Religious Only: A Personal Experience

[Rival]

I'd like some ideas on what/who this might have been and why this happened, if any. Not looking for 'dreaming/hallucinating' or anything.

When I was 2 years old, I remember being in bed and my mum was reading me a story. Next to her I saw a woman dressed all in brown suede or leather, like some ancient Celt or Roman. She had dark hair and was all in brown so I called her 'the brown woman'. I asked mum who is that woman next to her but she didn't see her and kept reading. When she finished the story she asked me where the woman went; she'd gone into mum's room.

I was wide awake for this and my mum recalls it just as vividly.

NB this wasn't a scary experience, but the house it happened in seemed off.

What do you think?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

A relative visiting seems most likely. That seems to be common with children - relatives visiting them.

 

[SalixIncendium]

You have a wonderful mind if you can remember and experience from that age. I can't remember anything before I was 4 or 5.

I think there are things in this reality young children who are not conditioned to what's "real" and what is not can see that others cannot (or will not?).

My daughter, before she could talk, would stare into an empty corner of the room and have what I could only describe as a conversation given the "talking" and the pauses between with no one. Unfortunately, she now has no recollection of the experiences.

My mother would tell a story of an old house she lived in as a young child on Springfield Avenue in Chicago. Her bedroom was off the kitchen and when she stood in her crib at night, she would see a man in coattails and a top hat sitting at the kitchen table with his back to her eating crackers. She would scream for my grandmother, and the man would disappear when my grandmother turned on the kitchen light. This apparently happened several times until one night while she was screaming for my grandmother, the man turned halfway around and said, "Shut up, kid, and go to sleep." She said complied and never saw him again after that.

 

[VoidCat]

I dont know. But it reminds me of something that happened when I was a kid. I'd play on the playground with this other kid. A girl dressed in white. Quite frequently. But no one remembers her and I had a yearbook that I looked through she wasn't in it. I wonder if I made her up in my mind so I'd have a friend as I didn't have one at the time. Or if she was a ghost.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I'd like some ideas on what/who this might have been and why this happened, if any. Not looking for 'dreaming/hallucinating' or anything.

When I was 2 years old, I remember being in bed and my mum was reading me a story. Next to her I saw a woman dressed all in brown suede or leather, like some ancient Celt or Roman. She had dark hair and was all in brown so I called her 'the brown woman'. I asked mum who is that woman next to her but she didn't see her and kept reading. When she finished the story she asked me where the woman went; she'd gone into mum's room.

I was wide awake for this and my mum recalls it just as vividly.

NB this wasn't a scary experience, but the house it happened in seemed off.

What do you think?

Memories can get spotty when you grow older especially when recollecting early childhood experiences with an adult mind.

It forms gaps in the mind for which it creates something that's called false memory or as already mentioned by @Saint Frankenstein an actual visitor like a relative where the mind cannot recognize and recreates the experience as something else.

 

[Rival]

Memories can get spotty when you grow older especially when recollecting early childhood experiences with an adult mind.

It forms gaps in the mind for which it creates something that's called false memory or as already mentioned by @Saint Frankenstein an actual visitor like a relative where the mind cannot recognize and recreates the experience as something else.

It was real.

 

[Vinayaka]

In my Hindu sampradaya teachings, young children having these experiences is explained by the idea that the transition of the soul from one physical body to another takes time. After it leaves the old body, and finds a new body, it is still in and out of the astral world of where it came from, which is a duplicate of that previous physical world. So part of them is still there, (their previous astral body) and especially during sleep they 'live' there. But eventually the soul adjusts to its new physical body, and those memories dissipate. So from this POV, the astral body of the woman was from your immediate previous lifetime, and you were still capable of seeing it.

I may have experienced similar stuff, as Mom did tell me some stories of stuff I said at a young age, although I have no memory of it. My own children also said some stuff like this.

