I FOUGHT NAPOLEON IN A PAST
LIFE
by Thomas M. Sipos, managing editor.
[January 11, 2005]
 [WeeklyUniverse.com]
When I was a child, I may have had a vision of a past life.
As my vision occurred while
my family was living in Elmhurst, Queens, I would have been anywhere from
six to eight years old. I was sick at the time, lying in bed with
a fever. It was night and I lay in darkness, sweating and feeling
quite ill. But I was not asleep, for I felt too sick to sleep.
And as
I was tossing and turning, lying feverish in bed, I had a vision of myself
as a wounded, dying soldier, lying in a ditch amid other dead and dying
soldiers. A battle was being fought around me, a tumult of smoke
and canon and musket fire.
I had
this vision for perhaps a half hour, maybe several hours. It was
not a dream, for I was not asleep. On the contrary, I was aware of
being sick in bed, even as I lay dying on the battlefield. Sometimes
I was more "here," sometimes more "there," and often in both places at
once.
My uniform
consisted of a burgundy (or maroon) tunic and pants, black boots, and a
round kepi-like cap. The tunic had a high collar, and white cross
straps carrying pouches or bandoliers. My musket had a bayonet. The enemy wore similar uniforms, except in blue rather than burgundy.
I knew
the nations fighting this battle were Franconia and Prussionia. I
was a Prussionian. Names that sound similar to France and Prussia,
which in 1870 fought the Franco-Prussian
War. Perhaps my memory of the names had been blurred across lives?
It might
have been a fantasy or feverish half-dream -- except that I can't explain
where I, being six-to-eight years old, would have heard of the Franco-Prussian
War, or of anything that would have put the words Prussionia and Franconia into my head. Not from my parents, who spoke
Hungarian at home. Nor from radio, or TV (this was before cable and
The History Channel), or school.
Curiously,
I didn't find this vision odd at the time, it was just something I accepted
and recalled every now and then.
For several years afterward, I doodled
battle scenes with combatants wearing similar uniforms (much like Richard
Dreyfuss drawing the mountain in Close
Encounters of the Third Kind?), except that I drew Prussionians
as foxes and Franconians as rabbits.
As a child, I was attracted
to Stratego and RISK,
though at the time it didn't occur to me that some of their uniforms seemed
similar (not identical) to those in my vision. I didn't own the games
before my vision, but I may have already seen Stratego's TV
commercials.
It wasn't
until I was 19, a student at NYU, that I reflected on this vision and for
the first time wondered: How at that early age would I have heard of the Franco-Prussian
War? It was then, over a decade after my vision, that it first
occurred to me that I may have had a past-life vision.
I recalled
seeing a cartoon at an early age featuring flying ace dogs in a World War
One type setting. I didn't know the title of that cartoon, but for
many years I wondered if those cartoon dogs had fought for Franconia and Prussionia. I eventually tracked down that obscure film
-- The
Red Baron -- and no, those names do not appear in the film.
I also
came to realize that I'd always assumed that my vision was from the Franco-
Prussian War. But upon researching the uniforms of that era,
I discovered that in some ways, the uniforms in my vision were more similar
to those of the Napoleonic era. Though not in other ways.
I have
yet to identify the nations or war in my vision, not having found any photos
or drawings of uniforms that are identical to those in my vision. But unless I can explain how the words Franconia and Prussionia came into my mind at such an early age, I'm forced to consider the possibility
that they are a memory, however jumbled, of a past life.
And if
I've lived past lives -- so have YOU!
| Thoms M. Sipos
is managing editor of the Weekly Universe. This article is the first
to describe one of his three paranormal experiences. |
Copyright 2005 by WeeklyUniverse.com
|
