Hi, I’m Di. Culloden is very close to my heart. If you’ve read my past life story you’ll understand why. I’ve lived here for the greater part of my life, in a little spot by the woods between Culloden House and Culloden Battlefield.

I visit the Battlefield often. It’s not only somewhere I visit regularly on our tours, it’s somewhere I go just to ‘be’ sometimes. Just to walk, to think, to be silent…

Andy and I also go there early on either Christmas or New Year’s Day morning just to walk together in the silence too. It’s beautiful there on those days, so peaceful…

There is something so special about the Highlands, particularly Culloden. It’s like the earth somehow reaches up and touches me. I can’t imagine not living here.

I can remember walking this land in the 18th century. I can remember walking through old Inverness, marching towards Culloden House as it was back then. I can remember standing in the grounds of Culloden House before the battle, looking around at the men, weary and exhausted, laid around the grounds. I can distinctly remember feeling a sense of utter hopelessness, and that was a memory that burned deep into my soul. I can remember the time after the battle, feeling afraid and cold, not only for myself, but for my Clansmen and my family.

Quite often I have ‘glitches’ in time. I can be walking along and suddenly for as many as ten or more seconds, I step back in time, I am him again, standing in the same spot, only 270 years earlier. Yet it’s still me. It’s my eyes I experience him through, my consciousness. Memories from that life are no different to memories from this one.

I dream of his daily life often at night. I did so for more than 2 years after I had remembered my past life in Scotland – hundreds of nights of vivid, clear dreams of my daily life back in the 18th century. I know the paths I walked, the places I frequented, the buildings I visited and the people I knew. I’ve stood in many places that I have seen through the same eyes centuries ago. It feels completely natural to be there, seeing them again. In my dreams, I remember as much of what it meant to be him and to have lived his life, as I do of this life now and what it means to be the woman I am now.

We have little more than an inkling of who we really are deep down, and just how deep we go…

For me, and I know for many others, Culloden Battlefield has a draw that is very difficult to explain in words. It is somewhere I had to return to again in this lifetime.

Past life memories have been a normal part of my life since the age of nine. I believe we experience many lives, not just one or two. I also believe we can meet some of the same souls through various lifetimes, like a soul-mate family. These are people we are energetically tied to, who will show up in many guises and roles through our various lifetimes, just as we will in theirs. When I qualified in delivering Past Life Regression (a gentle form of hypnotherapy which allows you to access your subconscious memories) many years ago, I knew that it was going to be one of the greatest privileges of my life to assist others to uncover the archaeology of their soul. I also knew without doubt that I wouldn’t be the only person to have this inextricable tie to Scotland, this yearning, a bond so great that it’s impossible to explain.

Since sharing my past life story and including Past Life Regression as an optional part of our longer tours, we’ve drawn many clients who also have a strong and inextricable pull to this beautiful country. Over the years I’ve regressed many people, and I’ve been blessed to walk the battlefield in this lifetime with a handful of people who were also here on that fateful day in 1746. Walking the battlefield with them after their regression is quite a surreal experience. With others, I’ve heard how their lives were deeply affected by the consequences and aftermath of the battle, and others who can remember being here in Scotland. This is not and never was just a job. It’s everything I’d ever hoped to achieve by ‘coming home’. Souls reunited with a common purpose – to come to this beautiful place to heal wounds that their soul refuses to forget…

Aye, she is a deeply precious place, Culloden.

Leanach Cottage

This beautiful little blackhouse survived the Battle of Culloden and has stood on the battlefield since the early 18th century, though parts of the cottage have fallen to ruin and have been rebuilt over the years. In August 2018 the cottage was re-thatched. We stopped to chat with the gentleman doing the thatching and he explained to us that it was being thatched with heather, glorious pink heather. He said that in his 20 years of thatching, only 3% of cottages are done in heather.

