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Lights
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My Story
Since my story is kind of convoluted I thought I would put it here to keep other forums free. 
I realised a few months ago that Titanic has been with me from a relatively early age. My first experience happened when I was eight years old. I was on the playground at recess and we were all singing "They Built the Ship TITANIC". Suddenly, I saw an enormous ocean liner, sailing under a sky that seemed filled with literally hundreds of thousands of stars ( at this point, I had never seen an ocean liner, yet I somehow "knew" that was what it was) Then, as the song progressed, other, far less pleasant images appeared: people locked below, trying to get out, the panic on deck, this ship skinking slowly by what I realised later was the bow... By this point, I felt very uneasy, so I went to a quiet corner of the playground so as to be alone and think about what I had seen. (For what it is worth, this happened in April of 1962, right about the time of the fiftieth anniversary of TITANIC's sinking.
When I was thirteen, my parents took me across Lake Michigan on an interlake ferry from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Ludington, Michigan. This was a fairly large veseel, with space belowdecks for cars and even cabins for those making a crossing at night.
Since this was a daylight crossing, my father aske me if I would like to take a walk on deck, an idea to which I gladly gave my assent. As we walked along one of the promenades, for a few moments, I found myself walking alone, along another, entirely different promenade (the ferry we were travelling on had, strangely enough, come into service in 1912). The experience did not frighten me at all, even though I had never experienced anything quite like it before in my life....in fact I found it natural...and as I walked along that other promenade, I became certain that I had done precisely this sort of thing on another ship and in another time...(thirty-two years would pass before I saw that promenade again...It was Titanic's portside A-Deck Promenanade looking aft. Let me tell you, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that!)
At the age of fourteen, I began to have dreams of being aboard what later turned out to have been a large clipper ship. The sky was a dark, stormy gray, the wind howling through the riggings. The ocean had mountainous waves...walls of grey-green water over which we struggled, only to go down into the trough between waves, and although I couldn't feel temperature, from the ice on the shrouds and on the deck, I surmised it was very cold. Two years would pass before I saw a picture of a ship resembling the ship in my dreams, and another year before I would read about the weather down round the Horn (Cape Horn).
Last edited by Lights, Nov/30/2005, 9:42 pm
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"What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, 'I love you.'"
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Jul/18/2004, 4:17 pm
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EMAILLights
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Lights
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Re: My Story
Two years or so later, my parents let me stay up late to watch the movie " A Night to Remember", and as I watched, a strange feeling of deja vu came over me. The strongest feelings of deja-vu occurred when seeing those sets that, in retropect, turned out to have been accurate. I found it curious, but didn't think much more about it.
Nothing else happened until 1975, when my mum got me the illustrated edition of A Night to Remember, the famous book on the Titanic disaster by Walter Lord. As I looked at the various photos and illustrations, the same feeling of deja-vu came over me as I'd got when seeing the movie. By the time that I got to a photo-graph of the Boat Deck Landing of the Grand Staircase, my sense of deja-vu was sailing at full-ahead-full. At that point, I wondered if I might have been aboard her, but as I hadn't yet come to believe in reincarnation at that point, I quickly scuttled the idea. How could I possibly have been aboard Titanic when I hadn't even been born in 1912...still, on some level or other, I must have suspected that I had indeed been abord "The Ship of Dreams" on her one and only voyage. What else could my  feeling of deja-vu?
Last edited by Lights, Jul/28/2004, 10:14 pm
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"What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, 'I love you.'"
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Jul/18/2004, 4:29 pm
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EMAILLights
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Lights
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Re: My Story
As the years went by, although I was not what I would consider a "Titanic buff", I would watch each and every movie about her that aired on television. I didn't know why, but perhaps she was trying to reach out to me...all I knew was that I wanted to watch them and watch them I did.
In 1996, I bought a couple of Titanic books to read at work, and faster than you can say "White Star Line", I found myself a buff...
In 1997, on the anniversary, I had the following experience at work...at around three or three-thirty in the morning (Pacific Time) of April 15, I began weeping uncontrollably as if my heart was breaking...I did not know why and it was some time before I was able to get my emotions under control. Later that day, I realised that this happened as the final Titanic survivors were being brought aboard Carpathia back in 1912.
