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Time gap?

K

Kenz1010

Guest
I’ve just recently been pondering some things, and would like to hear others thoughts & or experiences on the topic.

Do you think the reason some people’s PL experiences aren’t as fresh in their minds, might be because of a time gap? In my case, I think this may be part of the reason why all of this had been left dormant for so long, maybe because of a large time period between my last life and my current one.
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts or opinions, please share.
 
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Possibly.. it could also be because you didn't want to allow yourself to access those memories too. There's been evidence that people don't want to be either burdened by or have access to them in this life, so that they can live this one distraction free, with a clean slate or just to focus on the lesson to be learned.

I stopped looking for past lives a while ago after receiving the same message of "you don't need to worry about that right now" over and over.
 
Possibly.. it could also be because you didn't want to allow yourself to access those memories too. There's been evidence that people don't want to be either burdened by or have access to them in this life, so that they can live this one distraction free, with a clean slate or just to focus on the lesson to be learned.

I stopped looking for past lives a while ago after receiving the same message of "you don't need to worry about that right now" over and over.
As in the subconscious mind not wanting to bring those memories to the surface?
 
As in the subconscious mind not wanting to bring those memories to the surface?

Essentially, yes, but the reasons may vary from person to person. it's sometimes called a block, the veil and other things. If my own case is an example, I was only able to see the last two past lives, which had the most influence on my current. To heal and accomplish what I needed to in this life, I guess that's all I needed to know.. I think in general that's how it works.

I also didn't know about them until a certain point in time too. If you or anyone else hasn't learned anything about your past lives, it may be possible that you haven't reached the point where the information will become relevant to you also.
 
Essentially, yes, but the reasons may vary from person to person. it's sometimes called a block, the veil and other things. If my own case is an example, I was only able to see the last two past lives, which had the most influence on my current. To heal and accomplish what I needed to in this life, I guess that's all I needed to know.. I think in general that's how it works.

I also didn't know about them until a certain point in time too. If you or anyone else hasn't learned anything about your past lives, it may be possible that you haven't reached the point where the information will become relevant to you also.
Well my memories are resurfacing quite rapidly now, maybe that “mental block” has disappeared. I kind of want it back.
 
Or maybe because our past lives are so often just... Boring? I discovered that my three previous lifes had to be indeed very common. Nowadays we are bombed with informations from all over the sides and our mind is used to more challenging images. So, common life of just common people seems to be less important for our brains to remember than contemporary issues.
 
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I have this idea that it depends on how well one is connected to the higher self. If one believes in such things. At first it was a bit like a brick wall, but once I had made a hole in it, it was easy and clear. It has fundamentally changed me and I am again essentially the same person that I was in times past. Not all the memrories, but I keep remembering things almost daily. Or do something I didn't know I could, know something I did not know I did, or have changed an opinion on something, feel this or that way about something I did not know I cared about and so forth. After about ten regressions (and a lot of meditation, daily) over the years, I hardly need them anymore. The barrier/veil either is not there anymore, or it is as nonexistent as it will get.

The passage of time may have something to do with it. But my first life was a pretty clear regression. Then again, most people remember their childhood better than their grindingly tiresome working years. My last life is the one I remember by far the clearest, though. By no means a perfect recollection, but sort of like remembering bits and pieces of yesterday when you have been drinking heavily. And yeah, I was once 20 and did stupid things like that. :) Anyway. I have a very easy time identifying with myself in my last life. It is harder to return to the super-Catholic/chivalrous mindset of medieval Spain. I was there too. But it is a very long time ago and while I am the same person, I have changed a lot over the course of many lives.

But yeah, Kenz. I believe you are on to something. What I just said, does it resonate with what you meant?
 
I have this idea that it depends on how well one is connected to the higher self. If one believes in such things. At first it was a bit like a brick wall, but once I had made a hole in it, it was easy and clear. It has fundamentally changed me and I am again essentially the same person that I was in times past. Not all the memrories, but I keep remembering things almost daily. Or do something I didn't know I could, know something I did not know I did, or have changed an opinion on something, feel this or that way about something I did not know I cared about and so forth. After about ten regressions (and a lot of meditation, daily) over the years, I hardly need them anymore. The barrier/veil either is not there anymore, or it is as nonexistent as it will get.

