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Past life memory of an orphanage or asylum?

ChrisR

ChrisR

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During a recent spell in hospital, a lot of the time I was in a semi-conscious state, sometimes due to my illness, and sometimes due to the drugs they gave me. While I was in this semi-conscious state, I had what I believed to be a past-life experience, a very brief flashback which seemed to repeat over and over for what seemed like hours.

I remember running along a brick road. There was an air of unhappiness around the whole memory, everything appeared exceptionally vivid. It was grey and cold, very wet and windy. I was a young child and I was wearing a kind of pinafore very similar to the one illustrated here (scroll down to the 'Girls Pinafore Dress' on the right) except that it was dark grey and white. As I was running along I was holding the bottom of the dress up around my knees to prevent myself from tripping over it I guess. With the other hand I was holding onto a bonnet on my head to keep it from blowing away.

What seemed to be a memory within a memory, as I was running, I remembered recently being in a large room with other people of a similar age, it could have been a ward in a hospital, or a shared room in an asylum or an orphanage. Wherever it was, I was being kept there against my will and I had recently left this room through some large heavy wooden double doors at the end of the room and down several long flights of stairs. The building was very cold, dark and depressing, all brick and no decoration at all, it certainly wasn't a place that had been built with comfort in mind. I remember the exterior from a previous memory to this one. A large courtyard surrounded by the building on three sides, iron bars at the multitude of windows and a set of iron steps zig-zagging upwards on one of the walls, I remember two or three people running down these steps in pursuit of me, particularly the 'clanging' of their shoes on the iron steps, but that was all from a seperate memory some time ago.

Although I haven't actually remembered the outcome yet, I did feel very strongly that the people running down the iron steps were 'after me', that I wasn't fast enough and they eventually caught up with me and took me back to that place.
 
Hi Chris...So sorry to hear you were in the hospital. Not fun!! I hope your doing much better now that your home again.


It surely sounds "past life" doesn't it. Do you have any idea where you were? I remember in the early years of 1900's and before...children dressed like that but without a bonnet....so maybe we are talking 1800's. The same thing goes for the street being cobblestone. Brick buildings and cobblestone street make me think of 1899's Boston ...or somewhere in the Northeast...


Poor little girl....makes your heart go out to her trying so hard to escape from an obviously miserable place.


If you meditate and dwell on her image....do you suppose a name might come to you...or a place??


I'm fascinated....Maybe the brick hospital building brought this child back to your mind.


Hope you get back to normal quickly...Hugs...Flo
 
Hiya Chris :)


Thanks for sharing! It was very interesting. Do you have any idea where this was? Except for the earlier memory you referred to, have you had other memories of this life?
 
Hello Chris! It's good to see you here! :)


What a terribly lonely memory! Yes, it sounds PL related to me, I also have that strange vivid feelings about them. That which makes it different from imagination, I guess.


I think that convalescing is something that leaves us much alone with ourselves, even when we are lucky to have family and friends around us. It is a time of introspection (at least for me!), be it more or less conscious. And that kind of "space" is usually good ground for deeper things to surface.


I wonder what happened to her - the little girl, I mean - the though that children might suffer such despondency is the one of the most chilling I can have - it drives me to tears.


May I ask if you see some kind of Karmic relevance in the fact that this is also a little girls' memory?


Love


Welsh
 
Thanks for all the replies and well wishes, I'm back at home now and well on the way to a full recovery - :)


I'll try to answer some of the questions, but apart from what I've written here, there's very little to go on regarding this life, I do intend to do some meditation one day this week to see if that reveals any more.


Florence and Sunniva, I don't know where I was in this memory, but sometime between the late 1700's and late 1800's feels right. I remember my British sailor life from the early 1800's and I'm certain that I was around in the 1880's, so it could have been my childhood from either of those lives, or somewhere in between. However I'm not ruling out the USA as the location either (probably nothing, but just another feeling I had at around the same time as this memory) maybe somebody here could tell me if this kind of life would fit in 1800's America?


