I remember vaguely the process of traveling in my mind to another life. Glass elevators, floating pools of water in space and myself, or my spirit, a translucent blue comet careening through them. Having lifted out of my still body, I was joyously and freely moving through my mind. I remember noticing the role the imagination played, and from those heights, falling light and fast.

“Feel your chest.” My Father said. “Are you a man or a woman? What are you wearing on your feet? Are they leather boots? Moccasins? Sandals? Where are you? The desert? The ocean?

He asked the room these questions as the dozen or so of us continue to lay silent and answer them for ourselves. What I saw was immediately cinematic. A terrific room lit by candelabras, tall ceilings, stone walls, a table shaped like a horse shoe, a feast and 25 or 30 men devouring it. It was a Knight’s banquet, festive and drunk, but I was not enjoying myself. I sat on one end of the table staring dead into the eyes of a man staring hard back into mine. The man across from me, I knew immediately, was my brother in this life. That “knowing” could only be understood as the instant recognition of a sibling. There was no hesitation or question. That was my brother.

In that room however, we were not family or friends. We were rivals, knights defending the same kingdom and competing for it’s favor. This next part is fuzzy.

There was a woman. I don’t remember seeing her at any point during the regression, though her presence permeated the whole experience. She was a fair maiden, a literary cliche’. All of a sudden, many things happen quickly. My enemy and I compete for her love.  She chooses me. He is sick and enraged, in a crime of passion she is murdered. He is the villain. He is ashamed. I am grief-stricken. I cannot so much as lift my sword to strike him down. He is not put to death. He is banished because he is an honored knight. I want to die, and do, soon after in battle, a skirmish at best. The end.

The only part of this I actually remember seeing is the table and the eyes of my enemy. I don’t recall seeing the woman. This was 13 years ago and certainly my accuracy deserves to be questioned but I didn’t invent her. So how did I know she was there?

A friend made a very wise observation. These experiences tend to communicate in codes similar to dreams. Colors, numbers and other details are symbols for hidden emotions. The language of subtle mind. He assumed from hearing the story and what he knew about my relationship with my immediate family that the woman we vied for was in this life, our mother.

To work effectively with what is found in regression, particularly the bits about relationships, one must immediately accept and dismiss most freudian thought. The idea is that we come back time and again with the same “people”, but we change the dynamic of the relationship to better work through the karma. So your mother has been you’re daughter. Your son has been your friend. Your wife was your cousin on your mother’s side. We try everything. One name for this that I don’t like, but I’ve heard used is a “soul cluster”. My brother, my mom, my father and I have tried this many different ways.