Times of My Lives

I was given past life regression hypnosis when I was still in college. I don’t usually tell people about it, because at the time I thought it was just a con trick, and now I’m scared. My buddies and I had been out drinking on a Friday night, and we met a guy who said he’d done it and found out about his past life as a Roman centurion. We all had a good laugh at that, but he gave me a card and told me I really ought to try it. The next day as we all recovered from our hangovers, I found the card in my pocket. The guys wanted me to try it out and were prepared to pay for it as long as I did it. You know, college. Try everything, have fun, get your friends into trouble, get wasted.

So, a few hours later, I found myself being hypnotized. I was expecting some world-class bullshit, and the hypnotist did not disappoint. She called herself Cassandra, which set off all sorts of warning bells in my head, and she was dressed like a comic-book version of a fortune teller. She operated out of a small living room in a single-wide trailer. After I went through a cluster of weird “memories” I sat and chatted with her, and she was so excited she was practically bouncing on her chair.

“I’ve never had a client with such a rich history!” she kept exclaiming. My headache was growing worse by the minute. Surely a decent hypnotist could have fixed that for me during the session? I’d happily have paid extra.

I stared at her, wondering whether she always finished her sessions like this. “Wait, are you trying to suggest that all of those were past lives? There must have been at least a dozen of them.”

“Fifteen,” crowed Cassandra, hugging herself. “And your memories are so complete. Most people just have hazy memories at first.” She wanted to keep me there, to line up additional sessions, and maybe to record them. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

We spent the evening having almost the entire fur coat of the dog that bit us. My so-called friends kept pressing for more information. “Look, guys,” I said in exasperation, “none of this is real, right? She must have implanted these memories while I was hypnotized. I saw myself as a sacrifice to an Inca god, as a camp follower with the Mongolian horde, as a Lady in Waiting to Queen Mary of England, as a subsistence farmer in southeast Asia, as a servant during the Black Death, as a slave on a cotton plantation, as a hunter-gatherer in ancient Africa, and lots more. No one gets all that in a single session.”

Pádraig stared at me. He was a transfer student from Ireland (via Japan), and one of the more level-headed of the group. He also had a prodigious tolerance for alcohol. “How did you know what you were each time? They wouldn’t all be self-aware about who and where they were. And you were different sexes and races, spoke different languages.”

That had been the weird thing about that first experience. I was there, but not really there. I could see myself, and knew it was me, no matter how I looked, and felt all the emotions that person was feeling. And I could understand everything that was being said. I hadn’t put all that together in my mind yet, so my response to Pádraig was “Yeah. Strange, huh?” No wonder I was top of my creative writing class.

We got wasted again. And then things took a decided turn for the worse. On Sunday morning, I woke up in Tudor England. I still knew I was Gene Wilkinson, but I also knew I was Lady Jane Howard, Lady in Waiting to Queen Mary Tudor. Everything around me was different from my Swarthmore dorm. Most evident of the differences were the light – the light through the small windows and the candles and wall sconces was much dimmer than the large clean windows and electric lights of the 21st century – and the smell. Oh God, the smell. Lady Jane was not aware of it, but I felt as though I was gagging the whole time. Of course, I was not there in physical form, so everything was filtered through Lady Jane’s mind. Oh, and of course, I had the body of a woman. Lady Jane was used to this, so she didn’t spend time examining her body the way I would have preferred.

Lady Jane had some really extraordinary clothes, so I observed her dressing with interest. Apparently, bathing was not big in Tudor times, so after rubbing various parts with a linen cloth, she simply put her day dress on over the clothes she (I?) had worn overnight. Again, the smell was less than pleasant. She sprinkled a little rosewater on herself and on her hands, then put on layers of stiff clothing, a ruff, a tight-fitting cap on her head, and red silk shoes that did not fit very well. After all that, she picked up a pomander that did a good job of surrounding her with a spicy, citrusy smell. I was grateful for that.

She then left her chamber and went to a far grander suite, into the presence of Queen Mary, to assist with her dressing. There were four other women in attendance, and one man. She curtsied deeply to greet her employer, then settled into companionable chatter. It was clear that everything revolved around the queen, and all the attendants treated her with exaggerated respect. From Jane’s emotional state, I could tell that disappointing the queen would be very dangerous. As you’d expect, Mary’s dressing routine was similar to Jane’s but involved more choices, more care, more jewels, and being fawned over.

