Is It My Imagination, or What?

I was awake and sitting on a log close to where the Puntledge and Tsolum Rivers meet when I had this vision.

What I saw was so real, but it had an ethereal quality about it, too. I was awake and sitting on a log close to where the Puntledge and Tsolum Rivers meet when I had this vision. It began as a procession of souls dressed as early indigenous people appeared through a circular opening. They were stepping slowly past me with their heads bowed, and I felt their resoluteness and heart-wrenching grief. As they walked, they uttered regular guttural chants somewhat like a coxswain would, except they were all chanting. In the middle of the procession, they were carrying something that looked like a funeral pyre, but the pyre contained their collective memories. I was told they would not leave this world as long as they needed to carry their memories. As the last soul passed me, he turned around and said one word, "Remember."

The question had to be asked: was it my imagination, or what? To understand this vision, I did some research beginning with definitions. What exactly are spiritual visions?

A spiritual vision is an experience where someone perceives images, scenes, or symbols that convey messages from the spiritual realm. These visions can occur during meditation, prayer, sleep, or even in waking moments. They often feel vivid and real, standing out from ordinary dreams or thoughts.

https://www.centreofexcellence.com/what-are-spiritual-visions/

The vision was certainly vivid; the grief palpable. Apparently, there are six types of visions: prophetic, symbolic, healing, inspirational, warning, and transformational. None of these types of visions fit what I saw. I believe I could see it because I'm highly visual and intuitive. Still, I wondered why I had received this vision. I investigated further and found a more likely explanation.

Experiences of dreams or visions and accounts of them clearly inform social interactions in non-western societies in which the world of spirits is as real as that of markets, though real in different qualitative ways. The ethnographic record shows that western anthropologists who enter such worlds, and suspend as far as possible their own social conditioning, consistently report dreams or visions that are consistent with the ones described by the people they “study.”

From https://cjns.brandonu.ca/wp-content/uploads/13-2-goulet.pdf

DREAMS AND VISIONS IN INDIGENOUS LIFEWORLDS: AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH Jean-Guy A. Goulet Department of Anthropology, p. 1.

Jean-Guy Goulet, the anthropologist and author of this research, was studying the Dene Tha of Chateh in northwestern Alberta, among whom he was to undertake long-term fieldwork beginning in January 1980. He experienced teaching and communication through the medium of images:

From the Dene Tha point of view I had experienced a form of teaching and communication that occurs not through the medium of words, but through the medium of images. Conversations with Dene Tha about this range of phenomena gave new meaning... to fieldworkers to “suspend as far as possible their own social conditioning in order to have sensory and mental knowledge of what is really happening around and to them” (1985:205). Goulet, p. 184-185.

Like Goulet, what I saw felt more like teaching and communicating knowledge to me. Since my friend has knowledge about the history of indigenous peoples in our area, I thought she would find this information interesting.

I have to consider that maybe this waking vision was my imagination as it is well-developed. There is also no indigenous heritage in my family ancestry that I know about, and I'm certainly not undergoing anthropological studies. However, I must point out that this article also states:

Ethnographers have often found themselves immersed in societies in which people talk about their dreams and in which other people readily interpret them, societies in which “the world of ghosts and spirits is as real as that of markets, though real in different qualitative ways than can be ethnographically described” (Obeyesekere, 1990:66). This paper argues that in the process of anthropological fieldwork it is possible, and even useful, for the ethnographer to experience this qualitatively different world of ghosts and spirits, and to incorporate such experiences in ethnographic accounts. Goulet, p. 2.

So is it my imagination, or what? I will not discuss all the fearful, ghoulish stuff I read to make sense of why I'm seeing long-dead people–at least a century old and more–but I believe I've found at least a partial answer. I'm not a medium nor a psychic, just an ordinary person who sees and feels what is around me. The empath and the healer in me feel those who are suffering, and in my case, that includes those who are dead. I believe the concept all empaths need to grasp is that they are here to make a difference in the lives around them, dead or alive.

... the reason for Empaths being here is for them to learn to protect their own energy and embody both their shadow and light aspects, while maintaining the ability to tap into, care for, love, and identify with whoever they encounter. This makes Empaths healers to themselves and the world around them.

Longchamp, Thalia, Empaths and Mental Health: The Boundless Spirit, My Wellbeing. Website

Conclusion? The vision and this post may read a little odd to you, but there was nothing odd in seeing what I saw. If anything, it made me wonder about the source of their grief. Were they harmed or murdered for their beliefs or stories and eternally walking to keep their cultural identity alive? From the K'ómoks First Nation Website:

For thousands of years indigenous people occupied the shoreline of eastern Vancouver Island in a place referred to as "the land of plenty". This Land of Plenty stretched from what is known today as Kelsey Bay in the north, down to Hornby and Denman Island in the south, and included the watershed and estuary of the Puntledge River. The people called K'ómoks today referred to themselves as Sahtloot, Sasitla, Ieeksun and Puntledge.

Following contact with Europeans, northern groups started a southerly move into K'ómoks territory. A period of conflict displaced the K'ómoks southward to their relatives, the Puntledge. Followed by a period of colonial policy and practices, the K'ómoks families endured hardship and loss of land, resources, and cultural connection.

Displaced land, loss, and hardship are certainly reasons to grieve and seek healing.