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Had a flashback today

Shiftkitty

Shiftkitty

Registered User
I had another potential PL flashback to a life in about the 1950's or very early 60's. It happened while I was in a chat room with some friends. I fired up my media player on my laptop and turned on the oldies. This laptop is not the flashiest thing around. It's very basic, and there's a very simple speaker. You will not get concert hall quality audio off of this thing! In fact, it gives off the sound of an early portable radio; one speaker and very “tinny” by modern standards. That was the sound that sent me on a trip.

I was able to focus on my online conversation, but a scene ran persistently in the back of my mind. I am a boy, mid-teens, and I am very ill. I may even be in a coma, because I cannot move or respond to anything, but I am aware of people coming into my room. One is my best friend. We were both involved in something that put me in this state. He was not hurt badly, but I barely made it out in one piece. My friend comes in to see me daily. He always brings a radio. He sets it by my bed and tunes in a rock and roll show, playing it somewhat quietly. He talks to me, asking if I'm going to wake up soon. He tells me about the kids at school, making sure to tell me which girls have been asking about me. He stays as long as he can and talks while the rock and roll plays. It comforts me. It gives me hope. It makes me want to wake up and live. He leaves after awhile, promising to return the next day if he can. He usually can.

My next visitors are people I barely know now. Parents? Guardians? I don't know. To me, they're adults who take care of me. Nothing more, nothing less. Though I am comforted that they care enough to come by, they don't cheer me up. They don't play rock and roll. They caught my friend once and told him not to bring the radio. I think they blame rock and roll for what we did, an event I can't really remember. They're why my friend leaves so early. They usually leave me feeling sad, alternating between feeling sad that they're sad and feeling sad that if I do wake up, I'm going to be in so much trouble...

During times when I have no visitors, I feel I am slowly going mad, trapped inside a body that does not respond to my commands. I begin to create my own worlds inside my mind. In these worlds I can run, jump, I can fly if I want to! These worlds become more and more real to me. They become so much more preferable. The only reason I spend any time in the real world is because my friend comes by with the radio. (Mmmm... the Chantels...)

I eventually come out of my deep sleep, but those worlds I created have taken a toll on me. Now that I have created them, I can escape into them any time I want. The problem is that I want to spend most of my time in them. I have to go see a shrink. I start to get shunned at school. My folks are convinced I've been brain damaged. I am a social outcast, an outlaw. Only my friend doesn't abandon me. It's only because of him that I keep even one foot in “reality”. Him and the rock and roll.

This is the same life in which I believe I committed suicide, maybe in '66, to avoid Viet Nam. I take the opportunity to see if reincarnation is real. There's another whole story on that elsewhere on this site.

Anyway, those are the memories I was wrestling with while engaged in a two-hour chat. The memories were ebbing and flowing as the chat went on and the music played. Mostly it was in sequential flashes. The song “Maybe” by the Chantels was one of the songs that played on the radio. It was released in 1958, and it was the song that grabbed me the hardest.

Wish I had a name to go on. All I can see is something like “Morgan” or “Montgomery”, which I think is a last name.
 
Thank you. It's the most detailed one I have had regarding this particular life. I just had a spooky thought, though. My husband has flashbacks to being killed in Viet Nam. He was a US soldier (though he's still uncommitted about reincarnation). He thinks he was killed about '67 or '68.


He and I have been great friends since we met. Suppose my friend in that life got killed in Viet Nam. I was born again in the summer of '67, he was born in the spring of '77 (yeah, scandalous, I know! ;) ). We met and are opposite genders this time around. I feel like I've known him over several lifetimes, often as lovers. I may just be reaching for a conclusion of some sort, but it was a thought that had crossed my mind. (He's no fan of the 50's rock. For me it's the living end!)
 
Very interesting flash back, thanks for sharing!


As far as I know, if you're in come you can't be aware of things going on around you. Maybe you had some brain damage that temporarily disabled your movements and your ability to speak. You also said that you were aware of people coming into your room. Were you able to see them?
 
Hi :)


I'm not medical expert, so I have no qualified opinion, but I have heard of people in a coma, who were aware of what was going on, but unable to respond. Perhaps there are different kinds, or levels, of coma? As far as I remember the guy who woke up from 20 years (or so) of coma a few years ago told how he had heard people talking to him and - frustratingly - about him.


Shiftkitty,


It seems plausible that your friend back then is your husband now. Just a thought if that is the case. What if your husband's dislike of 1950's music is related to visiting you at the hospital in that life, only he experienced it as something negative, possibly because of the guilt he felt or because the adults told him off for bringing the music. Or perhaps because of negative feelings(sorrow/guilt) concerning your suicide and the fact that the music reminded/reminds him of that?


:)
 
True, I've heard of those cases too. The thing is that I figured through the post that the boy could see people around him, but I might be wrong.
 
Any visuals I could get were sort of the Out-Of-Body type. My friend was of a somewhat stocky build (for a teen), straight sandy-blonde hair (he didn't slick it up with anything, as was the fashion for a lot of kids, whereas I was a different story). He always wore a button-up shirt beneath a dark-colored jacket that I swear he never took off.