This experience inspired me to start work on an novel about the disaster and that is when things started to get really . I would write something based on what amounted to my best guess, subject to revision as information became available and I began to be surprised at how often my guesses turned out to be right. For example, I wrote of Titanic's engines being restarted post-collision...it would not be until 2000 that I found out that this had indeed been the case. Before 2000, I had not read anything about that happening.
At one point, I wondered why Titanic's engines had not been run "slow-astern" to help control the flooding, but quickly scuttled the idea as being something that only a landlubber would come up with. Who on earth would be so stupid as to come up with something like that?! Imagine my surprise when I read the following in Capt. David Brown's Last Log of the TITANIC (this is in one of the appendices and I am paraphrasing it): During World War I, the HMS Garry was seriously wounded in her bows after ramming and sinking a German U-Boat. Her commander sent the following to the British Admiralty: "Am proceeding to port...stern first...8 knots"...in other words he was running her "slow-astern!! Apparently he brought her into port after a journey of a good 100 miles or so. And just who was her commander? Charles H. Lightoller, former Second Officer of RMS Titanic! I figured, hey, if it was good enough for Lightoller, then it was MORE than good enough for me! I did wonder where I'd got the idea since I have absolutely no training this life in shiphandling.
Last edited by Lights, Jul/28/2004, 10:11 pm
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"What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, 'I love you.'"
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Jul/20/2004, 10:46 pm
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EMAILLights
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wills
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Re: My Story
wow lights.
what a story.
thanks for sharing so far.
please continue.
wills 
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Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/20/2004, 10:59 pm
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Merzibelle
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Re: My Story
Yes, please do.
MB
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And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/20/2004, 11:01 pm
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wills
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Re: My Story
yes lights we are all ears.
please continue.
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/20/2004, 11:40 pm
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Lights
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Re: My Story
One night at work, the aide who relieved me and I had a chat before I left to head home and she asked me if I had considered the possibility that I had been aboard in a previous life. By this point, I believed in reincarnation and said that yes, I thought I might have been. I told her I was relatively certain that I had been male, probably crew, and that I was relatively certain that I had survived.
In June of 2001, I was up late in a coffee shop in San Francisco, working on my novel when a lady and I fell into conversation about Titanic. Suddenly, she said in a firm tone of voice, "You, my dear, were on that ship. I see you as a tall, strongly built man wearing a dark jacket with brass buttons and a white cap with a black visor." She then asked to see my book, so whilst she was occupied looking through it, I got a coffee.
After a few minutes, she brought her hand down on a photograph and said, "This is you."
Well, I dang near spit my coffee across the table because it was Lightoller!
For about six weeks I went about my business, and then a Titaniac friend of mine and I got to talking about reincarnation. She told me she had a very strong feeling that I had been aboard her and that I was male. I told her that I had indeed been aboard and that whilst I wasn't sure who I had been, I knew whom someone thought I had been. I then told her Lightoller. She said that if asked to hazard a guess, she would have said that was who I'd been. Intrigued, I asked her why. She said, "Because when you mention Lightoller, there is a look on your face and a light in your eyes that I see at no other time, despite your obvious interest in the whole subject of Titanic. You're not just talking about Lightoller, you are Lightoller and you are remembering."
That night I went to bed and right before I went to sleep, I said, "I don't believe it!". A very quiet voice inside of me said, "Believe it." Well, I fell asleep only to dream in black-and-white, which has always been a signal to me that I need to pay attention. It is hard to describe this dream, though I think it was rather like an out-of-body-experience is said to be in that I was both the viewer and the person I was looking at (hope that makes sense). There I was, an old man, my hair (well, what there was left of it, anyhow) snow-white. I was wearing a jacket, turtleneck sweater and trousers, and I was chatting with a couple of ladies (note: I said "chatting with", not "chatting up"...lol)and from the style of their dresses, I would say this was in the late 1940's or early 1950s. For just a moment, he turned to face me and it was good old Lightoller.
Last edited by Lights, Mar/12/2006, 4:27 pm
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"What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, 'I love you.'"
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Jul/21/2004, 8:10 am
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EMAILLights
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wills
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Re: My Story
wow what was your reaction when you dreamed that..
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 4:57 am
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Merzibelle
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Re: My Story
Probably shock... that's my guess.
MB
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And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 5:04 am
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wills
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Re: My Story
i bet it was but i also think an overwhelming sence of relief must have came over her as well.
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 5:16 am
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