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Reincarnation

Dreams of reincarnation, transmigration, past lives, pre-birth memories, karma and pastlife traumas. I write this matter-of-factly, but my dreams struggled years to get me to take this stuff seriously. I was raised as a scientific materialist, and my knee-jerk reaction was to treat such dreams symbolically even if they explicitly said "No, we mean it literally"... It was actually easier to accept psychic dreaming than pastlife stuff--ESP in America is solid and respectable compared to reincarnation. A fringe science, but a science... versus froofy cultism. I'm tellin' ya, we don't get no respect! (And yet, serious research has been done on claims of pastlife memories, mostly by Ian Stevenson; his books of case histories are fascinating, and he shows an admirable caution in both data collection and theorizing. I recommend his books.)

Just don't go overboard with your skepticism until you've studied the evidence, that's all I'm saying. Occam's Razor applies! (Occam: "If many theories all fit your data, go with the simplest"). When your dreams TELL you something's literal, not symbolic, it's worth listening, that's all. No matter how many so-called friends make fun of you, no matter what some experts somewhere write... your own experiences are the primary source. Experts and theorists are secondary.

A few dreams here are of the rebirth of whole communities, civilization... worlds. If enough of these accumulate I'll split off a new subject list for them, but for now...

RELATED TOPICS: revenants (visits from dead loved ones) - memory - souls - astral dreams - healing from abuse - Hinduism - Buddhism - Shamanism - Paganism and Wicca - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


AFTER BIRTH: by Wayan, 2004/9/29, astral acrylic painting
Never mind an afterlife! What if, before life, we were spirits with no idea what happens after birth?...
AFTER THE FLOOD & THE PIG-EARED BABY ALLIGATOR: by Skiznot; c.1995, an oracular dream
My hometown floods. I swim after some strange fish and find
a scientific community where a scaled baby tells me who I am...
ANIMAL HEAVEN: by Wayan; 2008/8/16, an astral dream-poem; Dreamverse #6.
At a party in Animal Heaven, I fall for a rabbit-girl doomed to be human dinner.
But how can I rescue her? I'm Fate's part-time intern!
CAUTION: BREASTS, BEASTS, INCOMPETENT ANGEL OF DEATH
APOCALYPSE OF THE MOON: by Carl Linkhart, 1997 or before; dream poem/painting
The far future. The moon falls to Earth. But then... the moon unfalls!
Golden light nurtures a rebirth of our dying ecology & civilization...
BELLE OF THE BALL: by Bonnie; 2006/5/2, a sexy ghost dream
I’ll win a house if I can survive a night in the Haunted Pavilion! But it turns out I’ve been here before--before I was born...
CAUTION: GHOST ORGY
BIRD ASSASSIN: by Adam Shaw, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a no-kindness-goes-unpunished dream
I'm a giant cartoon bird. I had to assassinate a friend--twelve times!
Eleven times I killed him, but I spared him the twelfth. He said...
THE BLOOD OF CHRIST (BUT, MOM!): by Anna Kingsford; 1879/10/17, a doctrinal dream gets personal
I say Christ’s “blood” is a metaphor for “spiritual perfection.” My mom says "You're killing me; please repent"...
BODY-SWITCH: by Wayan; 2000/6/10; a dream of a castaway soul
Spies kidnap a girl and move her soul into a madwoman's body.
Can she survive? Recover? Thrive? The TV dance show helps...
BOYS DON'T CRY: by Wayan; 2000/1/7, twin sex nightmares reacting to a movie seen two days later!
DREAM 1: My date Lana changes to my housemate Alder to my dead friend Beryl, who talks of pastlife trauma...
DREAM 2: Sexy deer-girls and ice dancers get me and my sister hot, but a ghost disrupts impending incest...
TWO DAYS LATER: I see Boys Don't Cry--settings, situations, characters & even names from my dream!
CAUTION: DEER BREASTS, NEAR-INCEST, FILM ON TRANNYCIDE
CHART THE GROWTH: by Brenda Ferrimani; 2004, painting of an incubated, oracular dream
I asked my dreams "What's my truest purpose?"
I dreamed my body was a tree, and a voice said "Chart the growth"...
COMING TO THE JUMPING OFF PLACE: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 92/5/1, painting of an escape dream
Trapped on an island, spied on and controlled, we decide to jump off
a cliff and die; but as we jump, a spirit sneaks us off be reborn...
CORPSE-BUG: by Wayan; 1994/12/1, an allegorical sex nightmare.
I'm a hippie girl in San Francisco, in hard times. To escape the Four Horsemen, I lie down with Death...
