[diseeKeythilt]

Hello, susan.

The lost souls don't sound weird to me. There are people that leave the world in a state of shock. That's probably why you saw them in the desert or barren lands - they could not progress anywhere or take in any comfort until relieved from the shock. Their progress in the afterlife was "barred" - barren lands. Even in the afterlife there are growth processes going on, but they cannot happen before this state of shock subsides - you saw nothing growing there. There is often symbolic meaning in higher plane OBEs.

And that's what I'd say you had - an astral plane projection or higher plane OBE (all nonphysical planes starting with the astral are considered "higher").

Similarly, if you think of Scotland as your original place of origin, then it could be a symbol for your "home" in nonphysical reality from before you incarnated. Elevation (the mountains) is sometimes a hint in these matters. The lone soldier might have been what Kurt Leland calls a Gatekeeper - an entity overlooking access to a zone, or subzone within the higher planes. (See "Otherwhere" or "The Multi-Dimensional Human" by Kurt Leland for more information.) They often are seen as guards, customs officers, even librarians at the entry of a library building - it depends on the setting of your experience. Here the Gatekeeper is symbolised by a soldier at the gate of the keep (castle), so I guess that visual pun is pretty straightforward.

Shooting up into space or far into the atmosphere is often a hint to an astral plane adventure, too.

The lost souls you saw could have also been people with no belief in the afterlife which is also said to hinder progres (which could be seen as walking barren lands with no growth).

Cheers,
Oliver