Past life

I learned of a supposed way to connect with your past lives through the dream realm. It’s a certain ‘ritual’ you preform before you go to sleep at night kind of similar to lucid dreaming in my opinion. I had practiced it multiple times with nothing significant happening to me until one night I did it and when I dreamt it was an extremely emotional and real dream. I was myself, at least how I know myself now. The only person I recognized was a woman who I believed to be my mothers current friend I’ve know my essentially entire life. I’m not sure if it was actually her but the woman in my dream resembled her and her characteristics significantly. I was placed in some sort of ranch style type home in what I believe was a rural/country setting. In front of the home was land for what seemed like miles although I’m not positive of this. There were three boys who I knew there though only two made an appearance during the majority of the dream. I knew these people, I knew there names I just did not ever learn how I did. The most distinctive memory of this dream I have is meeting the third boy, the youngest. When I saw him I instantly starting crying. His name was Sam. I began telling him ‘you’re so young’ and ‘I’m so happy I can see you again’ I was crying tears of happiness in my dream and hugging him whilst we both had the biggest smile I think I have ever had. Honestly. The dream ended there and I woke up with tears down my face and a sense of complete peace. A year later and I’ve told my girlfriend about this. I am struggling with my sexual identity and gender everyday. I told her because she said to me one day that I may have been a male in my past life. This gets me thinking because I am the youngest of three children, and I have never felt like I am who I’m supposed to be. Could this be somebody I loved tremendously in a past life? A son? A friend..? Or could it be me? I truly believe this was a blast life experience solely because of how real it was. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before.