A good year ago or so, I tried to post my feeling of having lived in medieval Europe because of my automatic/unconscious reaction to medieval music and art. I tried to put it in the Community forum and was told I had to put it here. That annoyed me, because it has NOTHING to do with ******* religion. So I just didn't post it.
But the feeling waxes and wanes and right now it is waxing. So, basically, here the deal:
Since I was old enough to remember anything, I have been plagued with "memories" of having lived in medieval Europe. I don't know if this is a past life sort of thing whether there is a scientific explanation for it. I've been trying to find a label or name for this phenomenon but I'm not having much luck. Maybe someone here knows.
Now, this is NOT a religious NOR a political discussion so it doesn't belong in this folder but that's beyond my control. I will NOT discuss religion on this thread, if anybody sees fit to respond at all. If you want to talk about reincarnation, start your own thread on it. This thread is about the FEELING of having lived in another time.
When I was about 4 or 5, I heard medieval music on some tv program--remember educational tv?--they played some medieval music and my immediate reaction was like, "I've heard that before!" It was maddeningly familiar but I couldn't place it. That feeling never went away. Certain medieval songs still haunt me that way:
But, even more, it wasn't just a feeling that I knew the music but that it was accompanied by scenes of medieval that would flash through my brain. Not moving images but like snapshots or paintings. Two images haunted me more than any other: one of a woman in light or white sort of tunic wearing a kind of headdress or scarfy-looking thing standing behind a half-door--the top half was open--and she was pouring something into the street--a stony kind of street--from a pot. I don't know if it was water or waste from a chamber pot, the image isn't that detailed. More of a fleeting impression. She seemed to have on some kind of apron thing that tied around the waist but went over the shoulder also.
The second impression was so constant and much more concrete and almost a kind of real memory. I was standing in a colonnade holding a torch looking up at a vaulted ceiling. It seemed to me I was listening intently to music playing somewhere else. Like I wanted to hear the bass frequencies by filtering out the others with walls (and that actually works because bass frequencies can travel through walls more easily than high frequencies. I had this "memory" so often that I believe that I was a monk. My head may have been shaved on top but I can't be certain but I seemed to be wearing a loose-fitting, dark-colored tunic like something a monk would wear.
But I can't place the locale. Sometimes I think Germany, sometimes England, sometimes Holland, sometimes France, sometimes even Scandinavia. Nor can I place the time or the century. There's just not enough there to allow that. Nor do I explicitly recognize any piece of music but rather it's just a feeling that I've heard it or something like it before--like something I knew very well at one time but then forgot for many, many years then I hear it again and it jumps out at me but I just can't remember exactly how it went although I know I've heard it before.
When I was a kid, 7 or 8, my class took a field trip to art museum and I was like every other kid looking at all the exhibits until I saw a medieval Jesus on a cross--a wooden sculpture still preserved. Suddenly, I was transfixed by it. Again, that feeling that I KNEW what this was. I had no religious feelings for it whatsoever. I have never been religious even as a boy (I never went to church). That wasn't what interested me. I had seen crucifixes many times and could have cared less. But THIS crucifix fascinated me. This feeling of having seen it before, of knowing what it was even though I knew nothing about it whatsoever.
The suits of armor fascinated me. While I had seen knights in pictures, it was wholly different to see the suits in front of me (actually, the preserved suits you see are 3/4 size and used for display purposes from that period because the real armor worn by knights basically got destroyed and very little of it survives today which leads a lot of people to conclude that knights were small men but they weren't, they were often very large men). They actually had a part of a medieval stone chapel there. You could walk into it and see the icons and feel the stone and look up at the little piece of vaulted ceiling which intrigued me greatly.
Everything about the medieval art was fascinating to me and I felt at home in that gallery and didn't want to leave. When they gathered the kids up, I hung back and a teacher had to tell me to get in line with other kids so I did rather reluctantly. They led us to another gallery which I had no interest in and I snuck away and went back to the medieval art where I "belonged." Sometime later, a teacher came back and found me standing in that little stone chapel room drinking in the atmosphere of it and angrily told me that I was not supposed to be here. "Just let me stay here!" I blurted out. "You can come and get me when we're ready to leave." Such arrogance! She looked at me like I was nuts. "You're coming with me right now!" And she grabbed me by the arm yanked me out of there. She gave a bad report to my teacher who was a pussycat and so all I got was a "I'm disappointed in you for not staying with the group" thing--big deal. You're lucky you're not my mom, lady, you'd have a lot more to be disappointed about--believe me.
I have read that H. P. Lovecraft felt he lived in 18th century England and that he longed to return that time. I can't I long to return to medieval times. People were often quite dirty, there was no dental or healthcare short of the village blacksmith yanking your teeth with his tools. If you made it to your 50s, you were exceedingly ancient and you almost certainly wouldn't make it to your 60s. There was always a bloody war going on somewhere over something. You had no civil rights any king was bound to respect. Torture was commons. Jews were horribly persecuted. Unless you were a monk or nobility or royalty, you were illiterate. Even Charlemagne never learned to read or write. He practiced his letters but he couldn't get the hang of reading. Of course, the Black Death was rampant because there were rats and fleas everywhere. It just didn't sound like a fun time to live.
But I don't know, of course, that I actually lived then. But if I didn't, that there is some scientific explanation for this feeling of having lived before, why does it happen at all? Why this time period and not another? That's why when I had my custom bass made, I had it made with medieval motifs.