The finished cottage a couple of weeks after being re-thatched, and the pink colour is beginning to subside. Doesn’t she look beautiful…

In this photo below from the early 20th century, Belle MacDonald stands in front of Leanach Cottage at Culloden Battlefield. Belle was the last occupant of the cottage until her death 1912 and she, and her family before her, used to guide people around the battlefield.

We had a really interesting experience on Culloden Battlefield one morning in October 2018. We arrived with our tour guests first thing in the morning in sunshine. While we were at the Cairn, a mist rolled in at the pace of a man running. The mist moved only up the Jacobite line, along the path which follows the blue flags and the Clan markers. If you’ve visited the battlefield you’ll know the path. All of a sudden the mist changed direction, and began ‘charging’ diagonally across the battlefield in exactly the same direction that the Jacobites had at the time of the battle. We stood there in awe, watching what looked liked hundreds of ghosts literally charging in front of us. We managed to capture it on video, so it’s below for you.

I made this short video summer 2018 as a way of explaining what the battlefield means to me. My husband Andy is the Jacobite, and it’s called ‘The Ghosts of Culloden’.

4 Responses

  • Oliver Johnson

    I keep having what I call snippet dreams have done for years most are calm and rather boring but I am aware that whoever I am in this dream it isn’t recent it could be Scotland or even Norway but the darkest parts of these dreams are so lucid and vivid for example I’m in a medow and I’m being hunted by two men and three dogs I kill the dogs with my knife/carpenters axe and I go about stalking and killing the men the first I cut his throat and hold his mouth and the other I skirmish with get cut across my stomach but push my knife between his ribs I can even feel how hot his blood is as it soaks my hands and I watch the life leech from him I then drag the bodies to a bog I use nettles to make a cord and their clothes to collect stones I way them down and dump them in the bogwater, I was my hands in a brook, bind moss to my stomach and start walking as I do I wake up..it’s vivid and I’m convinced it’s a memory any input or opinions are welcome.

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  • Anna austen

    Hi. I came across your site while looking at a high school website up here.
    Very nice to know there are other people who have flashbacks of battles! AND ‘meeting’ another woman who has flashbacks of a another life lived as a man.

    My flashbacks are particularly traumatic. They started when I was 16. (Am now 42). I get completely…holistically really…overwhelmed…can smell the smells, hear sounds, feelings, anything battle related and I am ugly crying. To this day…I still have mod to severe panic attacks and marked anxiety. And still to this day I get odd looks when I tell people about it.
    Last year I read a kids book about a soldier (to my children)….it was the complete opposite of the wonky donkey grandmother!

    Anyway…it’s nice to know YOU exist too! Someone who has empathy and no strange looks for me! Clear I’ve more of a journey to go on still!
    I think I’m going find and read the outlander books!!

    I generally don’t cry these days….but presently I am so must go!!
    Sure we’ll connect someday!! Xx

    Reply
    • Hi Anna, thank you for your message. Likewise, it is also lovely for me to connect with someone else who understands the experience during flashbacks. I also had, and still do have, clear, vivid dreams of being him and his everyday life. I had those dreams every night for 2 years straight, and now around 10 times a month. The memories are very clear and no different to memories from this lifetime. Take care, and thanks again for writing. I think there are quite a few of us out there…

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    • Robyne Thompson

      Hello Anna
      I have also had dreams like yours where every sense is involved. I’ve heard the battle, smelt the gunpowder and the blood and much more. This happened to me often in my dreams. Like Di, I know I was at Culloden in the battle and I vividly remember being him and living his life. I was with the group of Jacobites who retreated to Ruthvan Barracks. I knew that I had been there before and spent a significant amount of time there, as soon as I arrived at Ruthvan Barracks. My eyes were drawn to an area on the outside of the building then when entering my body and soul were drawn to that same area, which was the kitchen/bakehouse. While in this room, I experienced strong and vivid emotions. I could smell the hammocks baking, smell the whisky and ale and smell the stale sweat and dried blood of unwashed bodies. I could hear the chatter around me and smell the smoke from fires. My advice to you is to embrace your dream and flashbacks. After all, you are unique.

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