Welsh I can't see any karmic relevance to the fact that this is a little girl's memory, but I am curious to know why almost ALL of my past life memories seem to be those of a young girl, I can remember at least 6 past lives, and I'm a young girl in all but one of them (in that one I'm a young boy) I wonder what the significance is in that? - :confused:
 
Welsh I can't see any karmic relevance to the fact that this is a little girl's memory, but I am curious to know why almost ALL of my past life memories seem to be those of a young girl, I can remember at least 6 past lives, and I'm a young girl in all but one of them (in that one I'm a young boy) I wonder what the significance is in that? -
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Yes, that's what I mean! It is remarkable, I think, specially because they are all childrens' memories. Do you recall premature deaths in all those six lives, for instance? I have said this before, I think, but I find it fascinating to have access to a childs point of view... :)


Keep us posted Chris!
 
I can only remember two deaths, I was 12 when I died in the volcanic eruption, and I think I was about 17 or 18 in the other life when I fell from a horse and broke my neck. I do have 'adult' memories, but they are very few.
 
Oh my gosh, I just went to Google to check out the orphan situation in America and in England in the 1800's.....How horrible it was to be orphaned!!


These children were put into Workhouses (in both countries) Workhouses had not only children, but crimals and the mentally ill. It was only after 1850 that an attempt was made to put these people in seperate institutions.


In England there was terrible poverty and disease due to ovecrowding in urban areas and very poor sanitation


Glasgow was ravaged by violent crime, poverty, filt and disease. It was called "Mean City


Liverpool...death rate was 35 per 1,000...called "Most unhealthy city in England"


London had 2 names "The Big Smoke" and "Venice of Drains" due to bad air and overflowing sewers.


During the early to middle 1800's in Britain's urban areas ...ill health was like a war and killed more people every year than any military conflict Britain had ever been involved in. Can you imagine how many orphans there were? These children were mistreated and not properly fed. The Master of some of these poorhouses stole the food and monies that were meant for the poor. They were not given an education and many were given to Craftsmen to help and live with this person and to learn that craft. As we know from the Orphan Trains that went west in America....many were taken by farmers just to be free labor and I have no doubt that is also what happened to many of those English children.


What a terrible time to be an orphan in England...if that's where you were...
 
The clothes and cobblestones would be consistant with 1800s America. I would venture a guess at the New England area.


When you say the dress was grey and white, do you mean the underdress was white, and the pinafore grey? If the pinafore was printed in some way, you might be able to narrow down a date based on the pattern. Also, you could try looking for the bonnet, if you have an idea what it looked like.


Hope you are feeling better.
 
Hi Chris,


Glad to hear you are feeling better. How interesting. Yes, I agree with Florence, it could easily be both an orphanage and an asylum. On top of that, they used to call them 'Orphan Asylums' - which could easily lead to some confusion as to which was which. The word 'asylum' might sound right to you. 'Asylum' used to mean a safe place - a bit ironic though, eh, considering what used to go on? All those institutional buildings for 'the poor' were dreadfully austere and ugly back then and so was a lot of the treatment! Although I guess it was one step up from starving, which was pretty much the alternative back then if you had no relatives to take you in.


How nasty and frightening to be chased by people, probably in hob-nail boots, clanging down the stairs! No wonder it has stuck with you. I'd say it could easily be related to the same incident.


If you were wearing a dress and a bonnet that would rule out the sailor life wouldn't it? Or were you a female sailor? That would have been a bit unusual back in those days, but I remember you writing something about a sailing life a while ago, but can't remember if you might have been female?


It is interesting that most of your memories are childhood ones. Maybe somehow the children just resonate with you at the moment?
 
Chris, I find this most interesting, and I hope you'll have more memories soon to share with us curious-minded colleagues. :D


Tanguerra, Chris was indeed a female sailor - see his thread about it here. :thumbsup:


Karoliina
 
Blueheart said:
When you say the dress was grey and white, do you mean the underdress was white, and the pinafore grey? If the pinafore was printed in some way, you might be able to narrow down a date based on the pattern. Also, you could try looking for the bonnet, if you have an idea what it looked like.
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Yes there was a white dress underneath with dark grey pinafore over the top, but if there was a pattern, I don't recall it. I've tried Googling for pictures of bonnets, but none of them stood out, they all seemed to look equally familiar actually.


