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Sharing what I know so far

S

Starlight

New Member
Hello,

I realize I'm very new to this forum but hopefully it's alright for me to go ahead and share what it is I know now about my past life, and the information I'm hoping to gather somehow, sometime in the future. I'm sorry in advance that this is lengthy.

I started having past-life memories when I was four years old, but when I told my parents about them, they praised my vivid imagination or said I was just having nightmares, which was very invalidating and made me feel stupid. I was fourteen when everything sort of mentally collided and I began to really figure out what it all meant.

(I'll warn for this being potentially triggering in discussions of WWII.)

In my previous life I know for certain that I was an 11 year old Japanese girl, living in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. I attended the Fukuromachi Elementary School which is now used as a peace memorial and part of a museum in Hiroshima. My father was a soldier in the Japanese army, and I'm not quite sure what my mother did, but she was rarely around. I remember my grandmother much more vividly, as well as an older girl (around 19 or 20) who was either my aunt or my sister--I'm not entirely sure which.

I can distinctly remember having a favorite shirt, which was short-sleeved with pink and brown diamond shapes on it. I liked to wear it when I wasn't at school (where I had to wear a uniform).

I was at school at the time the bomb was dropped, and I was badly burned, but not immediately killed. In the nightmare of fear and screaming that followed, I wandered, dazed and confused, watching the exhibition hall burning, too scared and in shock to ask anyone for help. After a while I finally heard a familiar voice--the girl I mentioned, my aunt or my sister--and she grabbed my hand and pulled me along with her. We ran and ran until we weren't in Hiroshima anymore.

I was very tired, then, and I don't remember much else. I lived for a while before I died of some type of cancer.

In this life, I've always had a paralyzing fear of airplanes (being on them or just hearing them fly overhead) and sirens of any kind (because they remind me of air raid sirens?), and an unnatural terror that every strange noise I hear outside is a bomb. When I was 15 I started to understand all this, definitely knew I had been Japanese in another life.

When I was 21 I was able to visit Japan, and I went to Hiroshima, where suddenly hundreds of colors and sounds and smells and memories started rushing back to me all at once. I was completely overwhelmed by it all. I knew ALL of those places. I stepped into the Fukuromachi Elementary School and burst into tears before even reading the first museum plaque. It was completely chilling.

There is still so much I want to know. For starters, I hope I can determine:
1. What was my mother like, and why don't I remember her well? Was she even still living?
2. Who was the girl who pulled me through the madness--my aunt or my sister? And even though it's a far stretch, I wonder too if she's alive again somewhere today.
3. How long did I live after the bomb?
4. Most importantly, what was my name?


If you read all this... thank you. :)
 
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I will come back tomorrow and comment more, but after reading midterm papers all day and it's late, I don't think I could do your thread justice tonight.:angel:
 
Thank you for sharing Starlight, a very interesting topic, and I hope that you can discover the answers to all of your questions. Have you considered a regression, either by yourself or with a therapist?. There is an old thread elsewhere in the forum about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just click here.


There's also a book that you may be interested in. I finished reading it about a month ago and it's about a young woman who remembers a past life in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. It's called 'A Soul Remembers Hiroshima by Dolores Cannon', and you can find that here on Amazon.
 
hello to another floridian and welcome to the forum :laugh: your sequence of memories and emotional reaction is similar to my own path that I have followed.


if i can recommend this book, the everything guide to past life experience, my wife just got it from the library and i spent some time reading it the other night and it does a really good job of covering the basics of finding out about your past lives. perhaps if you check your public library, they may have it too.


Good luck on your quest and welcome to the focum :laugh: i'm sure we're all looking forward to hearing about your progress.
 
Thank you so much for the book recommendations.


ChrisR, I want to do some more personal research into the topic of regression before I make a decision one way or the other, but I am thinking about it.


Totoro, hello fellow Floridian! :)
 
Hello dear Starlight,


first of all, I am sorry for my bad English. I hope I make not too many grammar and vocabulary mistakes.


That it was Fukuromachi Elementary school - the name "Fukuromachi" -- did this name still appear in your pastlife memories of the childhood of your present life, or are you simply very sure that it was Fukuromachi School, where you attended -- at the moment you entered the building during your visit in Hiroshima?