The passage of time may have something to do with it. But my first life was a pretty clear regression. Then again, most people remember their childhood better than their grindingly tiresome working years. My last life is the one I remember by far the clearest, though. By no means a perfect recollection, but sort of like remembering bits and pieces of yesterday when you have been drinking heavily. And yeah, I was once 20 and did stupid things like that. :) Anyway. I have a very easy time identifying with myself in my last life. It is harder to return to the super-Catholic/chivalrous mindset of medieval Spain. I was there too. But it is a very long time ago and while I am the same person, I have changed a lot over the course of many lives.

But yeah, Kenz. I believe you are on to something. What I just said, does it resonate with what you meant?
About to reply to you in a PM.
 
I have another theory myself.

There seem to be some common themes in my most recent lives in the last 300 years. I am busy making a timeline. Those lives did take place in many European countries. It’s like I have been exploring a theme from many perspectives. My last life seems to have been everything opposed to what I had experienced before, including gender. Maybe this current life is my conscious life in which I connect all the dots, close this cycle and move on to next level.

This means: new themes, new location for the next few hunderd years.

... because I wondered if this has happened before. I just ‘know’ I’ve roamed around Mongolia and China for quite some time. Same with India. India is ‘home’ as well.
Meso-America feels like there is still a kind of umbilical cord present.

So I came to this theory that it’s easy to remember most recent lives (at least in my case) because they form a cluster of lives that are related to each other by themes (and people). After gaining enough knowledge about a problem or a question, you just close this chapter. Your conclusions will be carried with you as a kind of innate wisdom. Your next cluster of lives won’t have much connection to the prior cluster, so that’s the reason they don’t show up easily (no active triggers anymore).

Maybe it’s just a characteristic to my type of soul. I know where I came from and I have no knowledge of what other possabilities are.
 
Interesting theory! I guess there’s probably many different factors.
I have another theory myself.

There seem to be some common themes in my most recent lives in the last 300 years. I am busy making a timeline. Those lives did take place in many European countries. It’s like I have been exploring a theme from many perspectives. My last life seems to have been everything opposed to what I had experienced before, including gender. Maybe this current life is my conscious life in which I connect all the dots, close this cycle and move on to next level.

This means: new themes, new location for the next few hunderd years.

... because I wondered if this has happened before. I just ‘know’ I’ve roamed around Mongolia and China for quite some time. Same with India. India is ‘home’ as well.
Meso-America feels like there is still a kind of umbilical cord present.

So I came to this theory that it’s easy to remember most recent lives (at least in my case) because they form a cluster of lives that are related to each other by themes (and people). After gaining enough knowledge about a problem or a question, you just close this chapter. Your conclusions will be carried with you as a kind of innate wisdom. Your next cluster of lives won’t have much connection to the prior cluster, so that’s the reason they don’t show up easily (no active triggers anymore).

Maybe it’s just a characteristic to my type of soul. I know where I came from and I have no knowledge of what other possabilities are.
 
Or maybe because our past lives are so often just... Boring? I discovered that my three previous lifes had to be indeed very common. Nowadays we are bombed with informations from all over the sides and our mind is used to more challenging images. So, common life of just common people seems to be less important for our brains to remember than contemporary issues.
I think it’d be nice to recall memories of ordinary daily life, nothing too stressful.
 
I think it’d be nice to recall memories of ordinary daily life, nothing too stressful.
Dear Kenz1010,

I speak from personal experience, but I think that you are currently going through the "hard" part of accessing previous, buried memories. I do not wish to speculate on what you are going through right now, but it seems that you are now confronted to mostly traumatic memories. In the healing process, this is probably the hardest thing to handle. That being said, and I speak only from my personal experience, there is something else to be remembered, past the traumas. Once you will have reached the point where these traumatic events and memories have found their rightful place in your Life experience, you will realize that there was much more than just pain and suffering in your previous lives. You will one day realize that you are also granted to remember all the little notes that made the tune of your previous existence, some happy, some random, some even funny.

