F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Just Plain Weird

The Reincarnation of F. P. Dorchak

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Bull Run, Virginia, Battlefield Cannon (© F. P. Dorchak, April 22, 1990)
Bull Run, Virginia, Battlefield Cannon (© F. P. Dorchak, April 22, 1990)

I believe in reincarnation…or, more specifically, in the living of simultaneous lives that appear to us in this physical existence as reincarnational.

This belief has led to more than a story or two. The strongest past life is my Civil War existence. This is the one that seems to come up the most. Has the strongest effect on me. It led to the short story “Etched In Stone” (to be posted Feb 26, 2016, on my other blog site). I feel I was part of a Zouave regiment, perhaps the 5th New York. Another life that greatly impacts me is my Titanic life. I feel I died while in the steerage section of that ship. That lead to “The Death of Me.” Existences as a WWII tail gunner and a Ronin/Samurai lead to the short story “Tail Gunner” and a character, “Kioshu,” in The Uninvited. The curious thing about the WWII tail gunner existence is that I also feel I may have been an American ground troop in that war as well. Not only do images of B-17s rattle my bones, but many scenes with ground troops stir my soul quite a bit, too. So, I figure I must’ve had dual counterparts in WWII. But there’s more “military”…

Someone once told me they “saw” me as a Roman soldier. And a chiropractor I used to go to had muscle tested me and came up with 14 past lives…including yet another military life: a WWI life, which was interesting, because I’d never really felt that existence. He might have been confusing it with my WWII lives and his own “filters”…but, in any case, it was interesting (muscle testing can be influenced by the one doing the testing). Yet another World War counterpart. Clearly I’ve dabbled in the military end of things a bit. And I’m quite over it, to tell you the truth. Enough with war.

Another life I haven’t looked into much was one as a witch. A “kid witch.” In early 1984, a woman (a witch) told me she thought I’d been a kid-witch of 12 or 13 years old and had been pressed to death. She also told me that she’d been the cause of my death. I later found this in a letter I’d written to the late Jane Roberts and Rob Butts in 1984. In it I’d written that this present-day witch:

“…keeps seeing me as a coven member, and I tell her that she’s probably just seeing a probable self of me. She also says that we knew each other in a ‘past life.’ That I was a little kid-witch, about 13, and she was the death of me. Interestingly, [while with her one day] I saw an image of a young kid, about 12 – 13, being pressed to death–an agonized face. I told her this after she told me what I told you.”

Curiously, I could find no instances of a teenager being pressed to death over the Internet, so who knows what we’re really picking up on…or maybe it was done “in private”…you know, once you get past believing in any of this….

Interestingly, as a teenager I did have a weird thing happen to me that relates to the above: one day while looking for something in the Lake Clear, N.Y. garage, I had pulled some upright sheets of plywood toward me, away from the garage wall (the wall closest to the house). As I did so, I felt the plywood (this is how I thought of it then) seemingly take on a life of their own and fall into me. I pressed with all my might and was utterly helpless…and it raised a fear in me I had not experienced at that time. The entire “pile” knocked me over onto the gravel floor, all 10 or 15 or however many sheets there were, on top of me. Those suckers were heavy! It was the first time I’d felt so utterly helpless…and it felt so damned weird. I managed to get out from under them no worse for the wear, but that moment remains etched in my mind. I thought back to that later, after the witch told me the above. Also as a kid, I’d read up on the history of witchcraft, but it never really held much interest to me after reading about it…though I did get into it as an interest (not a practitioner) for a while, reading several books on it….

While visiting Maui, in 1998, with my wife, I had the following experience (taken from my diary):

“Nov 14, 1998, 1:36 p.m.

Note: While driving around, had a particularly spiritual experience, like the Manassas one, north of where we were staying [in Maui]. Laura and I drove north, to just inside that one-laned road, and we both felt that this drive felt “weird”! It was overcast, and late in the afternoon, but it was more than that. I again felt like I was straddling two worlds, and I got to thinking: oh boy, am I treading on ground I treaded before? Had Laura and I been alive in another life, past or future, here? Maybe had I been a spiritual kahuna? Had I died here in some ritual or war? It was verrrrrrrry weird….”

