INTRODUCTION
One morning in May 2005 as I was driving on my seventeen-mile trek to work, I decided to put a meditation CD into my player. The cover of the CD had a warning advising that you should not drive while listening to the meditation. I blatantly ignored the warning and pushed play. The road was not well traveled. I could quickly hit the stop button if I needed to. I couldn’t see any problems with doing this. I found it to have beautiful and soothing music with nice calming words. My mind began to wander and imagery from different historical periods began to flood my thoughts. I thought about the wagon wheels, the highway road, the horses, the steering wheel, the covered wagons, the highway signs, and my car on the road traveling on the road.
Barely fifteen minutes into the CD, I felt a level of clarity that I had never experienced before. I became super aware of my driving and the wheels of a stagecoach all at the same time. I could see a version of myself meeting a woman, marry, raise children, and much more. The freeway exit caught my attention. It jolted me back to the subject of my work, my car, and the highway. As quickly as I had shifted into an expanded focus of hyper-awareness, my focus had shifted to an awareness of my job. My job was not very pleasant, so just the thought of going into work was not much different than slapping me across my face. I realized that what I had just experienced had characteristics similar to a waking dream. There was so much information in it. It had the qualities of a holographic image where you could see an infinite number of perspectives. If I focused on the wagon, I could discern the minutest of details about the wagon. It seemed that I could look at any aspect of the scene and know many intimate details. If I focused on the other version of myself in the dream, I knew all about that man. When I focused on the woman, I could see that she was my wife in the dream, what she looked like, how she moved, and even her mannerisms. It was quite odd. No matter where I focused, I knew all about the story – this story.
When I got to work, I scribbled some notes and then tried to focus on my job. When I got home, I wrote down as much detail as I could remember. As I fell asleep that night, I wondered if I had dreamt about my past life. There was so much information. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what happened next since the story had seemed to end abruptly. I had a feeling that the story had a tragic ending, but I wasn’t sure. I had plenty to think about as I drifted off to sleep.
A couple of months later (July 2005), I was taking a road trip to San Antonio with my brother’s family. I had just completed six hours of driving and pulled over for a short break. It was my brother’s turn to drive, so I went over to the passenger side and made myself comfortable as my brother took over the task of driving. I started to doze off, and what seemed to be an instant later I was in a waking dream. I saw the second half of the story unfold in the same holographic manner as the first half had done two months earlier. However, this time, I saw the tragic ending. It was unsettling, to say the least. I woke up with a start and told my brother. I could tell that he was less than impressed. He was in his rhythmic driving pattern, probably thinking about his life questions (mostly finance, I’m sure). I probably startled him, and he figured I was making a big deal about a silly dream. I don’t blame him. Nevertheless, to me, it was a phenomenal, multidimensional holographic dream.
When we arrived in San Antonio, I documented my experience. Once I committed these happenings to paper, then the wagon wheels and horses that seemed to dominate my imaginings had vanished. This blew me away. Could this be for real? It was as if these imaginings had been trying to get my attention for years. I began to see connections in that story to this life. At times, the connections seemed to have far-reaching implications that were impossible for me to ignore. The son from that story in the 1800’s is the same person as a close friend from whom I’ve been estranged for the last thirty years. I even recognized myself as the father. That life and this life - my life were inexplicably intertwined.
What follows is a narrative of that story that I once lived. It was the life that has profoundly affected this life.