I would describe this as if you recently opened a door to your previous incarnation's memories, and currently you only hear the loudest sounds. Once these will fall into place, you will realize (I'm sure!) that there is a lot more for you to access and find comfort in.
 
Dear Kenz1010,

I speak from personal experience, but I think that you are currently going through the "hard" part of accessing previous, buried memories. I do not wish to speculate on what you are going through right now, but it seems that you are now confronted to mostly traumatic memories. In the healing process, this is probably the hardest thing to handle. That being said, and I speak only from my personal experience, there is something else to be remembered, past the traumas. Once you will have reached the point where these traumatic events and memories have found their rightful place in your Life experience, you will realize that there was much more than just pain and suffering in your previous lives. You will one day realize that you are also granted to remember all the little notes that made the tune of your previous existence, some happy, some random, some even funny.

I would describe this as if you recently opened a door to your previous incarnation's memories, and currently you only hear the loudest sounds. Once these will fall into place, you will realize (I'm sure!) that there is a lot more for you to access and find comfort in.
Hi Benjamin,
Thanks for the message. I’m in a very dark place mentally. My personality has changed so much since this, and I really dislike how I’ve become. I won’t get too much into it, but I hope you’re right. Like you said, probably just in the “hard” stage, and in time it’ll hopefully resolve itself.
 
I think it took me a good 6 or 7 months to get through my "hard" stage. I had a very traumatic end to my life and you would have thought that learning about it would have made a light go off and you'd say "oh, that makes sense" and everything would go back to normal, but it's not that simple at all.

I think partly it's processing all of that pain and those experiences, it's having to wake up to and realign yourself, knowing you had a past life, re-centering yourself in who you are now and honestly, I think a lot of it is progressing through the grieving process.

I think that overall, it just takes time. You need to have faith and trust the process that if you accept how you feel, you will process it and it will eventually fade.
 
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I think it took me a good 6 or 7 months to get through my "hard" stage. I had a very traumatic end to my life and you would have though that learning about it would have made a light go off and you'd say "oh, that makes sense" and everything would go back to normal, but it's not that simple at all.

I think partly it's processing all of that pain and those experiences, it's having to wake up to and realign yourself, knowing you had a past life, re-centering yourself in who you are now and honestly, I think a lot of it is progressing through the grieving process.

I think that overall, it just takes time. You need to have faith and trust the process that if you accept how you feel, you will process it and it will eventually fade.
Oh yeah it’s just so raw, it’s impossible to grasp if you haven’t experienced it. My family members (since I was vocal about it) couldn’t just comprehend. In my case of remembering a death in battle, my father who was officer in the french army could understand what war was like and gave me a lot of support.

But yeah it fades away, it falls into place and finds itself a quiet spot in our life. It’s there but it doesn’t prevents other good things from happening. But even after some years I am still surprised by how clear it can be, when a trigger brings you back to these memories.
 
I believe that there is a reason that we forget previous existences: so that we may have an entirely new experience without being consciously predisposed to think or act certain ways. Granted, past life experiences affect us on a subconscious level, but to consciously have all of that information from the beginning--would not everyone just act as though their previous life had not ended?

I think we only remember what is most relevant when we are ready for it. My personal experience leads me to believe it is not just forgetfulness caused by a time gap, as Kenz1010 suggested, since I have many vivid memories from the Middle Ages and before, but less than five seconds of memory within the last five centuries (excluding this lifetime, of course). I also wonder if there might be a level of spiritual attunement required, as Ritter suggested, but do not have anything to say on the matter.
 
Tanker, I'd suggest that you type it out in a word-processor program and add to it as things come to you, it is both therapeutic and could lead to something worthy of publication or at least helping someone else. I can't imagine any pereson's ego allowing the past memories overcome it beyond moments when the memories is re-lived.
 
