I died when I was 50. It was of a broken heart.

Several years earlier I had watched my husband board a huge wooden ship, laden with cargo. The air was charged with hope and promise. The sun was hot on my back as I waved him away on his voyage to another land.

Now, I was back on the same dock, at night, weeping for my love who had never returned.

But the tears I actually wiped away were from a comfortable couch in Bournemouth.

I was undergoing past life regression with trained therapist Oscar Villegas.

He had taken me into a state of hypnosis, and was using a visualisation process to show me previous lives by accessing normally hidden memories within my subconscious mind.

Many people are choosing to do this to try to make sense of their lives today. They may have certain fears or phobias which some believe stem from a trauma in a past life.

Before I entered the home of the international clairvoyant and medium, I had my doubts.

For starters, I don’t like the idea of anyone or anything ‘messing with my mind’. I’d always shied away from hypnosis and even don’t particularly enjoy being drunk.

What if I was a nasty person? Or did really horrible things in a previous incarnation? Also I wondered if the whole thing was a bit far-fetched. I mean past lives? Really?

But I couldn’t argue with the scenes that were unfolding in front of my eyes.

After a period of deep relaxation and asking me to visualise being inside a crystal-encrusted cave, Oscar first asked me to open a door and describe what I saw.

“It’s a street, full of people,” I related.

“I have a child with me and I’m surrounded by panic.”

A great grey slab of a bridge loomed over me, with uniformed soldiers with long rifles shooting down at the terrified crowds.

“What year is it?” Oscar asked.

“Something like 1843.” I answered.

“Where are you?”

“France.”

My pale striped dress had three quarter length sleeves with bows at the elbow and I had the feeling my husband had recently been killed.

But I knew that if I were just to get under the bridge with my child I would be safe and I would live.

As I dodged the bullets and eventually crouched into the bridge’s damp blackness, Oscar asked me how I was feeling.

“Relief!”

“What have you learned?” he said.

“To trust my instincts.”

“Do you want to stay here or move to another life?”

“I want to move on please.”

So there I was, back in the cave, in front of another door, ready to push open. The door which opened onto the dock where I was saying goodbye to my husband. The man I saw was the man I am married to now, though his name was Sven and my name was Ingrid. My parents’ names were Toren and something like Aganen. I was 32 and the ship was a Viking longboat.

The sun was beating down and I was definitely in a hot country (though this puzzled me as I always associated the Vikings with cold countries).

Hot tears poured down my cheeks as I explained to Oscar that my husband didn’t return. I didn’t want to stay here so he gently ushered me into my next past life.

Back into the cave. Another door opened. I saw row upon row of train doors and windows. I was a man: a guard on this great green train.

“What is your name?” said Oscar.

“Harold.”

“What year is it?”

“1920.”

“How old are you?”

“22”

“What country are you in?”

“The USA.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure but the train is travelling from south to north.”

“What about your family?”

“I’ve left home for a life of adventure.”

“What do you smell?”

“Tobacco smoke.”

“What do you see?”

I went on to explain how many rich people were on board, with fine clothes and stacks of luggage. I had the sense, however, that something was banned. I watched money surreptitiously changing hands. Underhand dealings were afoot. The sun was out, and I was happy, but I was keen to move to another life.

Again, the sun shone brightly on the next scene – the sweeping plains of Montana with a line of mountains in the background.

The year was 1880 and different coloured horses were running wild and free. I was a seven-year-old girl living on a small homestead with my parents who had moved there from Europe. I had plaits in loops and pinned to my head, and I wore a grey pinafore dress.

A Native American man would sometimes come onto our land and keep me company as I was an only child. As I told Oscar this, the tears flowed again.

“My family are cruel to him,” I sobbed.

“But he’s kind to me. He fixed my doll!”

“What is his name?”

“Bull.”

“What does he look like?”

“Very long black hair, pale buckskin trousers.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure what became of my parents but he adopted me into his tribe. I didn’t marry but I grew old with the tribe.”

“What happened to Bull?”

“The white people killed him. But I still see his spirit.”

“Did you dress like them?”

“Yes. And I taught the children how to make dolls.”

The last memory I was left with was me as an old lady with long grey plaits, surrounded by dozens of beautiful Native American children sitting at my feet watching me sew.

“Do you want to leave?” Oscar asked gently.

I was so happy that I wasn’t in a hurry to leave but I had one more question.

“Why on earth have they accepted me?” (a white person in a Native American tribe).

“Because you were a small child when you joined them and they love you.”

Coming back ‘into the room’, I struggled to make sense of it all.

Although open minded, I couldn’t help clinging to a scepticism. Was I just relating scenes from films? Had anything been planted in my subconscious?

Back at my computer I did a little research. I couldn’t find any evidence of any unrest in 1843 but there was a revolution in France in 1848, with pictures of the time depicting crowded streets with soldiers wearing identical uniforms.

I also learned that 1920 was the start of prohibition in the USA and that money would have changed hands for illegal booty.

The conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers are well documented, with the indigenous tribes decimated and lands over-run. Today I can’t read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as I can’t bear the injustice of what happened in the past. White children being brought up with native tribes wasn’t unheard of, and they were less likely to try to escape than Indian children captured by whites.

I was confused about the Viking boat being moored in a hot country but research told me that Vikings visited and settled in parts of the Mediterranean and North Africa.

A DNA test my brother took revealed my family indeed descended from Vikings, and my husband’s name today is Steven (a coincidence that in a past life it was Sven?)

On that dock in the sunshine, Oscar had asked me how I felt about Sven going off on his voyage.

“Oh fine,” I’d replied.

“As I know I’m going to see him again.”

  • oscar-clairvoyant.com