I followed her through her morning, often bored because I didn’t understand who the people that she met were, and therefore what was going on. There was a certain amount of flirting and unnecessary body contact that I found unnerving. Maybe that’s normal for women, or maybe it was then. Who knows? After the midday meal when Jane went with Queen Mary to visit her spiritual adviser. I always considered Sunday services as a part of normal life, just one more thing to get through in my week. But discussions about God and religion here were very serious. Jane kept very quiet, just hovering in the background waiting to be called upon by the queen.

At some point, Jane became bored and nodded off. As soon as she did, I awoke in my dorm. I was freaking out – the dream had been so realistic, so detailed, and I remembered every single thing that happened. I spent half an hour telling myself it was just a dream, brought about by alcohol abuse and the regression hypnosis session. Then I checked my phone. It was after three in the afternoon and I’d missed dozens of messages and a couple of calls. And I didn’t feel like I’d just woken up. I felt as if I’d been awake for hours.

But, hey, that’s college life. Pádraig’s latest message read “Wtf man? Where r u? Still coming out w us 2nite?”

I sent back “Where r u? Got a few minutes 2 talk?” Pádraig seemed like a good person to run this past.

I went to his room. It felt really strange telling someone about this. I started out with “After I did that regression hypnosis, did anything seem off about me?”

Pádraig eyed me suspiciously. “You think she roofied you?”

“Worse.” I said. “I think maybe she messed with my mind.”

Pádraig laughed. “You think this cut-rate magic act managed to implant hidden commands into you? She didn’t seem to be that gifted, from what you said.”

I told him everything about my experiences. Under hypnosis, I remembered being a Lady in Waiting in Queen Anne’s court. But in my vision this morning, I had touched and seen and smelled things that seemed really authentic. The only thing that struck a false note was that everything took place in modern American English in my head. I told him the small details of décor and clothing that I had been aware of.

“Easy then,” said Pádraig, “you write down as much detail as you can about those, and things like plumbing and food. Then we can go and research the period and see how accurate your vision was. Most likely, it was just a very vivid dream, and you picked up the details from watching movies.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. No reason to panic. Even though I’d never studied Tudor England, I must have seen it portrayed on TV and in movies dozens of times since I was a child. I thanked Pádraig for talking me down and agreed to write everything down as he’d suggested. Some parts would be accurate, but others must have sprung from my own imagination or historic fantasies of filmmakers.

I spent every spare moment that week on my laptop, writing down every single detail I could remember. How did I know Lady Jane Howard’s name? That information was just in my head from the start of the vision, along with the name of the queen, and the layout of the palace. I just automatically knew certain things that she knew. I wasn’t surprised by anything that happened. Although I, Jake, was surprised by the smells and the look and feel of everything, there was a basis of knowledge that made these things seem familiar. It was the same with my body. Lady Jane saw what she expected to see, so although it was new to me, I wasn’t shocked by it, it felt natural to me.

I spent the longest time remembering the details I didn’t think would have been in any movies. The names of the people around me, the toilets (not a subject I wanted to dwell on; that had been an unpleasant experience), the flavors of the food, and so on.

I was very pleased with my progress until I took a nap on Thursday afternoon. Suddenly I knew I wasn’t in Swarthmore anymore. I was a boy called Gerhard Faber, and I was 14 years old. The year was 1938, and I was at school in a boys-only gymnasium in Munich. This experience was easier for me. I knew what it was like to be a 14 year old boy, at least, and the gymnasium lessons were similar to what I had studied in high school, except they included a lot of information about genetics and German history. Gerhard didn’t wear a uniform, but the classes all started with a Heil Hitler salute. That startled me initially, but after a few lessons, I stopped noticing it.

When school ended for the day, Gerhard walked home. There were several damaged buildings along the street, all apparently closed Jewish businesses. I realized with a jolt that Gerhard had participated in attacks on people and property just a few days or weeks previously. I was shocked to the core by this knowledge. This was recent history – there are still people alive who remember these events, and there is a photographic record. Gerhard seemed like such a normal, modern boy, but he was also, I now understood with horror, a member of the Hitler Youth. His satisfaction as he passed the scene of his crimes bled into my conscious mind and made me feel nauseous. Was this really me in a past life? I stared at the mountains of glass and the burned, looted buildings. Did I do this? I started looking at my surroundings with fresh eyes. I looked for evidence of Jews and other minorities. There were no yellow stars or pink tringles on display, but I did see a number of people carefully avoiding other pedestrians, skulking to the edge of the sidewalk, and failing to meet the eyes of passers-by. No one made any attempt to speak to these people, either ignoring them, or glaring at them. Gerhard sneered when he recognized someone as a Jew or a homosexual and occasionally called out an insult toward them.