Here's my 2 cents:

Not only subconsciously, but consciously I have pushed my last life during Vietnam War away. Still do it to this day. Don't want to know anything about Vietnam, or that era, or anything to do with Terry -- even looking at videos of Vietnam can trigger uncontrolled aggression and pain in me. It still came through subconsciously despite that. When I was 26, I reached a point where I couldn't continue with my life without looking at the pain. Don't ask me why that is. I remember sitting and contemplating my marriage, life and my innate unhappiness and asking myself -- what am I doing with my life? Where do I go from here? Could not see a future with me growing old. That was followed by the intense feeling that I had to find 'myself'. By myself here I'm talking partially about Terry.

I'd had what appeared like past life memories prior to Terry, prior to finding him, mostly in dreams. It was nothing like what happened with Terry. My past life memories of other lives are most likely nothing like the reality of the lives. With Terry, I went back in time, the memories were flashbacks. I wasn't just being shown Terry's life, I was reliving aspects of it, emotions, feelings -- everything came back. Now and then that still happens. Sometimes the memories are vague, then expand and become life like.

Now there is no going back. And honestly don't know what is going forwards. Spoke w/ a normal therapist over the phone yesterday and one question was -- what are your triggers for depression and anxiety? Er -- Vietnam? Of course can't say that, can you? And when she asked if I had served in the Armed Forces. What can you say? How does someone like me even begin to get help?
 
To further elaborate, I left my last life sorely unresolved. I've jumped into this life which has no resemblance to that life and lived sheltered, and hidden and trying to get as far away as possible from who I was as Terry. Even doing activities that Terry enjoyed I've run from (for example, I started running track when I was around 8-9 and stopped because I recall it triggering pain in me, it was an all girls club and I hated the girls and how they were -- lo and behold Terry also ran track and was good at it -- found it in a newspaper clipping).

Everyday ask myself why I chose this, why? My mother who knows of Terry tells me this is my karma because I left my family behind in my last life. My karma to live out my lives miserable, and live not according to my nature. Now can't see a way out, and am having to go under crises control because I'm at risk of taking my own life. How does it feel to have to mention to a complete stranger that you are 50-50 on ending it all? It feels like you might imagine it.

This is the truth of it. I say to you Kenz, get some proper help (meaning not a group of strangers on a forum -- but folks who can help) & don't be like me. You are young, and you have your life ahead of you. I'm 28 and done a lot of damage, and have three kids to think of so that I don't end up ruining their lives.
 
For what it’s worth I find your story very interesting, as well as your life Tanker. From the short time I’ve known you I wouldn’t consider anything that you’ve told me is uninteresting. In fact it is book worthy and should be known by others.
 
The case being in point that repression and suffering alone in silence is definitely not the answer.
 
Both of you speak of things that have been a part of my current lifetime, and make me sad that I chose to leave the counseling profession in the 1980's. As an aside, part of the reason for leaving was because the APA seemed like a mafia sort of organization, declaring what was labeled a problem and then claiming that to be 'turf' that they were to control. I noticed that they recently declared that traditional masculinity has been included as a problem to be corrected!

Landsend, since I've experienced sitting with a gun in-hand considering the benefits of using it to relieve the pain, the realization that avoiding it now is just temporary must be put into the equation.

Tanker, you know that I've been interested in your story AND current life circumstances. I have some of the same issues as you speak of, the things that I considered important were all taken from me in one way or another, my physical abilities, my family, and my goals that I'd set for myself. I've often wondered what I'd have become if I'd remained the physically-capable person I once was, wondering what it is that I can do to give meaning to my life, wondering why in the heck I'm still here. Either you believe there is a predestine purpose, you create a purpose, or you just walk the path. My preference when in doubt is the second one while waiting for the first one to become known.
 
Thank you so much for those kind words, landsend. What I find in general is that people who have dramatic stories get a lot more notice taken of them than someone with a very ordinary story like mine.

I just can't understand where all the rest of the ordinary German soldiers are ... everyone else with PLs on the German side seems to be SS connected, which is what people like to hear about. There were millions of us. Where on earth are they all?
Tanker, I find you and your story very interesting, I don’t know why you think that way. And like landsend said, it’s honestly book worthy. You’ve recalled so much & been through so much.

