I received an email from Vincent, a mid-twenties young man who had read several books about past life regression and wanted to see if he could go to a past life. He had been working with a transpersonal therapist, who suggested he tell me about the dream work they had been doing.
Vincent had experienced many dreams during his life, starting when he was a baby. They were often both repetitive and traumatic. Between the ages of two and four, he would regularly dream about being with groups of people wearing striped clothes, who were forced into train cars. Many of the people in the dreams were dead. He repeatedly had the thought: “I’m not dead yet”.
As we talked about repetitive dreams being a reminder from the subconscious mind about something that the person should try to resolve, Vincent said he had continued to have uncomfortable dreams right up to the present. Had he come to explore dreams, we would have spent more time talking specifically about them. But because he had been doing that with his therapist – and wanted to try to go to a past life experience – we moved ahead with that.
Vincent easily entered the hypnotic state, disconnected his conscious mind, and created an anchoring movement that would enable him to return to self-hypnosis whenever he wanted. He was then ready to go back through the years. I asked him to imagine being in a small boat on the river of time. He would slowly meander with the gentle current, being aware of everything around him as time elapsed. When he was ready, the boat would nudge onto a sandy shore and he would step out. After acclimating to his surroundings, he would find himself in a past life setting.
Vincent saw himself as a forty-two-year-old-man working in a bakery with his daughter Gabby, who would become a friend of his in the current life. He “knew they were coming”, but didn’t know they would kill anybody. A beautiful, blue-sky day turned dark as he saw himself among hoards of people wearing blue-and-white-striped clothes. Many were pushed into train cars, while dead bodies were thrown onto conveyor belts and dumped into the same cars. Vincent was overcome by the horrendous sights and began to cry. A German soldier told him to stop crying. When he was unable to do so, the soldier hit him on the back of his head with his rifle butt. His dead body was thrown onto a conveyor belt and dumped into the train car.
The trauma from that devastating past life had come forward as negative karma. I suggested that Vincent’s past life self, his present life self, and his higher self (which oversees all) join together and find a way to resolve the trauma in this life. The first message, from the higher self, said that: “we’re all on the same team”. Then Vincent and his past life self hugged the German soldier and forgave him, because what he did was all he was capable of doing at that time. As a result of the forgiveness, the negative karma diminished, dissipated and disappeared. Vincent wanted his soul back and asked his present life self and higher self to help with that. He heard: “You must meditate. Make that the main thing in your life. Work on loving yourself.” He then was aware that: “The real me is always there”.
Vincent reflected upon what he had experienced and seemed more serene and relaxed. Five weeks later he emailed me. “Hi Hugh. I want to tell you my nightmares have come screeching to a halt. The session we had was very helpful to me. I didn’t realize it until a few weeks later when my therapist asked me how my nightmares had been that week. I usually had one or two persecution dreams per week, but upon reflection I realized they had vanished.
I emailed my delight and congratulations to Vincent. He responded that his therapist intends to use him as a case study in her next book. As he had just written his version of everything, I asked if I might have a copy for this Hypno-Healthgram. Here’s the rest of the story.
“The first time my Father knew something was amiss, so I’m told, was when he would watch me freeze up in my crib. I would apparently become stiff as a board and silently have a look of pure terror on my face. These night terrors started when I was just a few months old, and continued until very recently.
I never thought to look for any continuity in the content of my nightmares when I was growing up. After waking up I would instantly try to distract myself from the memory of the dream. Years later in therapy I would uncover that these dreams did in fact have continuity. They always had a similar motif; running or hiding from an unknown group of persecutors.The bulk of the dream would be a stressful escape attempt from the attackers. Sometimes I could see them, or other times I felt they were on my trail, yet hidden. These dreams were always terrifying, and always so real.
My first recall from a dream was from when I was maybe two or three. The dream starts as I am being thrown into a train car. Light is creeping in through the windows and there is an ominous blue hue over everything, or rather everyone. I am thrown onto a pile of bodies. Human and dead, these bodies are in white and blue pinstripe clothes. “I’m not dead yet! What’s going on? I’m not dead yet!” I kept repeating to myself. And that’s it, that was the dream. It probably lasted a mere five seconds yet has been eternally burned into my psyche. The vividness and realness of the experience has stayed with me.
Since my hypnotherapy session I have not had a single persecution dream. I’ve had distressing dreams, but they are of different and more mild content. My dream life has dramatically improved. It has been two months since the session, and I have not had a single persecution dream. This past year in therapy and the hypnosis session have been the biggest leaps forward for my understanding of the cards I’ve been dealt. I’m looking forward to diving deeper into my situation.
I have a birthmark on the back of my neck. Some people think that birthmarks are a hint as to the location of a fatal injury in a past life.
In the hypnotherapy session I felt that my daughter was a friend of mine in this life named Gabby. Gabby and I met a year prior to the session, and had an immediate instant family¬like connection upon making eye contact. It was unprecedented and startling. We look like near twins and have an extremely similar line of interests, personality type and mannerisms.”