CAUTION: GANGS, CREEPY SEX
THE CRANE SPOKE: by Thomas Takashi Tanemori; 1945/8/5, a child's dream foreseeing Hiroshima
A crane came and spoke to me, reassuring me "I'll be back" even as a great fire burned it. It returned
as a white butterfly. Next morning, as we played hide and go seek, I shut my eyes and counted to...
CAUTION: CIVILIANS MASSACRED
CREATURE BECOMES CREATOR: by Wayan; 2015/2/5, three linked advisory dreams on world trends
A weird little forest god bred me from an ordinary deer into a creature who can
almost pass for human. But World War 2 killed my god, and now I'm growing into...
CAUTION: NUDITY, CROSSBREEDING
CROSS THE BLACK RIVER ONE DEATH AT A TIME: by Wayan; 1990? Astral landscape
Buddhism is a 12-step program; it has its pitfalls for those of us who already detach all too easily...
CYCLES AGO: dream by Maud Gonne, poem by WB Yeats; late July 1891, a dream-poem
We were as if brother and sister of old in the desert land;
they sold us in slavery together before this life had begun...
DAMOCLES LODGE: by Wayan; 1998/12/22, a dream on what hangs over us.
I meet a nice werewolf in a hall of past-life junk, so sharp and rusty we dare not play...
DON'T WANT HIM TO SOAR: by Wayan; 1991/4/18, a dream of sabotage.
In a parallel world, a visionary's building the first plane only now. I'm his assistant. But I don't WANT...
DOPPELBRUDER: by Wayan; 1985/5/9, a dream of a self at war over... labels?
Lured to a parallel, feudal world by a marriage-vow, I'm trapped in my double's arrogant, twisted mind...
EEL TOWER: by Wayan; 1981/4/23, a dream of longing.
I dreamed living in a body of flesh is like being trapped on a sinking cruise ship...
CAUTION: NUDITY (but she's just crying, not giving that guy a blowjob, okay?)
THE EGG CRACKS: by Carl Jung, 1914/1/10-1917/2/4; meditation-images
A green monster guards the divine egg; with the right prayer, it
explodes in a fountain of mad color, half grenade, half freed jinni...
EMADRO: by Wayan; 1983/6/4, a wild dream on clinging--and letting go.
An elephant sinks in the North Sea, and the Oracle Mink says a wizard did it. Can old Lady Gandalf help?
EMISSARY: by Wayan; 2000/3/22, an astral dreamtale.
I signed a prenatal agreement for weird, uneven luck to turn my life toward art and spirit.
I want to broaden it, but I've lost the contract! So my spirit wife Silky sets out to find it...
FALADA: The Goose Girl's Best Friend: by Mardi Storm, recurring predictive dreams c.1975-79, sculpted c.2000
I had recurring dreams in which a talking horse’s head was nailed to a tree.
Strangely, this was before I read "The Goose Girl" in Grimm's fairytales...
CAUTION: GRIMM ALL AROUND
FATHER LOOMS: by Wayan; 1983/?, a nonliteral diagnostic nightmare.
I was a 30ish woman discovering that my chronic pelvic inflammation was from childhood molestation...
CAUTION: MOLESTATION IN DREAM-PAST
FIRE-CATS: by Wayan; 1981/10/10; twin dream-poems on over-discipline
For mere disobedience, I EXECUTE a forest-fire-fighting cat! So next
I'm trapped in a security-obsessed job; how do I like it? I flee...
(MY) GLASS BODY: by Wayan; 1993/9/16, a dream on sensitivity.
After I visit the crystalline people, a young diamond-wizard
stalks me all the way to my home in the Meat World, and says...
HEAD ON MY TABLE: by Lauren Watley; 2011/2/16, a creepy dream-image with depth
After a day of troubling conflicts over race & art, I dream I'm handed a hot, heavy, mossy head--is it art, or alive?
THE HEIDEGGARIAN BARBARIAN: by Jo, 2007/02/02, a dream of hopping between two characters
I was two-thirds of a love triangle, but I always lost out. Flying was some consolation...
CAUTION: RAT DEATH, EVIL WHALES AND ADULTERY
HER FIRST INCARNATION: by Wayan; 1983/11/10, a dream of a surreal shamanic duel
Forced into a duel, I let my spirit fight for me using Boomerang Blades. But my
enemy becomes giant floating sticky lips! My spirit finds incarnation confusing...
HOBBIT ERUPTIONS: by Wayan, 1990/12/31, a counterfictional dream poem
I contemplate Bilbo taunting Smaug, then Frodo, Sam and Gollum triggering Mt Doom to erupt,
but next I "remember" other fiery catastrophes and "realize" hobbits are always causing...
