[PastPilot]

I will share the first dream I had of a past life. This occurred when I was 9 years old. Since this dream, I have had several other dreams that relate to this same life and have had several sudden visions of this life as well. When I was at a meditation retreat back in late 2017, I had a 15-second memory of being on a 4-man patrol in No Man's Land where the soldier in front of me took a bullet through his helmet and head. He had made the mistake, as we were crawling on our stomachs, to have stopped and lifted his head to get his bearing. This must have been an important life, or a life that left a deep scar, because World War One has featured a lot in my dreams and visions.

The dream lasted about 40-minutes. It started with me moving across a World War One landscape into the rear area of the German lines. I was a lieutenant. I had been in the army for at least two years and had been wounded in the Battle of Arras, in April of that year. It was a shrapnel wound to my upper left arm, which occurred while I was moving with my men through a communication trench to take up position on the front line. An enemy shell burst overhead and a nasty piece of steel found my arm. A sergeant pulled me aside, put a field dressing onto my wound, and then sent me to the rear. Once healed, a couple of months later, I was sent back to my unit. No blighty for me. Now I was leading my men toward the Germans later in 1917. The Germans had been pushed back a few miles a few days earlier and we were moved up from the reserve to take over a small section of the third-line trench in the rear German area. There were about 20-30 of us. We were a British infantry section (I suspect I may have been in Scots Guards as I had a flashback memory of their shoulder patch -- unfortunately, the Irish and Wesh Guards had the same patch and all three were involved in this battle -- they may have been in the same division; in later flashbacks, I noted that my men had Scottish accents).

We were equipped with a couple of Lewis Guns (light machine guns), barbed wire, extra ammunition, water, rations, etc. However, we were still equipped lightly and expected to be either reinforced or relieved after a few days out in our assigned position. I remember walking with a rifle and bayonet attached along with several others as we moved through light woods. Every once in a while we saw a shell hole or a downed tree. We advanced cautiously but were not expecting trouble. Many other British units had traveled the same general route but you never know. Pockets of Germans may still be hiding away somewhere. We passed as a rather large, well-to-do French Château on our left, which had a little damage to it but otherwise it was quite intact.

The Germans had suffered a catastrophic defeat and had retreated in haste a few days earlier before they stopped to hold their ground. It was at that point that the British army suffered its heaviest casualties. However, that was much further away from where we were going. Our job was to take over a section of captured enemy trench and modify it to become a strong point against future German attacks. By mid-afternoon, we found the enemy trench. It was a third-line trench, which meant it wasn't much of a trench. It was only waist deep. We put down our equipment and started to dig it into a deeper, more defensible trench. That took about two hours. We put in a crude firing step and then had tea and some of our rations. Later we went to sleep after setting up sentries. The day was uneventful, overcast, cold, and wet. The ground was damp. However, at least we were not in noman's land. We were in the German rear. There were trees and grass about. That was a change from the normal.

The next morning as the light returned we came under intense artillery fire. This came with no warning. We had been informed that the Germans had been defeated and that we would have an easy time of our task. Perhaps the Germans resented our assumptions. The enemy shells raining down upon us proved our assumptions had been incorrect. Obviously, the Germans knew we were there and they wanted us eliminated. We lay flat in our newly dug trench while shells exploded all around. The ground shook and the concussion lifted me in the air about a foot or so and then gravity brought me back to earth. These were large shells. You could scream but no one would hear you. Upon the shock of concussion of being bounced about from the shell fire, the buckles of my webbing dug into the flesh of my chest. It hurt as dirt flew upon us. It was intense, extremely loud, and all you could do was pray for it to end and that we would still be alive when it did end. Then suddenly, it was quiet again. We survived the pummeling. One of my men stood up and yelled to the rest of us, "Their infantry is coming!"

I stood up and could easily see a long line of grey infantry appear along the horizon. He was right, it was their infantry. By the looks of it, it was an entire battalion. We only numbered around 30 men. A sold grey mass was moving toward us. Panic ensued, men threw down whatever they had in their hands and ran away in the direction from which we had come from the previous day. I couldn't stop them despite trying to grab a few of them to stop their panic. A minute later, I was the only man left in the trench. I climbed out and attempted to follow. I lost them in the haze of the earlier German artillery fire. I came to the edge of a wood and made my way through. It was tough going. The German artillery had knocked over many trees and the ground was very wet and muddy. It took me about 15-minutes to get through to a clearing on the other side of the woods. Once out, I could see quite a ways but I couldn't see anyone. I thought to myself, "Where in the hell did everyone go?". I then remembered that it took me a long time to get through the woods and because of that difficulty, climbing over fallen trees, walking through deep mud, I may have veered off course. I may no longer be following my retreating men. I figured my best course of action was to keep moving toward our original lines and just hope I can link up with other British soldiers. I ran for another 10 minutes when I spotted, to my far-right, a group of British soldiers sitting at a road crossing. I went over to them. When I was about 100 feet away I suddenly realized that they were captured soldiers. They were still wearing their helmets but didn't have webbing, ammo, nor weapons. What I didn't see were the Germans. Where the hell were they? I didn't wait, I started running in the opposite direction. It was then I heard someone yelling, "Halt!", which I figured must be the Germans I couldn't see. It was. About 8 seconds later I heard a barrage of rifle fire from behind me and felt my body being pierced. All the enemy rounds went through my upper legs and lower abdomen. I was spun around by these impacts. One bullet broke my right femur about mid-way up. I started to collapse. I noticed I had been running along a dirt road. A wet, muddy dirt road. I didn't like the thought of falling onto this surface but I wasn't given a choice. I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and didn't move. It felt, OK. I wasn't in pain. My body felt strangely warm. As a lay there a few seconds I blacked out. My wounds were severe; I had bled out in seconds. I didn't see anything after that. I then went into a different dream, which was far more pleasant. After that, I woke up. Being 9 years old, I thought the dreaming of WWI was amazing and really interesting. My death did not deter me one bit.

I remembered the entire dream. It had been like I was watching a movie. I was about 20-23 years of age at the time of my death. I have had several other dreams over the years where I was a British officer leading men into No Man's Land. In one of those dreams, I met a woman that I knew. I knew her in my dream, not from my life. She was like a guide or an apprentice guide. A helper of my guide is how I felt toward her. I had had other dreams where she has appeared. She explained that I died at the Battle of Cambrai, in November 1917. Because we were attacked by both the German Infantry and artillery, this points to November 30th, 1917, the start of the German counterattack early that morning. My visual description of British troops running away was commonplace on that day. Thousands of British soldiers ran to the rear after having thrown away their weapons and other equipment. Thousands died. It was the worst British defeat in the history of the British army until the defeat at Singapore in 1942.

I have had many other dreams which involved other lives in other time periods. Not many dreams were as vivid as the one I had about my death in World War One but I did have a vision of different life, in a different time period, that was more detailed and more memorable and was the only life I had where I rubbed elbows with famous, historic people. The odd part about my death in WWI was the wound that broke my femur. it was in the center of my upper right leg. I have always had restless legs as a child and that hasn't changed now that I am an adult. However, the pain, or discomfort I feel from this is exactly where I had been shot, in the center of my upper right leg. Sometimes it is so discomforting that I will punch, and bruise, my leg to get the discomfort to stop. Often this works, but it does persist from time to time.