Do you also have memories of the weeks/months/years after the bombing? You have written, you survived the bombing and lived a while before you died because of cancer. Have you a ~ vague~ feeling, how long you could lived on, after 1945?


Have you any remembrances of the city during the post-war era, the rebuilding of the city? After war, there arose a lot of little huts all around the gutted Genbaku Domu along the riverside of Motoyasu (the so-called "A-bomb-slums"). As well in the Peace Park, where at the same time the construction of the memorials and the museum started. After some years, the huts had been pulled down and a new residential district of modern appartment buildings was established north of Peace Park (Moto-machi). Many of the "A-bomb-slum"-Hibakusha moved there, so far as I know (and still live there until present time).


Back to the day of (and before) the bombing: Do you remember the exact sound of the air raid alarm?


Do you remember other buildings what survived the bomb, e. g. the building of Mitsui Bank (after war: Takaki bakery, today: Andersen bakery at Hondori street) or the building at the corner of Peace Park/Motoyasugawa bridge (today the resthouse). This building has a basement, it is open to public (just ask for the key at the resthouse desk) . The Honkawa elementary school (other side of Peace Park), or next Fukuromachi School another big building (a Bank Building, too).


I visited Hiroshima at Easter this year. I am not sure, if I really have a Hiroshima pastlife, too. Anyway I felt very very familiar with the City, too and I have read a lot about the history of the city inbetween. I am not able to stop doing so.


Nevertheless, the experiences that you went through during your stay in Hiroshima (the "coming back" of the feeling of the nightmare, to cry) I didn't have, I felt very very happy (!) at every place of the City. Of course, it made me sad and shocked what I have seen in the museum, too... Nevertheless, I felt something like "Oh! The Hondori! The Andersen Bakery! The Peace Park! Hijiyama Park! The Eba district! Ushita-shinmachi! I wish I could live there! I want to buy a house there!" and so on. :) I walked around like a child in a wonderland. Please do not misunderstand, but this was my feeling, the positive feeling predominated the sorrow and mourning...


Please write down more! I would be very interested.


If your interest goes on, to find out your name of the pastlife,


there is a library, and computers with archives 1. in the basement of the Peace Memorial Museum and 2. in the round building of the "Remembrance hall for the a-bomb-victims". Perhaps you are able to find out more there? Because you really have very precise memories, and beyond that, you know, there was a sister or aunt, and -- you are sure, it was the Fukuromachi school.


Perhaps there may exist a list of the classes/students there of the year 1945? What do you think, would it make sense if you perhaps write an email to the museum (the Peace Memorial or Fukuromachi Museum itself) and ask, go on


investigating in this way?
 
Welcome to the forum Starlight, and thank you for sharing your memories. I sounds like you have a former classmate in Gwelly...and to you, too, Gwelly, welcome to the forum.


Florida is really well represented here! I'm another one!
 
Thank you, usetawuz! :)


I just started reading another thread here from Totoro, about her pastlife in China, she wrote in her introduction of her story:


"I also used to have the odd habit of reading magazines from the back cover to the front."





In fact, I do so, too! :laugh: I never thought about, why,


and, I also never had any difficulties with using chopsticks, too :)
 
I never thought much about it until manga started becoming popular here. And then with what little exposure I had to asian books and magazines, I realized that's the why I had been instinctively reading them like that.


All the subconscious habits you go through are are really interesting when you think about them.
 
You are welcome, Gwelly, and your mutual interest and common background with Starlight may be, at least in my experience on this forum, unique in that of a shared incarnation to investigate mutually between you. I have one of those, but my soulmate cannot seem to dedicate any time to it...my enthusiasm far outweighs his, though his activities and personality are identical to the previous incarnation.


Totoro (in this lifetime, he) has indeed found and documented a wonderfully clear view into a past life which illustrates the progression of souls within groups moving from one lifetime to another and playing different roles for each other. To me, this is the reason for what we do here...to understand the connections we have with others in our lives who hold or play important roles. Our family members and those we choose to be close to and those we end up being close to always seem, for me at least, to be soul mates with whom I have extensive past life experiences.


I once again welcome you and hope you will feel comfortable enough to share your experiences and progress with us here on the forum. To many of us it has been a tremendous adventure.
 
You flatter me! But I hope that by posting the documentation (and my methods), others will be able to gain insight and clarity into their own research.
 