Thanks everyone for all the pieces of info, and ideas, they've given me something to think about, I never knew there was such a thing as 'orphan asylums', maybe that explains why it was so easy for me to leave that place.
 
Oh yes! Thanks Karolina. I remember that one now. A fascinating tale. It could be part of the same life, couldn't it Chris?


A poor orphan girl, with no honest means of support, could well decide that joining the navy was the way to survive? Particularly if she was an adventurous little thing who was not afraid to run away from the orphanage, or to sea?


Although that would put it in England, not the USA? What do you think? It would be hard to tell by the buildings, cobble stones, etc. alone, as they were much the same I would think, back then in USA and England.
 
I can't make a connection between this life and my sailor life tanguerra, but I guess it is possible. I felt that I was somewhere around 12 years old in this memory, and in my memories of the sailor life I was about 18, so a lot could have happened in between, but I agree it's possible.


I've been Googling orphan asylums and I have to say that some of the pictures I've found really look familiar to me, maybe I'll post a link to one or two pictures tomorrow. I'm planning to meditate on all of this tomorrow, I feel there's more to remember and it's just within reaching distance.
 
Wow, Chris. I didn't realize you had so many other memories besides Lisbet. I need to keep up more!


I also find it fascinating that you so often remember being a young girl. I believe sometimes we "repeat" lives - not literally, but in terms of being born again into similar circumstances because there is a lesson not learned or some opportunity not taken. A situation may be presented multiple times until we respond in a certain way, then we can move on. For instance, even though you remember often being a young girl, you are now an adult man. Something changed and you moved on. I'm curious as to what that might have been.


I may be way off there, since I'm speaking mainly from personal experience. :rolleyes: This is just the thought that came to my mind based on what you shared.
 
Hi Chris,


From what I'm reading the 1800's would have been a terrible time for almost anyone living in a larger city in England. It was the beginning of industry and people left the farms and were crowded into little back to back homes. Smoke was everywhere from burning coal and the water supply was filthy. This is hard to believe but the average life span of someone living in a settlement of 100,000 eople was 26 years!!! There was no protection from diseases so they died of Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, small pox, whooping cough and Typhod. If that was not bad enough....in 1832 Americans were dying of Cholera and it traveled across the ocean to England. People would develpe Cholera and be dead in 2 days.


If you lived anywhere around a larger town or city and I think you had to, because there would only be shelters for orphans in larger populations, you would have to remember such a hell hole. If you had a life in England where you went to sea, you sure can understand why. It would be the only place to have fresh air and to be able to stay away from disease.


I'm tracking an American family living during those same years. They lived in Delaware and then moved into Maryland (right next door) Cholera hit that area in 1832 and they lost 15 members in different branches of their family. I may have passed away at that time (as Marnie) because I find a young girl in the 1830 census but she is gone in 1840 when that census is taken. In those years in America only the Head of the Household is listed.


Women were property and only listed by free, white and their age. Delaware and Maryland were slave states until the 1860's.


Maybe your meditations will give you more information.....like a name ....your own or the name of a place


I dreamed of Dudley Barrester or Barrister in 1824.in Lancaster. He said he was "a man of the Church" (an expression I never would have used) I looked a little to see if I might just bump into him or find something about him on the net....but nothing....Interesting though....


I'm rambling.....so I'll shut up....Cheers
 
Today I meditatated and focussed on this life, I rarely have any success when I try to remember a certain lifetime, maybe I try too hard, but today I was in luck. I wrote this in my journal:

