dream: failed uprising

[wyldcat]

The night before last I had a disturbing, vivid dream. Now I'm not sure it was past life as I worry it's a bit too "Les Mis"-like but that could just be my conscious mind filling in...

In the dream I was in a European city, lying behind some debris - I remember there being a wagon that may have been tilted or overturned, there was a wheel near me. I was a young woman - I remember thinking "I'm only nineteen" - and I was lying in the street, badly wounded. It was a gunshot and I think it had gone in through my shoulder and had a large exit wound in my back fairly close to the spine. I was very weak and had apparently just regained consciousness and was lying among the dead. A few soldiers were patrolling around with rifles in hand. I saw them execute some other survivors, lined up against a building nearby. I think I knew some of them and had to look away. I kept very still, playing dead while I planned how to escape. The strongest emotion in the dream was just so badly wanting to live, knowing it was an impossible situation but refusing to give up.

I know that I was planning to steal a shawl or something to cover the blood on my dress (which was a simple, gingham? type with a long skirt and buttoned front, dark blue or green) and sneak by the soldiers, but that part didn't seem real, more like I was imagining this as a plan. I don't think I had the strength to escape. I think I was having difficulty breathing and the wound may have been fatal at that point, probably slipping in and out of consciousness and I may have just faded away.

I don't remember specifics of the soldiers' uniforms or the city, though it had cobblestones and some of the buildings had stucco. It was a fairly wide, hilly street where several smaller streets came together at odd angles. It was definitely 19th century, so I'm thinking it may have been one of the 1848 revolutions or (given it seemed a bit later) maybe the Paris Commune of 1871. Oddly I've always been drawn to French history and esp. the 1789 Revolution and thought I had a life then, but again it may not have quite been real. But then the Communards were kind of obsessed with their Jacobin forebears so that makes sense.

This dream haunted me all day yesterday. I slept in and felt like I was in a haze, just felt out-of-sorts and lethargic all day. I took a nap that afternoon and had a good cry, finally letting that young idealist forgive herself for dying. I tend to be a worrier in this life and a perfectionist, and am really harsh on myself for making mistakes, etc. If this was a past life maybe it will be helpful letting that go.

This may conflict chronologically with the Irish sailor life I'd had a vivid storm-at-sea dream about, where I was aboard an early steamship that was fully rigged with sails and was in the "South China Sea", maybe a tea clipper, etc. Though that could have been the immediately previous on next life. I do think I had a life that was during the American Civil War but that I was a foreigner, following it in the news without direct involvement.

Thoughts?

 

[Shiftkitty]

I have PL memories that seem to overlap as well. What would help would be if you could find a picture of the rifles. That alone can often pin down location and era. Have you searched for images? The gingham, was it striped or checked? (Checked is the pattern we are most familiar with today.)

 

[wyldcat]

Shiftkitty,


Now that I think about it, the dress was more like a printed cotton or something. Shirtwaist style, dark teal with a black sort of curlicue design on it. I think in the dream I was ****** off because all the blood was ruining it and it was the nicest thing I had! Thinking on it I have a flash to seeing a gaunt-looking middle-aged woman in it who may have been my mother in that life. The image is like an old photograph that had been hand-tinted and I get the sense she died before I did and I may have already been forgetting what she looked like


As for the rifles, I don't remember much from the dream but the soldiers' rifles had long bayonets on them and I was terrified I was going to be stabbed to death where I lay, or that they'd just randomly poke the bodies to see if roused anyone. I was deliberately not looking at them so as not to be seen, and they were sort of backlit against an overcast sky.


I've been working on a novel set in the Reconstruction era so I feel like my research may have corrupted these "memories", but I know when I first saw a Sharps carbine in a museum I felt immediately drawn to it. The rifles in the dream were definitely percussion but were still using black powder at least if all the smoke was any indication. I got the sense that there may have been some bolt-action rifles, which felt too modern but I looked them up and they were in use during the 1870s. I'm probably letting research influence me too much, but looking up a picture of a French Chassepot rifle just looked "right" especially that long nasty bayonet that went with it.


I get the sense that I was hit while shooting from cover. The injury was on the left and the outside-to-inside angle makes sense for a right-handed person holding the stock of a rifle in their left hand.


I didn't see myself in the dream but have an impression of having jet-black hair, fair skin with maybe even freckles and blue eyes. I also have a vague sense that I may have been Jewish but in any case wasn't religious and so was sort of surprised to find myself begging God to let me live.

 

[Shiftkitty]

Yeah, when you're doing research it can be rough to tell memories from research imagery. Have you looked at fashions from that time?

 

[wyldcat]

I have looked a bit at fashions from that period. My impression from the dream is that the dress was tightly fitted around the waist, fairly loose/puffy in the sleeves, very full skirt but it seemed to have been lying fairly flat. It buttoned up to the neck and I think I was fumbling trying to undo some of them. It was fairly plain, unlike most of the getup people tended to have their pictures taken in.


I remember focusing on one of the young men who was being captured and possible executed. He had medium-short brown hair, no beard, and I think had on a white shirt, dark trousers, a vest and a scarf or kerchief at his neck. I'm pretty sure our eyes locked and I knew him--I sensed he may have even been a lover--but I had to look away when they were going to kill him.


It is strange that I don't remember feeling actual pain in the dream (thankfully!), though there was this sense of having all my strength sapped away. I think I was probably going into shock or something.

 

[Shiftkitty]

Photos back then were supposed to capture how people wanted to be remembered, so they'd dress up to have their photo taken. The more plain style of dress would be more practical for day to day wear, though the Victorian era seemed to fear and abhor emptiness. I'm not sure how you'd cull your memories aside from meditation and seeing what feels "right" (such as with the Chassepots).