Hi! I’m new. Just wanted to share my experience and to see if anyone else has any thoughts on the relationship between memories of past lives and mental illness.
My experience began when I was in undergrad. As a history major, I took a course on the French Revolution in the fall of my second year. My professor had us watch a film, which focused on the Reign of Terror. The film concludes with the arrest of Georges Danton and his execution (along with his friends) by guillotine. Though I sympathized with Danton, throughout watching the film I remember being particularly interested in and moved by the story of one of his close friends – a journalist named Camille Desmoulins, his wife Lucile, and their young son. At the end of the film, when Danton, Desmoulins, etc. are guillotined, I remember feeling uneasy and almost sick. The death scene was quite graphic – enough to make anyone uncomfortable – but I remember feeling strongly disturbed by it.
After watching the film, I tried to learn more about Camille Desmoulins and his family online and in books. I wrote my paper for the course on his role in the film. While doing some research for the paper, I came across the letters that Camille had written to his wife while he was in prison waiting to be executed. I remember reading the letters alone at night in the library and feeling very moved and upset.
Life went on, and though I never forgot about Camille (and his wife Lucile), they were not so important to me that I thought about them all the time. Then one beautiful spring day in early April of my third year, I remember feeling deeply sad but could not understand why. I had an uncanny sense that it might have something to do with Camille (though I could not explain why I thought so), and when I got home I looked him up online and saw that he, Danton, and the others had in fact been executed that very day in history (April 5, 1794). I remember thinking it was strange that my sadness coincided with this date (without my being aware of it).
One year later – again, in early April – things took a turn for the stranger. I had been suffering from depression for much of the school year, but I remember feeling my energy and spirits strangely begin to lift at this time. What was so striking about my feelings was how deeply and strongly I felt myself connected to Camille and his wife Lucile. Though they had died over two hundred years ago, to me it felt as though they had only just died – I felt this with such a sense of immediacy and urgency and terrible devastation. I remember going to the French Revolution section of the library and opening a book at random. The passage that I happened to turn to was about Camille – though it did not mention him by name, I recognized him. It felt to me at the time as it had been meant for me to find.
My friends eventually took me to the hospital, and I ended up in the psychiatric ward, where I was diagnosed as manic. When I first arrived, the doctors asked me if I wanted to see a chaplain. For some reason, I said yes, and a woman came to see me. I showed her a picture of Camille and Lucile and cried. She told me not to be sad, because they had been “reincarnated.” I remember feeling confused but somewhat comforted. Strange words would come to me at night, often when I was half asleep. I remember being struck by four words in particular: “ink,” “blood,” “stain,” “indelible.” I wrote them down. The incredible thing is that about four years later I came across these words on Tumblr in a quote that someone had attributed to Camille: “My ink is more indelible than their blood – it stains for all eternity.” I was stunned. So Camille had actually spoken those words, these same words that came to me (seemingly from myself) in a dream while I was manic.
There are so many other strange, uncanny moments that I can hardly put into words – my experience is so intensely personal it seems to defy language. I was just curious to hear what others think.
My experience began when I was in undergrad. As a history major, I took a course on the French Revolution in the fall of my second year. My professor had us watch a film, which focused on the Reign of Terror. The film concludes with the arrest of Georges Danton and his execution (along with his friends) by guillotine. Though I sympathized with Danton, throughout watching the film I remember being particularly interested in and moved by the story of one of his close friends – a journalist named Camille Desmoulins, his wife Lucile, and their young son. At the end of the film, when Danton, Desmoulins, etc. are guillotined, I remember feeling uneasy and almost sick. The death scene was quite graphic – enough to make anyone uncomfortable – but I remember feeling strongly disturbed by it.
After watching the film, I tried to learn more about Camille Desmoulins and his family online and in books. I wrote my paper for the course on his role in the film. While doing some research for the paper, I came across the letters that Camille had written to his wife while he was in prison waiting to be executed. I remember reading the letters alone at night in the library and feeling very moved and upset.
Life went on, and though I never forgot about Camille (and his wife Lucile), they were not so important to me that I thought about them all the time. Then one beautiful spring day in early April of my third year, I remember feeling deeply sad but could not understand why. I had an uncanny sense that it might have something to do with Camille (though I could not explain why I thought so), and when I got home I looked him up online and saw that he, Danton, and the others had in fact been executed that very day in history (April 5, 1794). I remember thinking it was strange that my sadness coincided with this date (without my being aware of it).
One year later – again, in early April – things took a turn for the stranger. I had been suffering from depression for much of the school year, but I remember feeling my energy and spirits strangely begin to lift at this time. What was so striking about my feelings was how deeply and strongly I felt myself connected to Camille and his wife Lucile. Though they had died over two hundred years ago, to me it felt as though they had only just died – I felt this with such a sense of immediacy and urgency and terrible devastation. I remember going to the French Revolution section of the library and opening a book at random. The passage that I happened to turn to was about Camille – though it did not mention him by name, I recognized him. It felt to me at the time as it had been meant for me to find.
My friends eventually took me to the hospital, and I ended up in the psychiatric ward, where I was diagnosed as manic. When I first arrived, the doctors asked me if I wanted to see a chaplain. For some reason, I said yes, and a woman came to see me. I showed her a picture of Camille and Lucile and cried. She told me not to be sad, because they had been “reincarnated.” I remember feeling confused but somewhat comforted. Strange words would come to me at night, often when I was half asleep. I remember being struck by four words in particular: “ink,” “blood,” “stain,” “indelible.” I wrote them down. The incredible thing is that about four years later I came across these words on Tumblr in a quote that someone had attributed to Camille: “My ink is more indelible than their blood – it stains for all eternity.” I was stunned. So Camille had actually spoken those words, these same words that came to me (seemingly from myself) in a dream while I was manic.
There are so many other strange, uncanny moments that I can hardly put into words – my experience is so intensely personal it seems to defy language. I was just curious to hear what others think.