Totoro said:
You flatter me! But I hope that by posting the documentation (and my methods), others will be able to gain insight and clarity into their own research.
Click to expand...
Totoro, if you don't already, consider yourself an educator!
 
Gwelly,


First of all let me say thank you for such an incredibly in depth response! I'm sorry it took me this long to answer you. I've been really busy lately, haha. Let me answer your questions now!


The name "Fukuromachi" did not appear in my past life memories until I first heard it. However, the first part of the name--"Fukuro"--was something that had appeared in my dreams before. Because of this, I was very very certain, when I entered the Fukuromachi Elementary School, that this was what I had been dreaming about.


After the bombing, I think I lived only about six months (give or take a month). The time after the bombing is harder for me to remember. I have remembered more and more of the time before it, though. I don't remember much from the time after, but I know that I did live in a small tent or something similar for a while. I believe that was where I died. I do remember the big building next to Fukuromachi Elementary School, also.


YES I definitely remember the sound of the air raid alarm. It's one of the most vivid memories for me. I can't stand to hear similar sounds now! I'm still so frightened of that sound and I hear it in my dreams sometimes.


I want to research my past life more fully. This life has gotten so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to research as much as I'd like to. But I'm hoping very soon to be able to look more into it, so thank you so much for the suggestions.


Soon, I'll come back here and write more about what I've remembered since my last post here. I have more to talk about! And I thank you so much for your interest and your help!


P.S. I'm so glad you were so happy when you visited Hiroshima. I want people to love Hiroshima as much as I did when I lived there as a child in this earlier life. :)
 
Interesting story. I was born in 1950 and I remember seeing news reports and newsreels in the 50's and 60's about the survivors of the two bombs. I think even the scientists and medical people were shocked at the extent of the radiation effects. Back then the survivors received free medical treatment from the Americans. The reason was unspoken. It's because the survivors were involuntary "guinea pigs". The Cold War was at it's height and we were afraid of what the Russians were going to do. Nuclear bombs used to be tested above ground at a site in Nevada north of Las Vegas. They said there was no danger, but the tests were postponed if the wind was blowing towards 'Vegas. If the wind was blowing towards St. George, Utah the test went on. Years later people living in St. George had a high percentage of people dying from cancer.
 
Dear Starlight,


and thank you so much for your response!


I am looking very much forward to read again here, if you'll have time to write more.


If you have some time soon, please, please talk about here, again. Anyway don't feel pressured because of me.


If you will have some leisure sometime -> have you still asked google for old pictures of Hiroshima^^


If you only type "pre-war Hiroshima", or "old Hiroshima" and so on, you will find a couple of photos of the old city.


And, so as I know, there was a film project by Japanese Tanabe Masaaki, who has produced an animated reconstruction of the pre-war city (I haven't seen the film so far).


I took a photo (and some more^^) of a picture was/is displayed in the basement of the Peace Memorial Museum, have a look here


I will write here later some more, too! And I would be very happy if you tell us more, of your memories, or if you will have time to go on researching one day, please keep me/us up to date :thumbsup:


It is so very affecting and touching - you remembered even the concrete word "Fukuro" as a little child, a long time before you finally came to visit Hiroshima.-- You visited the School-museum, and yes -- you got the feeling of beeing totally sure - it was Fukuromachi -- Huh... It is very touching for me (and surely everybody reading this here) - and for you yourself all the more...


Please don't feel distressed, take you time. In any case I will go on looking on this page again, and I hope you will find out more^^ Please report here :thumbsup:


If you have more time later, and you would like to talk about, please do it.


And dear Argonne, I didn't know so far what you told us about


the people suffering and dying from nuclear tests in Nevada and surrounding states... There may be many, many unknown a-bomb-victims, but not suffering from the two bombs dropped on Japan... but from other a-bombs... it is safe to assume, that there may be many a-bomb-victims in the South Pacific, too... it has been hushed up...
 
To learn more about the South Pacific atomic tests search for "Bikini Atoll H bomb test 1946". The island of Bikini was forcibly evacuated and the natives who lived there were never allowed to go back because of the radiation contamination. Another test done in the early 1950's in either Nevada or New Mexico exposed hundreds or thousands of American Army soldiers to a nuclear test. The government told the men it was safe because they were in a ditch (wearing welder's goggles?). But after the explosion the men were told to stand up. Many years later all of the men who were there died from cancer. When they realized years later that they had been lied to they were very bitter.
 