I'm in a large hall and there are several long wooden tables. There are approximately 12 girls seated at each table, all seated on long wooden benches. We're all dressed the same, dark grey pinafore over a white dress. Each girl has in front of her a wooden bowl and a wooden spoon. Me and another girl are helping the cook, a fat lady with abnormally red cheeks and sweat pouring down her face, she's holding a large 'cauldron' like container with ovenproof type mittens? covering on her hands. Me and the other girl each hold a large ladle, and we are serving from the large pot what looks like porridge to the rest of the girls. I hear a name, Eliza Beatty?? Cut forward and i'm sitting at the bench with the other girls now with my bowl of porridge, hands clasped together and we're all about to say grace before eating our meal, I hear a woman's voice, to start us off she says "We (beseech?, besiege??) thee o Lord" ........and then the rest of us repeat it and continue with the rest of the prayer, I can barely remember any more of the words
Fast forward and I'm in another room with several other girls, maybe 12-15 of us and we have been taking part in some form of physical exercise, except we've just finished and everybody is dispersing. Two girls approach me and one of them is smiling and talking to the other in a heavy accent, I'm certain it's French "you mean like this?" she says and then she punches me hard in the stomach. I double over, i'm winded and gasping for air, the girls walk away, I can hear them laughing to each other. A lady appears from nowhere and puts her arm around me and tries to straighten me up but I can't breathe, she leads me to a small room at the end of the hall, there's a bright beam of sunlight coming through a barred window, shining through the dust, we don't see any sunlight very often. The lady sits me down on a chair. I'm crying and slowly regaining my breath, I tell the lady it was an accident. I hate it here I have to get out of this place, I keep telling myself. Those girls keep bullying me and I hate them, tonight I'm planning to take my chances and leave this place.
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Yesterday I did a lot of Googling and many of the images I found had a look of familiarity about them, but two pictures stood out from the rest. This is a picture of an orphan asylum, I don't think it is the same one from my memories, but out of all the pictures I saw, this one looked the most familiar. And this picture struck a chord with me, it's a group of orphan girls and it reminded me of the scene in my memory where we are all in the large room exercising together. The outfits are also very similar except the grey and white were the other way round.
 
I wonder why they called it an asylum.
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'Ayslum' means a safe place. It was used for the 'insane' as well of course. It only came to be associated with a place of 'dread' later, because the reality of some of these institutions failed to live up to their high initial ideals which were to protect the weak and helpless of society (probably because of lack of official funds - same old story).


'We beseech thee...' is the response to 'The Litany' or "General Supplication, to be sung or said after Morning Prayer, upon Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and at other times when it shall be commanded by the Ordinary."


It could be this (or something similar) that you remember reciting.

We sinners do beseech thee to hear us, O Lord God; and that it may please thee to rule and govern thy holy Church universal in the right way;
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.


That it may please thee to keep and strengthen in the true worshipping of thee, in righteousness and holiness of life, thy Servant [the name of the King or Queen], our most gracious Sovereign and Governor;


We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord


..... etc
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I also found this one from Victorian times with a similar 'call and response' pattern, the Litany de Profundus. I am sure they would have thought it was very 'improving' to have children recite things like this back in those times:

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord, when darkness and sorrow are near us,


When blindly we grope thro' the dark, good Lord, we beseech Thee to hear us,


We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord, and send Thy Spirit to cheer us!


When Thy yoke is hardest to bear, good Lord, we beseech Thee to hear us.


Help us when we are falling, as we help others who fall!


By land and by sea preserve us, O Father, Maker of all!


Comfort the sick and the weary with tidings of hope and of peace,


All children, all women who labour that what Thou hast made may increase,


Open the gates to the captive, lift up the weak and forlorn,


Feed, too, the fatherless orphans, comfort the widows that mourn.


Have mercy, Father in Heaven, and send Thy spirit to cheer us,


We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!


Good Lord, we beseech Thee to hear us....
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Thanks for the comments, and thanks very much tanguerra for researching the prayer - :thumbsup:


I spent a lot of time researching that prayer myself last night with the help of a friend, who found this one, which I think could be the one I was remembering:


The eyes of all await upon thee, O Lord,


And thou givest them their food in due season.


Thou openest thy hand,


And fillest every living thing with thy blessing.


Sanctify us, we beseech thee, O Lord, by thy


word and our petition; and bless the gifts which


of thy bounty we are about to receive,


through Christ our Lord.


Amen.

​



The section highlighted in bold is the part that we recited before meals. My friend found this prayer and I immediately remembered that there was a 'sanctify' before "we beseech thee o Lord". I'm only 90% certain about the rest of it though, 'petition' doesn't feel right somehow, but maybe that word was replaced with another, the rest of it feels spot on though.


soulfreindly, I haven't made any connection between this life and the sailor life yet. There would have been at least a 6 year gap between those memories, so I guess it is possible. It did cross my mind for a second that the girl who was bullying me appeared to be French.....and the time when I was the sailor was during the time period when Britain was at war with France, but I think it might be a little far fetched to conclude that I would later disguise myself as a man and join the Navy to fight the French because of a childhood grudge, but it was a thought anyhow.
 
