I was not a psychic who 'got vision with dream' type. I used to have it while awake. Hardly had any dreams while sleeping.
Like most past-life visions, mine began near the end. I didn't know why—it just did. Maybe death held the strongest memory. Maybe the soul remembered agony louder than anything else.
This time, dreamlike, wasn't a scene or a face. It was the feeling of a body—mine, but not this one. Older. Or maybe younger. Torn, aching, on the edge of collapse. My breath came sharp, like it had to fight its way in.
It started with pain.
At first, I couldn't see much. Just dust. Cold air. A sense of movement. Hoofbeats. The creaking of something wooden. The sting of wind against raw skin. Then it went dark again.
I was lying down—on rough cloth. Something soft padded beneath me. Maybe hay. Maybe fur. But every bump on the road rattled through my bones. My limbs were bound close, not by rope, but by sheer exhaustion. My ribs felt cracked. I couldn't lift my arms. I didn't know how I was still alive.
And still… I wasn't afraid. Just tired. Past the point of fear.
I saw flashes. A small caravan, not more than two or three people with me now. Someone rode close beside the cart, head turned often to check if I was still breathing. A familiar figure. A man with a quiet kind of strength. I knew him. Me in that life—knew him. Even then.
The journey had started in Rome, though I only understood that later.
In my waking life, the vision came back in pieces—days and night passing. Every day brought a new layer. They came within dreams. They kept unfolding. One night I vaguely saw the dry open road. Another night of being lifted, barely conscious, into a stone-walled room with a fire pit. Then came the sound of the sea. Then the wind. Then the domes.
It took nearly a week before the picture formed fully.
We had crossed mountains and valleys. Walked, rode, crawled. At times I was conscious, gripping onto pain like it was the only thing keeping me tethered. At other times, I drifted—half in spirit, half still clinging to the boy I was.
I remembered looking up from the cart one morning. The cold had finally eased, and light filtered through a canopy of olive trees. I remembered thinking, I've seen this sky before. But I hadn't—not in that life.
We arrived at the outskirts of Constantinople. The city was nothing like the dirt paths we'd known. It loomed, majestic and loud with silence. Its gates high. Its domes glowing like copper in the sun.
I remembered being carried—again—this time more gently. Someone pressed a wet cloth to my lips. The cool wet clothes taped on my face—cleaned with gentle taps—kept me conscious. I felt refreshed a little.
And then… the floor.
Cool granite. Polished smooth by centuries of footsteps. A giant door opened. The sound of hinges echoing through stone. Pillars of mismatched marble towered like frozen trees, each one different in color and veins but all beautifully arranged. And above it all, light.
Blue. Not sky blue. Not paint. But a hue that didn't belong to any one surface. A feeling. A tone of spirit.
That was Hagia Sophia.
We had made it.
But I hadn't died yet.
And that's what unsettled me most.
For once, the vision hadn't ended in a flash of departure. I was still alive when the memory stopped. Still breathing, broken but whole enough to feel. Still looking up, eyes fixed on the dome—sunlight breezing through the stained glass, making it shimmer in a way that felt almost holy.
I didn't know what happened next.
And maybe that's what kept the ache with me even after the vision ended.
I didn't die at Hagia Sophia.
That was the strange part. The vision ended not with silence, not with light, not with release—but with stillness. I was there. Alive. Broken, yes. But breathing. I don't know who brought me, or why they chose that place. I only know it mattered.
I woke up, opened my eyes as the roosters called the dawn. My worn pajamas dampen. I lay still, remembered to breath and allow my breathing energised my four limbs.
For the first time having dreams with vision of my past life.
My left upper arm swollen. That totally brought me to real life sensation. My head still ached a bit. Flu like symptoms.
My phone on the nightstand buzzed.
Good morning sayang. How are you now?"
I felt the sweetness back.