Unlike my previous vision, I was desperate for this one to end. I tried to snap out of it, force myself to wake up, or somehow separate from Gerhard. I knew Gerhard was only a child, but I found myself hating him. When he arrived home and greeted his mother, I saw my own emotions reflected in the way she looked at him. She didn’t want her son to be this hateful person, this vandal who destroyed homes and businesses and synagogues. But she didn’t feel safe enough herself to talk him out of it. His own mother was too weak and fearful to do what needed to be done. I wanted to reach out to his mother, hug her, tell her it wasn’t her fault. She was my mother, too.

Despite all my efforts, I stayed with the Fabers for the evening meal. The father was pompous and bullied the mother. I wanted so badly to stand up to him, but Gerhard seemed to be both afraid and in awe of him. It was clear that the father was proud of his son’s membership of the Hitler Youth, and of his involvement in the violence earlier in the month. He referred to the violence as the Night of Broken Glass, apparently because of the smashed windows I had seen, and spoke jovially of the number of “undesirables” who had fled because of it. But what made my stomach churn was everything was so normal and dull. I’m no history buff, but even I knew I was looking at the start of something horrific.

By the time Gerhard went to bed, I was exhausted. When he finally closed his eyes, I woke up in my dorm. It was well after midnight, and I was not rested – in fact, I was exhausted. I texted Pádraig and said I needed to talk to him urgently tomorrow. That now something even weirder had happened. Then I went to bed so I could actually get some sleep.

When I woke up around nine in the morning, Pádraig had come through for me as usual. He’d texted back “If this is really urgent, meet me at 11 at the coffee shop. If it’s not really urgent, f u dude.”

I gratefully texted back to confirm the meeting and then took a long shower. I still felt dirty from the vision of Gerhard.

I took my laptop with me so I could show Pádraig my notes on Lady Jane, but I needed to get information from him about WWII. Pádraig had a much better grasp of history than I did, a fact he kept pointing out to me.

Taking a sip from my double shot espresso, I launched into my explanation. “I’ve written down everything I can remember about the Tudor vision, even added a couple of pictures of the clothing and shoes. It’s so much information I could write a textbook. But the urgent problem is it happened again yesterday. I spent about ten hours in another vision. This time I was a kid in Germany in 1938. I need you to explain it to me.”

Pádraig’s jaw dropped for a moment, then he recovered. “Ten hours? You’re sure it wasn’t just a dream? Was this another character from the hypnosis session?”

I nodded sadly. “Yep. I didn’t pay much attention to this one, he was just an old-fashioned-looking kid. But now I need to know how much I saw was real. What do you know about 1938 Germany? Cause I don’t know squat.”

Pádraig slowly shook his head. “Just what everyone knows. Hitler has started on his agenda. The Hitler Youth to brainwash kids; demonizing minority groups; annexation of Sudetenland; Neville Chamberlain “Peace in our time”; mass deportations; Kristallnacht…”

It was my turn to look stunned. “Crystal Night? Would that be the Night of Broken Glass? I saw shop windows broken and the buildings vandalized. Was that a big thing?”

Pádraig put his head in his hands. “Yes, boyo, it was a big thing. It was the start of the annihilation of the Jews. The death camps started a few years later, after the war had been going a few years.”

“But the war was just 1941 to 1945, right?” I had paid some attention in school.

“No, Gene, it wasn’t. Ireland was officially neutral, but even I was taught it started in 1939.” Pádraig was staring at me as if I’d said I hadn’t heard of gravity. (I had, but I couldn’t tell you how it worked.)

“Podster, are you telling me I was looking at the start of the Holocaust, and my so-called past self was a part of it?” I swigged the rest of my espresso. I didn’t feel very well. “This boy was a member of the Hitler Youth. He was learning about racial purity in school. He was part of this Crystal Night thing. He agreed with it all.”

He looked at me gravely. “If you really didn’t know about this shit, then it’s a hell of a strange thing to dream up. And your Cassandra must have given you a shed load of information in a one-hour session. We need to go see her again.”

And after that, my life just fell to pieces. I started reliving all these past lives. You want to know anything about history? Because I’ve seen all of it.