As much as I very much loved visiting Maui…I have absolutely no desire to  permanently live there (though am perfectly willing to go back as many times as possible!). Whatever the reason…it seems to stem from the above “weirdness” and finally made total “sense” to me.

Another interesting one is seeing images of me walking in monk-like robes over sand in a far-away (barren) land. I wonder if it’s Australia. I haven’t gotten much from this imagery.

There have been a couple of other possible lives I’ve glimpsed, but none of them are as strong and emotional as the ones mentioned above.

Now…as fascinated as I am by the lives I feel I’ve lived/am living in other realities, I don’t focus my energies so much on finding out all I can about them (i.e., “reliving” them) as in acknowledging them, listening to them when I need to, but focusing my conscious thoughts and efforts to my current existence. Those lives…those consciousnesses are elsewhere…being focused upon by the me that is there…and I need to focus on the me that is here…but acknowledging that my other selves do still exit elsewhere and are every bit as important and real as the me I am, here, writing this. Some of those lives I really don’t want to revisit anyway.

If you keep focusing on the past (or “elsewhere”), you’re never really living in the present.

I feel the important thing about learning about our past lives is that we have them and acknowledge them when we become aware of them. Send them positive energy. I feel in doing this we can enhance their lives…change them, even. Remember I believe in simultaneous lives…not so much past lives. All our lives are ongoing…and this being my belief, I feel we can all help each other out. Make our collective lives better…which therefore helps out our individual “present” lives as well. It’s all energy…and all energy is connected. As we help ourselves out…we’re also helping out everyone else.

So, while it’s cool and interesting to learn about the other lives we live…we still need to focus on our present-day lives (“Over Now,” by Alice in Chains has been playing just now, and “Say Goodbye” just popped up from Theory of a Deadman…). I feel that’s also why many of us cannot remember much about our other lives. Or why we only get bits and pieces. I feel we have built-in filters. We only get what we can “handle”…or only enough “bleed throughs” to remind us who “we are”…but not enough to cause us to focus so heavily on these other lives so as to ignore our current focus. The purpose of having a life is to live it. Live and focus on the things in front of us. That, in turn, helps us all in our overall experience of Life and growth of our soul.

And each of you all have this ability. I bet you’ve all had some weird imagery or experience you can’t readily categorize that fits into the realm of reincarnation or simultaneous lives but have dismissed it as fantasy.

Well, don’t.

Acknowledge it…send it positive, constructive energy when you get such images…and move on. It’s okay if you do ignore it/them…they happened/are happening whether or not you believe it/them…or acknowledge them (you know, given you believe in this stuff…). But they pop into your consciousness for a reason. So, why not give them their due? No one else has to know! It’s just between you and…you. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re misinterpreting what you’re “getting.” Just acknowledge the thought…the idea…it.

So this post is not just about the reincarnation of F. P. Dorchak…it’s also about the reincarnation of you.

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Meeting My Oversoul—In Person

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I'll Give You A Memory! The Education of Oversoul 7, © 1973, Jane Roberts (First Pocket Books printing, December, 1976)
I’ll Give You A Memory! The Education of Oversoul 7, © 1973, Jane Roberts (First Pocket Books printing, December, 1976)

Okay, this may well get you all wondering what the hell’s going on with me, but I had one of the coolest metaphysical experiences happen to me the other night. Sure, if I were you, reading this, I’d have the same questions, but I’m not…I was at the receiving end and know what I experienced.

I went to bed early Wednesday night after rereading some of the novel, The Education of Oversoul 7. I was reading a section that talked about the Oversoul Seven character annoyed that one of its earthly personalities only saw him as an older guy with graying hair.

So, I go to bed.