This is a really interesting thread. I've always been interested in Hiroshima and what happened there, and at Nagasaki, and they are places that I've always wanted to visit... maybe one day.


Did you know there is a really good website on the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum? There is a 'Virtual Museum' tour, and lots of pictures and survivors stories, some of which are very moving: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Website
 
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Thank you Chris!! Thank you very much.


I forgot to mention this page :)


It is an excellent website with a plenty plenty of informations, multimedia, pictures (there is a special exhibition about the post-war A-bomb-slums currently, sadly I am not able to travel to Hiroshima again this year) and also useful e-mail-addresses you can find there (e. g. Peace Databank --> contact -> and then look there at "Outreach Division" (you can make an appointment if you wish to talk to an eyewitness, for example) or the Curatorial Division (for more photos, historical research etc.)
 
Argonne and I must be the same age. I have scary memories of films that were made of Nevada test sites, and doing silly drills at school where we were told to shelter from atom bombs under our desks. When I was a child, I was very moved by reading that some of the women in Japan who survived the initial attacks, had the pattern of their kimonos burned into their flesh. Your posts touched my heart, Gwelly and Starlight. I have begun to wonder if I had a life in Japan. As a little girl, my favorite game was "geisha". I forced my small brother to participate in the tea ceremony. I have a life long attraction to Asian cultures, and Gwelly's picture of "old Hiroshima" gave me goosebumps. However, I don't feel that I was in Japan during the nuclear attacks. Thank you both for your interesting posts.
 
I want to write more about what I've remembered since I posted here last.


I can remember a little bit more about the other girl, who I believe was my aunt and not my sister. She liked to paint, but she rarely had time to paint anything because she was always sewing. It might have been her job to be a seamstress, or maybe she was sewing for the war somehow? I'm not really sure.


I can also remember my grandmother helping me get ready for school in the mornings. I didn't go to school every day, for some reason. But on the days that I went, she helped me put on my helmet and backpack, as well as my uniform. I often carried flowers with me to school when I did go. I don't know what the significance of that was, and I hope to do some more research to try to find out if there was some purpose for that, or not.


As I said in my last post, I can now recall that I lived for only about five to seven months after the bombing, and that I was never able to go home. I don't think I had a "home" to go back to. I was in a sort of "hospital tent" where my aunt took care of me. I never saw my grandmother or my parents again.


There's something very vague in my memory about a bridge. That's what I'm working on trying to understand now. And of course, if I can ever figure out what my name was, I would be so happy. I think it may have ended in -ko, like many female Japanese names.
 
I remember reading stories of all the dead bodies floating in the river after the attack. Thousands went to the river to drink water because they were so thirsty and their skin was burned, etc. If I remember right, the bridge may have been the landmark they used as the "aiming point" when they dropped the bomb.
 
The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) was of a the gravity bomb known as "Little Boy", a gun-type fission weapon with about 140 lb of uranium-235 and it took 43 seconds to fall from the aircraft flying at 31,060 feet to the predetermined detonation height about 1,968 feet above the city. The aiming point was the Aioi Bridge, but due to a crosswind, it missed by approximately 800 feet and detonated directly over the Shima Surgical Clinic.


According to the US Department of Energy the immediate effects of the blast killed approximately 70,000 people in Hiroshima. Estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945 from burns, radiation and related disease, range from 90,000 to 166,000. Some estimates state up to 200,000 had died by 1950, due to cancer and other long-term effects. Another study states that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancer deaths among bomb survivors were due to radiation from the bomb.


The bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945
 
Look at this film here you can watch on Youtube - made by french artist and film director Jean-Gabriel Périot.


A time-collage of Hiroshima before 1945 and after-war until present time, composed entirely of archival photographs.

 
I just wanted to say thank you. My grandma was born and raised in Okinawa, and she often drifts away while she tells me the story of when she heard the sirens go off. She was on her way to school. It was her first day in the first grade. She talks about the confusion and the difficulties of gathering all her brothers and sisters and their father. She was hurt by stepping on a bamboo chute while running for her life. The family took cover in a cave for months.


I say thank you because your recall helps me get perspective on how traumatic this must have been for my grandma. She was never graphic with details, so it's been hard for me to gauge the impact it had on her.


I wish you the best of luck learning about this more in depth and reconciling the residual effects.
 
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