glimpse that may only manifest itself as simply a "feeling" in most people. I am convinced I have a snapshot in time, a view of the light/ground at Vicksburg that came from my GGGrandfather, its really just an camera obscurra looking image of light and earth that could be anywhere, but I am convinced of what it is, as it simply manifested itself in my memory several years ago. I believe I could be able to see more, but I dont know how. I also believe that my intense passion and study for the war, Vicksburg and my Ancestors somehow made this connection without my will or knowledge.

If my passion was shoe making and I spent most of my life thinking about and researching the subject, then possibly this could have occurred with a feint image from the mind of an Ancestor who was cobbler. We may never know.
I’ve always believed that the imprint of genetic memory is at its most powerful when it’s created through trauma, of course most of us have empathy and it could be that when we find out that an ancestor fought at a certain battle and was either killed or wounded then we’re able to empathise with those who experienced such horrors, this coupled with an understanding of the history of a place can perhaps create the illusion that we have experienced the trauma for ourselves.

A while ago I had a dream that was totally random and in no way related to my life but I do think that my dream was related to one of my ancestors perhaps caused by genetic memory. I won’t bore people with the details but my dream had such an impact on me that I ended up researching the details of it and after quite a bit of research I managed to find the specific location where my dream had taken place along with some very old photos of men/soldiers whose faces I instantly recognised as being in my dream, there was also a hospital ship in my dream and I found a photo of it online.

Most people are likely to be cynical and perhaps think that I must have either previously seen the photos or visited the location that appeared in my dream but I really hadn’t, I had no prior knowledge of any part of my dream. It was an incredible experience to suddenly find that the location in my dream was a real place and the men that I saw in my dream were in fact real people. My Great grandfather had been badly wounded during WW1 and he was sent back to England to recover, I don’t know very much about him and I never had the chance to meet him but I still wonder if I’d been given a short glimpse into a very small but significant moment in his life, a shared memory, a genetic memory. I have no other way of explaining it.
 
I too have had some hair raising experiences/moments at CW battle stites, particularly Stones River, but as the majority my family wasn't in the US at the time of the ACW and those that were were in the New England and were not in either of the western armies area of operations, I chalk it up to a spiritual connection, rather than reincarnation. Though I also believe that for some, reincarnation and/or genetic memory is a real possibility.
 
I too have had some hair raising experiences/moments at CW battle stites, particularly Stones River, but as the majority my family wasn't in the US at the time of the ACW and those that were were in the New England and were not in either of the western armies area of operations, I chalk it up to a spiritual connection, rather than reincarnation. Though I also believe that for some, reincarnation and/or genetic memory is a real possibility.
Would you please be willing to discuss some of those experiences for us?
 
I've floated the idea.

Years back one night I had an extremely vivid dream of being a Confederate sharpshooter, scoping out a vast network of trenches, seeing blue kepis poking their heads out above the parapet, some of them being USCT.

My guess, I was in the defenses somewhere at Petersburg, probably right before the explosion that set off the Battle of the Crater. The dream even appeared to take place during very early pre-dawn hours, like as the sun was starting to crack from the East.
The explosion that set off the Battle of the Crater was at 4:44 AM, so in late summer the sun would have been cracking over the horizon at that time.

The rifle in this dream did seem to have some repeater qualities to it.

Mulling around on research I found that some Confederate troops in Texas/Louisiana in the Trans-Mississippi and in Virginia did have access to Henry Repeater rifles. So if I had to guess, I could have been some nameless trooper from an Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina or South Carolina regiment.

 
While I do not think that I have had a "past life", I cannot discount the experiences of others. I am pretty much abnormally interested in Lizzie Borden, but I don't think I was her. At least I hope not. I have to admit I am not very good with a hatchet.
"@BridgetRhoads took an axe and gave the forum forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave the hoster forty-one".

I'm now going be very cautious about replying to your posts ... :frantic:
 
Would you please be willing to discuss some of those experiences for us?
I'd rather not try to recreate the details as they occurred a long time ago, but I will say that one was at McFadden's Ford on the Jan 2 anniversary of the battle at the time of the repulse of Breckenridge's charge while doing living history as part of the 9th Ky US - hair definitely stood up on the back of my, and other's, necks.

On a related note...While it didn't happen to me, in the late 80s/early 90s I used to relic hunt at a couple properties on Nickens Lane before that area became part of the National Battlefield. There was a family there who had horses on their property and they would tell tales that every December 31 they would see orbs/lights floating around their land, spooking the horses to the point that on one occasion a mare panicked to the degree that she kicked her foal over a fence. I didn't witness any of these occurrences, but the stories told to me were consistent regardless of who in the family was telling it (adults or children).
 
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