Born again????
 

I am, at the moment, having my senses ravished by Sir Charles Mackerras' interpretation of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. Is there any more sublime moment in music than the second act trio? I don't think so.

Anyway, it got me thinking, as you do, and as I was wandering along memory lane it occured to me that I must have lived before. And not only that, I am half convinced that I lived in Vienna. You will say that I am mad or have had far more gin than is perhaps good for me, and were I you I would probably say the same thing...except....except for a rather odd ocurrance.

It happened that, some years ago, I concieved a longing to travel. Having just completed my degree and being of that sort of footloose age I packed a few belongings and my passport and off I went, just like that! No preparation or planning. The vaguest smattering of German and French and my wits was all I had. I first tried Paris for a couple of months and hated it. I could not get out of there quickly enough. Nice city, but criminally wasted on the French! Desparation made me hop on the first train out of the Gare de l'Est and it was only as we reached the Franco- German border at Strasbourg that I discovered that I was on my way to Vienna!

The train journey took all day and most of the evening and I ended up in Vienna in the middle of a summer thunderstorm at ten-thirty on a Sunday evening. Vienna, tired of waiting for me, had already gone to bed.

Most people would panic at being disgorged, alone, into a foreign city at that time of night. I, on the other hand, felt anything but panic! One of the strangest feelings came over me. I knew exactly where I was. I did not need a map and did not consult one. I stepped into the quiet streets with as much confidence, nay more, as I would into the streeets of Accrington. I knew where I was and where I was going! And within minutes I was checking into an hotel. I later discovered that arriving, as I did, in the middle of the annual Vienna Festival I would have been lucky to find a park bench for the night much less a hotel room.

I stayed in Vienna for six months, and fell in love with the place. But it was a familiar, comfortable, easy love, sort of like meeting an old lover after a considerable interval of time. There were many instances of this feeling of ...what...deja-vu in the succeding months. And I do not think that I have ever felt more at home anywhere than I did in Vienna. There were two streets which seemed to fill me with a gentle melancholy whenever I felt drawn to walk along them; Kartnerstrasse and Furstengasse. Odd streets, There was meaning of a sort there but, I think that I was not yet ready to contemplate it.

Anyway, that is part of my story. Does anyone else have a similar story to relate? Has anyone been hypnotically regressed? Or perhaps someone would like to subject my tale to freudian analysis?????

Re: Born again????
 

AB as a man of letters and from what I gather from the website a man of books too try Many Lives Many Masters by Brian L Weiss, The true story of a prominent Psychiatrist, his young pattient and past life therapy that changed both their lives.

Re: Born again????
 

I happened to see the film 'Letter From An Unknown Woman' on BBC2 yesterday afternoon.

The film was set in Vienna and starred Joan Fontaine. Something about her charm and winsomeness did remind me of you.

Perhaps it wasn't Vienna where you used to live but Pinewood.:)

Re: Born again????
 

Hey A-B......do you, by any chance, sport a little toothbrush moustache? Its just that Hitler stayed in Vienna for 6 months & fell in love with the place and look what happened to him.....

Re: Born again????
 

Funnily enough, I was able to stand in the very same spot, on the balcony of the Hofburg, where Hitler received the adulation of the people of Vienna following the Anschluss; a very creepy feeling. There are quite a few grim architectural reminders of that period dotted around the city.

Re: Born again????
 

When are we going to get the rest of the story? I have already felt compelled to purchase the book, which Bazf recommended, from Amazon.com. Give us a few more insights into this story please!

Re: Born again????
 

I'm what you would call "musical". I play piano (very badly, I'm afraid) and I used to sing - Folk, Jazz, Blues and Operetta, and in public too. I come from a musical family, with a dad who was a semi-pro dance band drummer and a mum who was a pianist.

I love all kinds of music, from classical to Rock'n'Roll but my great love is the music of the 20s and 30s. I'm devoted to Glenn Miller and, somehow, the music "speaks to me" like no other.

Now to the point. There is one thing on TV or films that I can't bear to watch. It's the sight of a ship sinking. There used, many years ago, to be a TV series called "Victory at Sea" which was all about the role of the Royal Navy and the German Navy during WW2. Whenever they showed a clip of a ship going down prow first, with the screw up out of the water, I was consumed with absolute horror. It's a sight that really chills me.

My younger daughter has a theory about all this. She is convinced I had a previous life, that I was drowned during the war and the last thing I saw was my ship going down. Fanciful? Probably, but it might just possibly explain why as a very small child, I used to have nightmares of aeroplanes sillhouetted overhead, against a dark sky, and would wake up screaming.

Was I on a ship that was bombed? Was I a young person in the 1930s? I certainly often feel a "nostalgia" for an era I never knew in this life.

I rule nothing out.

Re: Born again????
 

John, its a compelling book, the guy does regression therapy and puts the person under and she goes back in time, sometimes as a women sometimes as a man and the basis is that we learn something and then move on to the next life and so on untill we accomplish everything, whenever or where ever that maybe. Highly recommended.

Re: Born again????
 

Googled Many Lives Many Masters by Brian L Weiss and was suprised to find it was published in 88 yet seems to be what I have gleaned to be worth read. Guy seems to know his subject so shouldnt be too "outlandish" and even though its not
my usual literature I am willing to expand my mind a little.

Re: Born again????
 

88?

1988, 1888, 1788, 1688?

Spookey.;)

Re: Born again????
 

2088 - then your talking spooky:D

Re: Born again????
 

It would. A book about regression that means we are actually living in the past. Where are we? What year is it? Are we all just in somebodies in the futures dream?

In that case please wake them up, I wanna get off.

Re: Born again????
 

its a very wierd subject regression! never thought i was anyone else in a past life, but i arrived in rotterdam in 1969 on my own and knew my way around it, had no maps or street plan,thought it was very wierd(put it down to the illegal substances at the time)lol but now i'm older NOT wiser (lol) this threads give me cause to reflect, and i'm certainly no nearer how/why i walked around a big/strange city as if i'd lived there all my life.????:cool:

Re: Born again????
 

1988 Many Lives Many Masters by Brian L Weiss BOOK PUBLISHED, 1888 CELTIC FOOTBALL CLUB FORMED, 1788 Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King as King Charles IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism, 1688 LAST CATHOLIC MONARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN EXILED JAMES II AND VII

Re: Born again????
 

1288 B.C. Queen Rindy watches all her subjects dance round her, inside the stone circle.:)