The "folks" remain somewhat hazy. I see the man as tall and slim. His hair is thin and dark brown. The woman is heavier. She wears those "cat's eye" glasses, the really slanted ones. Her hair is closer to red than brown, but it's thick and lush. I get my hair color from the man and the volume from the woman. That much I just sort of sense, so I guess they're my parents. I'm very vain about my hair and am horrified (in a funny way) to see it let go while I'm asleep. I think I have a brother and sister, but they never come to see me. They're younger and I think my parents are afraid it will upset them too much.


The room was very bright. Things were light in color, and the bed I was in had a rounded metal frame, thick with paint. This is CGI, but it looks very similar except that the foot was taller:


When I went home, it was like everybody was walking on eggshells around me, and that only served to distance them from me. The doctors (or was it the shrink?) wanted to put me on some sort of pills, but I insisted that I didn't need pills. I only needed time.


I think I eventually did find some anchors for reality. By the mid 60's I wasn't on any meds, but I kept the worlds in my head my own personal secret. As I think on it, my friend eventually joined the Army because he felt he had to do something with his life. I told him to keep his head down and not do anything stupid and heroic. I drifted towards New York City shortly thereafter. I was pretty much estranged from my family by that point. I don't recall hearing about his death. I'm sure he never heard about mine.
 
I'm not entirely sure why he says he dislikes the 50's music. I asked him once and he says it sounds all alike. When I give him samples of musical diversity in rock and roll he finds some other reason. It sounds manufactured. It's too commercial. I play him some of the "underground" stuff, garage bands that would never get past the censors. He just shakes his head and says "I don't know."


It's also possible that he didn't care for it back then, either. He just played it for my sake. Today he's into Heavy Metal, Johnny Cash, a bit of Bob Dylan, and what we both call "real" country music. (A lot of the modern stuff tries too hard to sound like rock or easy listening.) He's also into the Rolling Stones, and combined I think we have their entire songbook!
 
I don't know. I never felt much of a connection to very many people around me, even my own family. I don't think I stayed in the same group of souls like so many people do. I think it's just the two of us, me and my "soul mate" (as I've heard it called). We're both of the opinion that the rest of the world can take a flying leap as long as it leaves us alone. You know that question, "If you were stranded on a desert island with only one other person, who would it be?" Easy. Him.


That's not to say we've never had a fight or anything. But there's this overwhelming sensation of no matter what, it's me and him from here on in. It's hard to explain. Crazy, huh?
 
I've been meditating a bit on this one because it answers so many questions for me, many of which I never presented on this site (or to anyone else, for that matter). But things have gotten a little frustrating. I have names stuck in my head now. I'm sure "Morgan" was my name, but I can't say first or last. "Montgomery" is in there, but not as in Montgomery, Alabama. It's a minor name in the memory. However, this morning the place name of Lambert, Illinois jumped out at me. I just looked up an alphabetical listing of the towns and cities in Illinois and I don't see a "Lambert" on the list anywhere. I see "Lombard", but that doesn't feel right. I questioned if Lambert might have been my friend's name, but it keeps coming back as a place name. Was there ever a community called Lambert in Illinois?


I know some places get swallowed by others. Langworth, California got swallowed by Oakdale, and Willow Glen, California is in constant danger of becoming little more than a neighborhood in San Jose, while Campbell, California continues to fight incursions by San Jose and Santa Clara, and recently part of Salida, California is on the target for annexation by Modesto. I'm sure this happens in other states as districts get redrawn and populations shift. Might it have happened in Illinois to a place called Lambert?
 
Hi Shiftkitty!


I have to say that much about your post shakes my memory tree, because a significant amount of what you write about relates quite a bit to what I experienced back in '68. After returning from Vietnam I was in a coma, and remember much of what you described. Although I don't remember much, there were periods in which I was quite aware of what was going on around me, including a couple of candy-stripers curiously checking out my "equipment" as I lay in bed unable to move or respond.


You got the music, the bed and the "tinny" portable radio speaker sound quite accurately, as well as the feeling of being trapped inside one's own body.
 
Nightrain


If you would have come out of coma right there and then. Those candy stripers would have lost their stripes from running away so fast. Hehee!!
 
Nightrain- So sorry you were in a coma, I hope those candy stripers at least gave you good reviews! ;) Not to downplay your situation, but it brought this song to mind:


http://www.allerdice.net/scotsman-song.htm


As I said, this memory has been answering a lot of questions for me. Now I feel a need to find a link to those names.


Among the things that are fitting together like puzzle pieces are


1) A feeling that I once spent time in an institution being tested for motor skills, perceptual skills, etc.


2) A feeling that I once spent a great deal of time in a hopsital


3) A recurring dream where I am wandering on "Lincoln Street", which is a street in a suburb somewhere. I am pretty much out of it and am trying to find which house is mine, but nobody will open their doors to me. In this dream, I feel like I am heavily sedated


I feel like if I can just attach "Morgan" and "Lambert" to something, I'll find a good chain to follow. I just have to keep in mind not to be so desperate to tie to something that I'll take the first thing that comes up!


3)
 
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