HUNTERS' FIRE: by Wayan; 1987/9/8, a nightmare that may be a memory.
I'm an orphan shot at by hunters. They shoot my sister! But no one believes me...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE
I AM THREE: by Wayan; 1956-58, my three earliest dreams.
My first memory is of being a wild horse and waking up to find I was suddenly a human child...
INCREMENTAL HEAVENS: by Wayan; 2016/9/5, a reincarnation-frustration dream, baffling then. Not now.
I keep getting reincarnated in dull heavens where all is blocked by know-nothings. After the 2016 election...
CAUTION: CAUSTIC
THE ISLAND FURIES: by Wayan; summer 1975, a dream of self-control.
When warring Greek isles kill a peacemaker, her three best friends start a vendetta! But she wanted peace...
CAUTION: HATE NURSED TOO LONG
JADE JACKPOT, or, A HEAP O' CHANGE: by Wayan; 1990/1/7, a dream of shaking down God.
I'm slipping dimes into a boulder of jade: a vending machine that fills every order wrong. Why feed it? Well...
THE LABORATORY UNDERGROUND: by Anna Kingsford; 1880/2/2; an animal-rights nightmare.
I find myself in a vault with tables where half-dissected animals writhe. Hidden in each was a human shape...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
THE LAST WORD: by Larry Vigon; 2001/12/5; a wistful apocalyptic dream
A huge explosion knocked the earth off its orbit; it struck other planets and wrecked the whole
solar system. Where will the souls ready to reincarnate all go? Or do they even need a planet?...
THE LAUGHING GIRL: by Gordon Wagner, c.1977; a strong anima helps heal a trauma
I was one of just three to survive a roller coaster crash. I dreamed of a playful, laughing girl who drove off a cliff.
Dead, she lay on a bier in a surreal cemetery. But she woke and looked at photos of her old self with curiosity...
THE LEOPARD'S CLUE: by Wayan; 2012/3/17, an incubated advisory dream.
My boyfriend, a leopard, sniffs out a clue to an old murder involving me in a past life. But did I witness, die, or kill?
LIFE MATES: by Katie Hofgard; 2003/4/19?, a reincarnation-romance dream
Mysterious doings on an archeological dig bring a creature back to life, but this is no Mummy...
LOVE OF MY LIVES: by James Lyon; 2014/5/25, a life-spanning dream.
I live two complete lives with the same woman in my dreams, then wake up next to her...
THE MAN IN BLACK: by Florita Thesiger, 1930s, recurring genderbent pastlife dreams
Each time, I'm a young Elizabethan man in a grand, new-built country house. In the main room,
I find a man in black by the fire. He comes at me, and as he shoots me point-blank, I wake...
A MAREOTIC QUARREL: by Wayan, 2018/10/10; a dreamlet about truth & experts
My friend Lily misuses the word 'Mareotic'; I know, because I once saw it in a Yeats poem, thought
the footnote explaining it was fishy, checked it myself, and found the editors hadn't even bothered to...
MIDORI'S DREAM: by Midori Yamane, as told and drawn by her friend Igort, 2015.
I see a shop in Kyoto in the early 1900s. The old woman running it is calm,
with precise movements and sure hands. A voice says "That lady is Igort"...
MONK: by Anonymous #2323; 1945-1991 (at least); a recurrent dream of a past life
All my life, from age three or four, I've dreamed of being a young monk named Stefan
somewhere in southern Europe. And aspects of his short life have shaped my own...
CAUTION: SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
THE MOOMIN COMMISSIONERS OF TIME: by Wayan; 2008/9/17, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #27
A new Eve asks the Time Commission to send her and her baby back to Ethiopia
45,000 years ago. But they're shy Moomintrolls, not humans...
MOON-STRIPED TIGER PROWLING: by Sylvia Rosen, 1975/6/29; dream poem
The foul old fossil woman had carved and burnt her own flesh in the name of art;
we washed her till she was reborn young. It was my turn next to enter the water...
THE MOUNTAIN, THE MAGPIE AND THE ROAD: dreamed 2013/3/26 by Rustling Leaves; epic nightmare
I visit a beautiful artificial mountain with loved ones--but my demons overwhelm me one by one.
CAUTION: SUICIDAL FEELINGS, BODY HATE/FATPHOBIA, IMPLIED RAPE
MY TREE: by Wayan; 170K, 12/12/2007, 2-page comic of a persistent delusion.
I keep feeling I'm a reincarnated rainforest creature just passing for human. When all I want is...