I don't the feeling as intensely as I did when I was a boy but it still happens. As I said, it waxes and wanes and it's waxing right now.
What about you? Do you feel you lived in another time, another culture?
But the feeling waxes and wanes and right now it is waxing. So, basically, here the deal:
Since I was old enough to remember anything, I have been plagued with "memories" of having lived in medieval Europe. I don't know if this is a past life sort of thing whether there is a scientific explanation for it. I've been trying to find a label or name for this phenomenon but I'm not having much luck. Maybe someone here knows.
Now, this is NOT a religious NOR a political discussion so it doesn't belong in this folder but that's beyond my control. I will NOT discuss religion on this thread, if anybody sees fit to respond at all. If you want to talk about reincarnation, start your own thread on it. This thread is about the FEELING of having lived in another time.
When I was about 4 or 5, I heard medieval music on some tv program--remember educational tv?--they played some medieval music and my immediate reaction was like, "I've heard that before!" It was maddeningly familiar but I couldn't place it. That feeling never went away. Certain medieval songs still haunt me that way:
But, even more, it wasn't just a feeling that I knew the music but that it was accompanied by scenes of medieval that would flash through my brain. Not moving images but like snapshots or paintings. Two images haunted me more than any other: one of a woman in light or white sort of tunic wearing a kind of headdress or scarfy-looking thing standing behind a half-door--the top half was open--and she was pouring something into the street--a stony kind of street--from a pot. I don't know if it was water or waste from a chamber pot, the image isn't that detailed. More of a fleeting impression. She seemed to have on some kind of apron thing that tied around the waist but went over the shoulder also.
The second impression was so constant and much more concrete and almost a kind of real memory. I was standing in a colonnade holding a torch looking up at a vaulted ceiling. It seemed to me I was listening intently to music playing somewhere else. Like I wanted to hear the bass frequencies by filtering out the others with walls (and that actually works because bass frequencies can travel through walls more easily than high frequencies. I had this "memory" so often that I believe that I was a monk. My head may have been shaved on top but I can't be certain but I seemed to be wearing a loose-fitting, dark-colored tunic like something a monk would wear.
But I can't place the locale. Sometimes I think Germany, sometimes England, sometimes Holland, sometimes France, sometimes even Scandinavia. Nor can I place the time or the century. There's just not enough there to allow that. Nor do I explicitly recognize any piece of music but rather it's just a feeling that I've heard it or something like it before--like something I knew very well at one time but then forgot for many, many years then I hear it again and it jumps out at me but I just can't remember exactly how it went although I know I've heard it before.
When I was a kid, 7 or 8, my class took a field trip to art museum and I was like every other kid looking at all the exhibits until I saw a medieval Jesus on a cross--a wooden sculpture still preserved. Suddenly, I was transfixed by it. Again, that feeling that I KNEW what this was. I had no religious feelings for it whatsoever. I have never been religious even as a boy (I never went to church). That wasn't what interested me. I had seen crucifixes many times and could have cared less. But THIS crucifix fascinated me. This feeling of having seen it before, of knowing what it was even though I knew nothing about it whatsoever.
The suits of armor fascinated me. While I had seen knights in pictures, it was wholly different to see the suits in front of me (actually, the preserved suits you see are 3/4 size and used for display purposes from that period because the real armor worn by knights basically got destroyed and very little of it survives today which leads a lot of people to conclude that knights were small men but they weren't, they were often very large men). They actually had a part of a medieval stone chapel there. You could walk into it and see the icons and feel the stone and look up at the little piece of vaulted ceiling which intrigued me greatly.
Everything about the medieval art was fascinating to me and I felt at home in that gallery and didn't want to leave. When they gathered the kids up, I hung back and a teacher had to tell me to get in line with other kids so I did rather reluctantly. They led us to another gallery which I had no interest in and I snuck away and went back to the medieval art where I "belonged." Sometime later, a teacher came back and found me standing in that little stone chapel room drinking in the atmosphere of it and angrily told me that I was not supposed to be here. "Just let me stay here!" I blurted out. "You can come and get me when we're ready to leave." Such arrogance! She looked at me like I was nuts. "You're coming with me right now!" And she grabbed me by the arm yanked me out of there. She gave a bad report to my teacher who was a pussycat and so all I got was a "I'm disappointed in you for not staying with the group" thing--big deal. You're lucky you're not my mom, lady, you'd have a lot more to be disappointed about--believe me.
I have read that H. P. Lovecraft felt he lived in 18th century England and that he longed to return that time. I can't I long to return to medieval times. People were often quite dirty, there was no dental or healthcare short of the village blacksmith yanking your teeth with his tools. If you made it to your 50s, you were exceedingly ancient and you almost certainly wouldn't make it to your 60s. There was always a bloody war going on somewhere over something. You had no civil rights any king was bound to respect. Torture was commons. Jews were horribly persecuted. Unless you were a monk or nobility or royalty, you were illiterate. Even Charlemagne never learned to read or write. He practiced his letters but he couldn't get the hang of reading. Of course, the Black Death was rampant because there were rats and fleas everywhere. It just didn't sound like a fun time to live.
But I don't know, of course, that I actually lived then. But if I didn't, that there is some scientific explanation for this feeling of having lived before, why does it happen at all? Why this time period and not another? That's why when I had my custom bass made, I had it made with medieval motifs.
I don't the feeling as intensely as I did when I was a boy but it still happens. As I said, it waxes and wanes and it's waxing right now.
What about you? Do you feel you lived in another time, another culture?