I'm bumping this thread up with some more recent memories of my past life in the orphan asylum ;) I'm not sure how the following recall fits in the timeline of what I've already remembered, whether it was before or after my attempt to escape:

There was a long narrow room flanked with beds, with a smaller room partitioned at the end. I'm sitting cross legged on my bed darning my woollen stockings. There's a little girl who has some kind of handicap that makes her head look too small for her body, and because of this and her appearance, a lot of the other girls seem to avoid her. Some of them are nasty to her and call her names like 'freak'. I'm curious about the little girl, I feel a bit sorry for her, but i'm also a little bit scared of her because she looks so different. She soon approaches my bed and takes my hand in hers, this makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but I don't want her to see that I feel repulsed by her touching me. Smiling, she's trying to speak to me but her words are so slurred that I can barely understand her. My fear of her dissolves in time because she seems so sweet with friendly eyes and she's always smiling and trying to make friends with everyone, but it's only the adults that ever give her any attention. One thing I do hear her talking about a lot is a Mister Merriweather? nearly every sentence she speaks has this name in it.
Next thing I find myself with the handicapped girl in the small partition room, and she's watching me make something out of straws, like a spiral weave that looks exactly like this. We've been sitting here like this for what seems like several hours and the weaving has become somewhat boring. There is a toy horse on wheels, the other girl is sitting on it's back and I push her out onto a semi circular shaped balcony. I know that this is the beginning of a special relationship, I'm beginning to feel protective of her and I can somehow relate to her loneliness, it was that feeling of isolation we had in common that seemed to draw us together.
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I always like reading through this thread. I have a fondness for orphans but perhaps it's from this life as a teacher of sorts/childcare. I love the amount of detail in those memories. Do you have more memories of the disabled girl? Do you think she's around again in this life?
 
Thanks for updating Chris! :thumbsup: I also find your memories of the orphanage asylum very intriguing. I'm curious, have you gotten any close to locating this place?


Do you know what happened to you after you escaped? :)
 
Hi Chris! Thanks for sharing! I too find this past life of yours quite intriguing!


In one of those strangely synchronous events, I started (re)reading an Agatha Christie novel last night - and came upon this bit, that instantly reminded me of your story:

Then came the first bald statement that it had been bought -- by a Mr. Owen. After that the rumours of the gossip writers had started. Indian Island had really been bought by Miss Gabrielle Turl, the Hollywood film star! She wanted to spend some months there free from all publicity! Busy Bee had hinted delicately that it was to be an abode for Royalty??! Mr. Merryweather had had it whispered to him that it had been bought for a honeymoon -- Young Lord L -- had surrendered to Cupid at last!
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The novel is Ten Little Niggers (or And Then There Were None, or Ten Little Indians in the US), and it was published in 1939. I did some research but references to this Mr Merryweather are vague and I couldn't be sure of anything, but I would guess he was some notorious gossip writer in those days?


Anyway - was anxious to let you know! :D


Keep us posted!
 
Thanks for your replies everyone :thumbsup:


alaskanlaughter, I don't have any further memories of the handicapped girl, that was the one and only memory of her so far, but I think I know who she is today, but only because I asked for information about somebody I know before I started meditating.


Sunniva, I don't know what happened to me after I escaped, or even if I succeeded in escaping for very long before the adults caught up with me and took me back to that place, I knew they were chasing me as I ran away. And to answer your other question, I think the asylum was located in England, in London somewhere, but that's just a feeling I get, no certain memories there.


W.A. Heart, interesting that you found that name in the book on the same day you saw my post, it can't be a very common name as I've never heard it before in my present life, and I was quite surprised to see it in your post.


Thanks again everyone :)


Chris
 
W.A. Heart, interesting that you found that name in the book on the same day you saw my post, it can't be a very common name as I've never heard it before in my present life, and I was quite surprised to see it in your post.
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I thought so too! :D - no, it's not a common name ;) .
 
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