About an hour or two later, I’m awakened by this guy my age or older—with gray in his hair—leaning out/down to me. He’s reaching out with his left hand with a focused concentration and tapping me on the forehead as I lay in bed!

I then actually (I physically did this—it wasn’t a dream) reached up trying to block his tapping, and said something like “Oh, come on…” or “Nooo!” because he was waking me up, for Godsakes!  You see, I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past week and I’d had a good sleep…even if for only that hour or two then!

The man’s face was neutral…not smiling nor angry. It was actually very intent—focused—as in trying to get through to me.

This has meaning.

I’m sure many of you think this totally fictional, another byproduct of the all-illusionary hypnogogic state brought on by the novel I was reading. And that’s okay. But I don’t feel this to be the case. It was far, far too coincidental. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me where I see something, watch a movie, read a book, then dream about it. My dreams just don’t work that way (and I’m quite aware of what I dream about and have been logging them since I was a kid, so I do know what I’m talking about, here).

This has meaning because I’ve recently been hoping I could have more dreams where I meet my oversoul—and remember it. Then the new novel I’m beginning work on caused me to return to this particular novel. Then, given the passage I’d just been reading, I have the experience just described.

It’s all part of a series of related events. As I always say, everything’s related to everything else.

This has to be my oversoul making “an appearance.” It’s been a year or more where I haven’t had an obvious dream about him/her and remembered it. It’s just too “coincidental,” and I don’t believe in meaningless coincidences.

And given the intense look of “focused concentration,” well, it’s one I obviously did remember!

What does it mean?

It means that there is another “entity” out there listening to me…and trying to help out in the background. Back behind the curtain of life. S/he (the male/female form presented is not the only form “they” [being “them”] wear) came at a perfect time…and with a perfect array of physical circumstances…my need, the novel, the passage within the novel…it’s all beautifully laid out if you think about it! Perfectly executed, with even a flair of not only the dramatic, but humor!

Really—tapping me on the forehead?!

It’s something my dad would do… but if that doesn’t get one’s attention….

All very much like who I am (dramatic: writing; humor: me). I just can’t convey how utterly perfect the execution enough!

I’d been so busy (mentally and physically) this week, it didn’t really hit me until yesterday how cool the execution…how dramatic an event it was! This happens in our physical existences, where we get so caught up in the daily minutiae of life. But we all have the ability to step back and pause: re-evaluate our days. Our actions. Our experiences. Many couch their similar experiences in religious clothes—or even outright ignore them—and that’s okay. We all have our personal beliefs and our experiences will be so filtered to match those beliefs. But that we have these experiences at all…that some of us are open to them and their many and varied interpretations is what’s important. You may think I saw an angel…or a hypnogogic character from a novel I was reading—and that’s your interpretation. Nothing wrong with it. But it’s not mine. And there’s nothing wrong with my interpretation. We all interpret our lives as we will and must. It’s one of the reasons we’re put into physical reality. It’s our own personal and individual path toward growth.

Be open the to weird. It has wonderous things to show you!

Remembering Jane Roberts May 8, 1929 – September 5, 1984

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This is where it all started for me. Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts, ©1972, Prentice Hall
This is where it all started for me. Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts, ©1972, Prentice Hall

I never was able to interact with Jane Roberts.

I’d written her back in the 80s, but—little did I know—she was already full-bore into the health problems that ended up taking her life: complications from rheumatoid arthritis. Now, what was really cool was that her husband, Rob Butts, wrote back. And from then until his death in 2008 Rob and I wrote each other. We never met—almost did—but we did talk on the phone.

Jane and Rob—and Seth—heavily influenced my life by showing me what’s behind the curtain of life. That there was more than we physically saw…and that we can see this stuff. Manipulate it. Make it work for ourselves. I found their work with the 1972 publishing of Seth Speaks. I was hooked ever since, have read all the books, multiple times for the original work in the 70s and 80s.

So, I’m remembering you, Jane! Wondering what you’re up to now! What cool adventures are you having?