CAUTION: TOBACCO
MYSTERY BETWEEN: by Wayan; 1985/9/27, crayon and acrylic drawing on dreamnesia.
Okay, you got your heaven, and your earth, and between, you got...
CAUTION: MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
NAMED: by Kathleen Raine, between 1981 & '87; a mystical dream poem
A voice calls to me by name--but not the name I now bear, evoking memories of another life...
NEW BODIES: by Dreamy; around 2007/1/25, a transformation dream
My best friend and I qualify for new bodies. The new me is taller, but poor Ken may take years adjusting to his new...
THE NEW DALAI LAMA: by Wayan; 2011/9/9; a prescriptive AND predictive dream.
I dream the new Dalai Lama's a kind woman who gives me startling health advice
AND shows me how to fly. The next day...
THE OLD YOUNG MAN: by Anna Kingsford; 1880/2/21, a dream of a step-in soul
Malaria nearly kills a talented young artist; he must retrain from scratch. Why? Well, he's not exactly himself...
ORPHEUS AND POOH: by Wayan; 1972/4/9, a dream echoing Cocteau's film Orphee--before seeing it
I meet my true love during a coup. We go through Hell together, like Orpheus and Eurydice--only we...
THE OTHER LAND: by Walter de la Mare, c.1881-4; an episodic or "installment" dream series
Age 7 to 11, I often dreamt I inhabited a consistent geography of mountains & deserts. I was an adult of dark
complexion in non-European clothes; I spoke a tongue (and read a script) that I didn't recognize when awake...
CAUTION: ADULT DRUG EXPERIMENT; PAST LIFE MEMORY?
PASTLIFE MIDDEN: by Wayan; 1998/12/28, a past-life dream.
I bike deep into Time Hall, barging through security gates of amnesia, to climb the midden of the past...
PASTLIFE TRAINING TRACKS: by Wayan; 1981/5/5, a bikin' buddha dream.
I'm biking around a railroad switch-yard. Slowly realize
they're life-paths. People start following me out...
PHARAOH HOOKS: by Wayan; 1989/7/31, a deadpan joke of a dream.
My sister and her friend the snake-woman tell me the facts of life: the golden hooks, the piglets...
CAUTION: UNRELIABLE GYNECOLOGY
PINHEAD HEAVEN: by Wayan; 2013/7/12, an absurd dream-poem
I'm in heaven. But... what can you do up here? And it's so small. Where is everyone?...
CAUTION: WE FIND OUT
POLYGON DREAMS: by Wayan; 2007/4/23, a 32-page comic on the effects of shapes
What if comics panels and layouts weren't so square? I try triangles,
pentagons, hexagons, circles, spirals--and some serious stuff pops out...
CAUTION: IDEAS, OCCASIONAL NUDITY, MENTIONS ABUSE
REBORN AS A CAT: by Lady Sarashina's sister, April or May 1022, a dream of a friend's past life
Sarashina adopts a stray cat with oddly refined manners. Her sister dreams the cat tells of her
last life, as the daughter of a high official. The cat does seem to understand human speech...
REBORN IMMORTAL: by Reneta Scian; 2010/1/3, a three-stage flying dream
First I try to break the sound barrier like my girlfriend. Nope!
Then I fly slowly to her apartment. Nothing flashy, but I make it.
Last, I zoom back to ancient China, where I find a candle-lit shrine dedicated to... me?
RED LIGHT by Nancy Price; 1948, a predictive dream of the past!
I'm in my home town, but at two times at once! Murderous boys explain why: I died here in 1861...
REINCARNATION, or, SUPPOSE: by Wayan; 2015/7/10, an undream poem
These days I'm doubtful about both an afterlife AND utter extinction.
Was Shakespeare wrong about what gets buried, what lives on?
THE RICH WRECK THE WELL: by Jim Shaw; between 1987 & Jan. 1995, a dream of Heaven
A movie version of heaven. Souls line up for rejuvenation from a great
fountain. But fat old rich guys crash the line, demanding to be first...
CAUTION: UGLY NUDITY, UGLY BEHAVIOR, POLITICALLY PREDICTIVE
SATURN BEACH: by Wayan; 1990/4/18, a playful advisory dream
Sunbathing on Saturn's rings with a girl who's preparing for reincarnation--like me.
She's cute, but she chucks litter in the Bay of Rebirth. Maybe not Ms. Right, then...
SERAFINA AND RAM DASS: by Wayan; a 2000/11/6 dream anticipating an 11/9 experience with auras
A Finnish shaman/witch gives me a lesson in night flying; in the waking world
I meet Ram Dass and sense him speak astrally before his body can get the words out...