 

[SalixIncendium]

In my Hindu sampradaya teachings, young children having these experiences is explained by the idea that the transition of the soul from takes time. After it leaves the old body, and finds a new body, it is still in and out of the astral world of where it came from, which is a duplicate of that previous physical world. So part of them is still there, (their previous astral body) and especially during sleep they 'live' there. But eventually the soul adjusts to its new physical body, and those memories dissipate. So from this POV, the astral body of the woman was from your immediate previous lifetime, and you were still capable of seeing it.

I may have experienced similar stuff, as Mom did tell me some stories of stuff I said at a young age, although I have no memory of it. My own children also said some stuff like this.

This is a pretty intriguing theory and one I hadn't considered until now.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Memories can get spotty when you grow older especially when recollecting early childhood experiences with an adult mind.

It forms gaps in the mind for which it creates something that's called false memory or as already mentioned by @Saint Frankenstein an actual visitor like a relative where the mind cannot recognize and recreates the experience as something else.

I was referring to the spirits of deceased relatives visiting children they're related to. I've had experiences like that with my grandma who passed before I got to meet her. I don't think it's some trick of the mind.

 

[rocala]

In my Hindu sampradaya teachings, young children having these experiences is explained by the idea that the transition of the soul from one physical body to another takes time. After it leaves the old body, and finds a new body, it is still in and out of the astral world of where it came from, which is a duplicate of that previous physical world. So part of them is still there,

I have come across a similar theory. I used to visit the sessions of a spiritualist group. One evening I was listening to Sam, the founder of the group in discussion with a long term member. The member had at a seance been contacted by a "spirit" and had obviously told Sam about this at an earlier time. Sam was expressing amazement as apparently, he had been that person in a previous life.

I was mystified, how could the spirit be reborn but still out there? The answer was as Vinayaka has explained. So this double, or so it seems, can last a long time and even function to a certain extent.

 

[Quintessence]

Do you remember what the story was you were being read?

I ask because performance, theater, storytelling, were (and for some still are) deeply connected to religion for good reason. They are modes of reaching beyond the apparent world and to something beyond. How that "something beyond" is characterized varies depending on the cultural tradition, but when we tell stories we can bring these things forward across the veil, so to speak. Channeling them through ourselves, into the voices on the winds, as visions within the mind's eye, a sense of touch brushing one's skin, and other ecstatic or sensory experiences. Was a persona from the story being read evoked so strongly that it manifested vividly to the both of you, sharing in the rapture of that telling?

That's one of the first things I think about, anyway, from my biased vantage point as a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. Emphasis on the bard part here.

 

[Rival]

Do you remember what the story was you were being read?

I ask because performance, theater, storytelling, were (and for some still are) deeply connected to religion for good reason. They are modes of reaching beyond the apparent world and to something beyond. How that "something beyond" is characterized varies depending on the cultural tradition, but when we tell stories we can bring these things forward across the veil, so to speak. Channeling them through ourselves, into the voices on the winds, as visions within the mind's eye, a sense of touch brushing one's skin, and other ecstatic or sensory experiences. Was a persona from the story being read evoked so strongly that it manifested vividly to the both of you, sharing in the rapture of that telling?

That's one of the first things I think about, anyway, from my biased vantage point as a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. Emphasis on the bard part here.

I don't remember! I'll ask mom and see if she can mind it. It's a very interesting theory!

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I'd like some ideas on what/who this might have been and why this happened, if any. Not looking for 'dreaming/hallucinating' or anything.

When I was 2 years old, I remember being in bed and my mum was reading me a story. Next to her I saw a woman dressed all in brown suede or leather, like some ancient Celt or Roman. She had dark hair and was all in brown so I called her 'the brown woman'. I asked mum who is that woman next to her but she didn't see her and kept reading. When she finished the story she asked me where the woman went; she'd gone into mum's room.

I was wide awake for this and my mum recalls it just as vividly.

NB this wasn't a scary experience, but the house it happened in seemed off.

What do you think?

Interesting experience, thank you for sharing!

 

[rocala]

I ask because performance, theater, storytelling, were (and for some still are) deeply connected to religion for good reason. They are modes of reaching beyond the apparent world and to something beyond.

I agree.

"Stories knock on the door of Spirit. They break through into heart spaces."
Ram Dass