I love this poem she wrote, which is in this link. I don’t normally use things without permission, but I am doing my best at attribution. I hope Laurel Butts doesn’t mind me using it, but if she does, I’ll remove it.

Here’s to you, Jane!

Death is following,
I hear his step upon the stair.
And birth is waiting,
And behind this death and birth
A million doors
Which will open and close,
Through which my image must pass.

There is always one following,
And one waiting, and none forgotten.
For the end shall overshadow the beginning,
And the shadow of the rock is the rock.
This moment is Forever, poised upon our dream.
I am born a million years and know no tomb.

© Jane Roberts
November 17, 1954

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A Guiding Hand

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Pay Attention. To Everything. (By Master Sgt. Cheresa D. Clark (https://www.dvidshub.net/image/384328) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Pay Attention. To Everything. (By Master Sgt. Cheresa D. Clark (https://www.dvidshub.net/image/384328) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
I read this short in the June 2015 Reader’s Digest (RD). I love these kinds of stories! I paraphrase it here, but you can read in on page 25 of the Your True Stories, in 100 Words section in RD:

This woman, Grace Napier, out of Greeley, Colorado wrote how she’d been leaving for work one day, when, as she was making a right-hand turn out of her yard, she felt a firm hand restraining her right shoulder. She was forced left.

No one else was present.

Grace decided to continue in that direction and take the longer route to work. There was no traffic.

At the end of her work day, she returned home and learned there’d been an accident that had occurred on her normal route to work, the route she would have taken had she not been “nudged” out of the way. The accident had occurred shortly after 8 a.m., when two vehicles had crashed. The crash has also pinned a crossing guard between the two vehicles, killing him.

Grace said she would have been in that accident.

Cat on a Couch

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Chloe and Cassie, December 2004
Chloe and Cassie, December 2004

I have put off writing about this for a while…but it happened again, yesterday, so I simply can’t ignore it any longer. It’s not just a trick of light or shadow. It’s something else, entirely.

In August of 2007, while I’d been on a business trip, we lost one of our cats, Cassie, to kidney failure and another complication. She was a beautiful gray and white “flower child” mouser who would actually go outside and smell our flowers. Not kidding…she would go up to them and stick her nose into the petals and just, well…smell. She also had a habit of dropping dead voles and field mice at our patio doorstep (on occasion sneaking them into the house before I could see what it was she had in her mouth). But we called her our “flower child.” She was very sweet and loving and our first cat as a couple. She loved to sit up on the top edge of one of our couches, the one before our picture window, and just look out at the world.

A pensive cat.

A philosopher cat.

She would either hunker down on the left side or sit upright. In the picture above you see that “dent” on the left, where our other feline is sitting? She did that.

Well, ever since her passing, I’ve kept catching brief images of a cat (not Chloe) on the top of that couch. I’d stop and back up…looking to the couch…and would see nothing. I would bid Cassie a “Hello, Cassie!” and move on.

Well, it happened again yesterday morning as my wife was getting off to work (I took the day off). The curtains were open. I had walked through the kitchen, which has a view of the above-mentioned area, and again caught a flash of a cat sitting upright on the middle top edge of that couch (just a smidge to the left of where Cassie is in the picture).

I still have that image burned in my mind.

There was a cat there.

Then there wasn’t.

And Chloe was sleeping upstairs on “her” (our) spare bed; I’d just come from there.

I backed up and looked…no Cassie. Told my wife about it.

Now I’m writing this.

Hello, Cassie!

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Dreams

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Don't Sleepwalk Your Life--or Your Dreams--Away. (Sleepwalkers, © 2001, F. P. Dorchak, ISBN: 0-75963-950-7)
Don’t Sleepwalk Your Life–or Your Dreams–Away. (Sleepwalkers, © 2001, F. P. Dorchak, ISBN: 0-75963-950-7)

Do you remember your dreams?

How many do you remember?

Have you ever changed the direction or outcome of a dream?

Not everyone believes this, but we all dream…and we also dream while we’re awake.