CAUTION: HIGH MYSTICAL QUOTIENT; IF ALLERGIC, AVOID
SHOUT IN A CROWD, or, How to Survey Galactic Civilization: by Wayan; dreamed 2014/4/15,
a dream exposing what my brain's up to when I forget my dreams!
I wander the galaxy in my dreams, finding and testing crowds to see if anyone reacts
to the sound of shouted English or Chinese. One in a thousand does! This implies...
CAUTION: SCIENCE AND SHAMANISM DON'T MIX (or do they?)
SINK JOHN: by Wayan; 1981/5/25, a dreamtale on "when in Rome..."
My friend sleeps with an alien. He's ugly, but I don't care. What bothers me is, he eats bits of himself...
CAUTION: SEX, RECREATIONAL CANNIBALISM, PROSTITUTION, THE KITCHEN SINK
SKINK WEDDING: by Wayan; 2018/3/9, an out-of-lizard-body dream poem
I get assigned a life as a skink. Eat flies, mate, do my lizard pushups, but
behind my daily mind, my soul gets so bored it finally flies out...
SOULS IN THE MUD: by Wayan; 1981/1/14, a thoughtful dream.
I'm being hunted in Reincarnation Swamp, as I worry--the human population boom
means experienced souls are scarce. Are most folks you meet really dogs, cats... rats?
CAUTION: MYSTIC ELITISM
SPEAKING FERN: by Wayan; 1991/3/25, a dream-prank.
A dead fern in my backyard starts sending me messages in some strange language...
STARGIRL: by Wayan; 1993. Digital image of altered state
I squabble with my body so much! But now & then, in orgasm, we dissolve into stars and become...
CAUTION: SEX POETRY
STICK IT BACK ON: by Wayan; 1980/7/15, a scattered dream still hiding a point.
The tollman on the new bridge to the Land of the Dead revives a beheaded woman by RANDOM action...
THE STUTTER: by Wayan; 1995/9/7, a religious dreamtale.
Half our religion-founders were just one guy, repeating till he got it right. Practice makes perfect!
SWALLOWS OF FOUR CORNERS: by Wayan, (Aug?) 1971, a childhood visionary feltpen drawing
Navaho country felt like home--the land, the art, the animals, the language. Trapped in suburbia, I drew...
THE TEMPLE COAT: by Gayle Delaney, fall 1972, a pastlife dream
A ship-captain insisted some castoff clothes were mine. They fit. As I put on an elegant coat,
I recalled it was made in a past life to disguise me so I could enter a temple excluding women...
THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME: by Wayan; 1989/10/4, an unbelievable dream with 15 illus.
My dog and I are abducted by aliens who turn us into cats. We escape & go feral to survive.
How we got back, and what happened along the way, even my own shrink refuses to believe...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUID AND KLEPTOMANIAC BUGS
TIBETAN DISASSEMBLY: by Wayan; 2007/7/5, a dream of a desperate ploy
A woman in Tibet disassembles herself! A local god hires her spirit,
but she uses the office equipment to backup her memories and...
CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME
THE TORTURER: by Wayan; 1997/7/13, a predictive nightmare
A free-lance torturer chooses me for his victim. He has the right. I bluster, but when I fall asleep at last...
CAUTION: NO PAIN, BUT GORE
MY TUTELARY UNCLE: by Wayan; 1993/5/28, a shamanic dream.
I'm half Anglo, half Kwakiutl. My uncle the shaman died,
but he still wants to teach me his medicine...
VIEWPOINT: by Wayan; 1991/6/9, a dream on pastlife amnesia.
I ask to see my past lives, and dream of a viewpoint where I can--but this Mormon ranger...
VIRGINIA'S TRAIN: by Emily Joy; 2005/9/24, a psychic dream and poem
We lose control of our new time machine, which seems to have its own agenda...
CAUTION: CONTEMPLATION OF SUICIDE, CHRONOLOGICALLY IMPAIRED DREAMER
THE WHEEL by Nancy Price; 1948, an early, intense dream of Future Shock.
Lost in an industrial maze, my memories hopelessly outdated, I resign myself to the Wheel...
WHOSE DREAM WAS IT?: by Wayan; 2008/10/18, a nested-dream poem, Dreamverse #35.
I'm a Chinese kid fleeing the Japanese Occupation in 1938. As we near San Francisco,
I wake to find it's all my dad's dream. Wait--he's alive again? But he was never a refugee.
Is it a pastlife memory? If so, whose--his or mine?
ZYGOTE: by Wayan; 1999, a comic astral vision.
It's true: after death, angels advise you where to go next.
But what if you get an over-eager travel agent?



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