I’ve learned most of what I know about dreams not only from direct experience, but from reading the Seth Material. One of the things mentioned was just this: that we dream while we’re awake. That statement intrigued me—still does. But I believe it. It actually makes sense to me. I’ve felt “dream links” while awake…some of which I’ve had that actually “reach back” to dreams I’d had years and years ago, sometimes to the same dream, sometimes to a version of it, that, perhaps, kept going on and I just “dipped” into it. And…I do remember a lot of my dreams. Have recorded them for as long as I can remember. I have always remembered my dreams. I (and we all do) have multiple dreams—sometimes simultaneous dreams—and I usually remember several of them. Lately, I’ve been remembering an average of about three dreams a night. One night, geeze, maybe some 10 or 12 years ago, I once recalled a double-digit number of dreams from a single night. It was on the insane order of something like 13 dreams! It took me quite a while to write them all down to some level of detail, and it was about then that I allowed myself to, ummm, forget them. Or remember only the coolest ones. Sometimes [conscious] life just gets in the way…thing is, we can always change our direction and allow ourselves to, once again, remember that which we directed ourselves to forget….

The dream world is similar to the awake or conscious world, in that it is a world of its own, so to speak, with its own (again, “so to speak”) timeline. But what most do not realize is that both the dream and awake lives are intertwined and interact with each other. We don’t just dream images that we’ve encountered while awake…but all of life is linked, so, yes, you will dream about things from your awake life, just as you will see also things in your awake life from your dreams. But which came first? It’s not a matter of linear sense. It’s a matter about multi-dimensional, Venn diagram-like interlaced interaction! Perhaps you’re dreaming a lot about work, say, or an issue that’s plaguing you. You may be dreaming about these things to “let off some steam,” or release stress, for example in the dream state. Or maybe you’re dreaming about them to help you in the awake state—or both. But it’s up to each of us to discover these reasons…these interactions. And it doesn’t matter if we’re right or wrong about our “findings”…what matters is that we’re trying to delve into them…to understand them…and that we’re using our own capabilities as we do so.

About a year or so ago, I developed a condition that requires me (so far) to take some medication that seems to affect my memory of my dreams (yet I remembered remembering them, I like to say)—I was not happy about that. But, I made a concerted effort, and no kidding, I’m now back to remembering my dreams…as I said, on average about three a night. And they’re just as intense as I remembered them. I think what this drug does (as I analyze things) is that it “turns off the memory switch” really quick.

Just like the proverbial light switch.

But I found that if I really put in the effort to remember them immediately upon awakening, I’d remember them. I’d have to stay in bed, sometimes in the same position I woke up in, and they’d come back to me. They also seem to leave quicker, i.e., I forget my dreams quicker, with this medication. They may still come to me later in the day—or even later in the week—but it really seems as if this medication works exactly like some weird-assed dream light switch, which I do not like. But I can force the issue…which I have been doing…and it actually works.

So, back in the mid-to-late nineties, I decided to write a novel about the dream world, Sleepwalkers, and I eventually published it in 2001. It was a fun book to write, and, after I published it, a friend of mine—who’d been having marital problems and forgot her dreams or just experienced nightmares—used the techniques I wrote about (and got from the Seth material) and began remembering her dreams and dispelled the nightmares! That was the coolest thing I’ve ever heard from something I wrote! When I first wrote the novel, I’d hoped it would help others out there…and that is exactly what had ended up happening…I’d actually helped a real person in need.

There are a lot of dream interpreters out there who would have you read their descriptions of symbols and their interpretations of said symbols…but what I would have you do is to interpret them yourself (and, yes, I got this from the Seth Material). Whether or not your versions of symbols match with others’ interpretations is not the issue—what is the issue is that you are not doing the work; you are allowing others to do it for you. What is important about dream work is: 1) that you make the effort to remember your dreams, and 2) that you make the interpretations yourself. It doesn’t matter whether or not your interpretations are “correct”…what matters is that you exercise your own conscious analysis of your own dream symbols. Doing this awakens and strengthens the “metaphysical muscles” you have and allows them to grow, which, in turn, will lead to other metaphysical growth. Don’t make another outside of you your dream guru. None of us needs “gurus”…we all have within us the capability to answer our own questions, our own problems. It’s okay to discuss our dreams with those we are close to, but do not let anyone else tell you what your dreams mean. What these people are actually telling you—when you really think about it—is what your dreams mean to them.

Do not place the power of directing your life in another’s hands.

Okay, here are some things I’d like to throw out there that any of you can try, to get more out of your dream experiences. It’s fun, and really stretches the mind!

  1. Tell yourself and expect yourself to remember your dreams! It’s that easy! Now, it may take some time for some, but we all dream—no exceptions. We just don’t remember them. So, if you don’t remember dreams, just be kind to yourself and allow yourself to remember. As soon as you wake up—stay in bed and open your mind to “what you just came from.” Keep with this until they come—they will. Many times I “remember remembering” them and leave them at that. After all, you have the rest of your life to remember dreams!
  2. When remembered, write them down! First, write out the dream(s) as well as you remember them, then do an analysis of all things in the dreams, from how you felt, to any and all of the symbols in your dreams. List the date and time you’re writing them down. I bold the dream dates and times of the dreams that are as intense and as real as my awake consciousness, and also insert a “Very there” at the start of each of these kinds of dreams. Yes, this can take a lot of time, and you don’t have to do it for all of them, but doing it for even one helps you tremendously in doing your dream work! And if you just can’t get around to writing them down, don’t worry—just remembering is enough. Becoming conscious of the unconscious is what’s important!
  3. If you don’t remember upon awakening, allow yourself to remember later in the day or week, or whenever. I frequently remember additional dreams later in the day. Sometimes a day or so later! If I can, I still write them down. Sometimes they feel tied to something I’m doing, which is probably why I remember them later when I do.
  4. While remembering dreams you might feel that you’ve recalled one or more dreams that actually happened at the same time. This may very well be what has happened: simultaneous dreams! They actually have happened at the same time. I frequently recall simultaneous dreams, and mark them as such.
  5. Here’s are really cool and fun thing to try during the day (or night!) when you’re conscious and not sleeping: try to imagine your dreamworld during the day…and that there are things going on in it while you’re awake, in a parallel life. I do this and periodically feel my dreams as still on-going. Can even feel the same “dream feel” from my dreams while awake. It can be very “mind expanding” and opens up a whole new world of imagination and consideration!
  6. Throughout the day, ask yourself: What am I actually conscious of at this moment? What this does is get your consciousness aware during your dream states, so you can play in a far more richer and rewarding dream experience while actually being conscious in your dreams (it does many other things, but read the Seth Material for that, in particular, Seth, Dreams, and Projections of Consciousness…). Become aware that you’re dreaming…and (this is also really cool) getting you to the point where you can actually change the direction of your dreams! Is something happening that you don’t like—are you having a nightmare?—then consciously change that dream into something of you do like..or merely tell it “No!” and to go away. It’s really cool when you find you can do this. My favorite type of dream are flying dreams, so I love to change my dream directions and take to the air. When I’m aware enough to do so, there are times I’ll tell myself that I can fly (even if a part of me niggles me that I can’t), and I either just take off running, or simply blast up into the air like Superman and fly. These are truly my favorite dreams! I can really feel all the sensations of flying and performing intricate and gnarly aerobatic maneuvers!

These are just some things we can each play around with and try. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve had reincarnation dreams, as well. But read some of the Seth Material, in particular the book, Seth, Dreams, and Projections of Consciousness. It might be [philosophically and metaphysically] too much to read at first, if you’re not familiar with the Seth Material, so I do recommend you at least read Seth Speaks, first. You really should read them in order, but if you’re open-minded, you might be able to handle the dream book first or second.

In either case, try the above six items I’ve presented here, and see what you come up with—or share your experiences, here, as comments!

Happy dreaming!

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