I believe you and I are sort of both in the same boat right now. Not many people we feel we can connect with on a level of pure satisfaction.
 
Thank you so much for those kind words, landsend. What I find in general is that people who have dramatic stories get a lot more notice taken of them than someone with a very ordinary story like mine.

I just can't understand where all the rest of the ordinary German soldiers are ... everyone else with PLs on the German side seems to be SS connected, which is what people like to hear about. There were millions of us. Where on earth are they all?

Am also wondering where all the Nam veterans are, most have disappeared or not stuck around long. Experience shows me that folks hide. We are the few here. I’ve not talked to anyone who recalls Vietnam with the depth I do, yet.

As for the average German soldier, I suspect it’s much the same.
 
Both of you speak of things that have been a part of my current lifetime, and make me sad that I chose to leave the counseling profession in the 1980's. As an aside, part of the reason for leaving was because the APA seemed like a mafia sort of organization, declaring what was labeled a problem and then claiming that to be 'turf' that they were to control. I noticed that they recently declared that traditional masculinity has been included as a problem to be corrected!

Landsend, since I've experienced sitting with a gun in-hand considering the benefits of using it to relieve the pain, the realization that avoiding it now is just temporary must be put into the equation.

Tanker, you know that I've been interested in your story AND current life circumstances. I have some of the same issues as you speak of, the things that I considered important were all taken from me in one way or another, my physical abilities, my family, and my goals that I'd set for myself. I've often wondered what I'd have become if I'd remained the physically-capable person I once was, wondering what it is that I can do to give meaning to my life, wondering why in the heck I'm still here. Either you believe there is a predestine purpose, you create a purpose, or you just walk the path. My preference when in doubt is the second one while waiting for the first one to become known.

Many thanks for sharing this Ken.
 
Tanker, I find you and your story very interesting, I don’t know why you think that way. And like landsend said, it’s honestly book worthy. You’ve recalled so much & been through so much.

I believe you and I are sort of both in the same boat right now. Not many people we feel we can connect with on a level of pure satisfaction.
Thanks, Kenz, it's very kind of you to say that. I'm sure when you've got more of your story sorted out you'll find others on your wavelength. You have time on your side.
 
Sometimes find that I can gain perspective through reading about how others have lived their lives. wo such books come to mind, Gift of Life and Unbroken, both dealing with the WWII time period. Just a thought:)
 
I'm too involved with the forum today it seems. In addition to my ramblings about finding peace and direction, I started reading a newer Kindle purchase, A Mind at Home with Itself, where part of the Forward states -

For readers who haven’t heard about Byron Katie, here is some background. In the midst of an ordinary American life—two marriages, three children, a successful career—Katie entered a ten-year-long downward spiral into depression, agoraphobia, self-loathing, and suicidal despair. She drank to excess, her husband brought her pints of ice cream and codeine pills that she ate like candy, and she ended up weighing over two hundred pounds. She slept with a .357 Magnum revolver under her bed. Every day she prayed not to wake up the next morning, and it was only because of her concern for her children that she didn’t kill herself. For the last two years of this ordeal she could seldom manage to leave her house; she stayed in her bedroom for days at a time, unable even to shower or brush her teeth. (“What’s the use?” she thought. “It all adds up to nothing anyway.”) Finally, in February 1986, at the age of forty-three, she checked herself into a halfway house for women with eating disorders—the only facility that her insurance company would pay for. The residents were so frightened of her that they put her in an attic bedroom and booby-trapped the staircase at night; they thought she might come down and do something terrible to them.

One morning, after about a week at the halfway house, Katie had a life-changing experience. As she lay on the floor (she didn’t feel worthy enough to sleep in a bed), a cockroach crawled across her ankle and down her foot. She opened her eyes, and all her depression and fear, all the thoughts that had been tormenting her, were gone. “While I was lying on the floor,” she says, “I understood that when I was asleep, prior to cockroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there was—there is—nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born.” She felt intoxicated with joy. The joy persisted for hours, then days, then months and years.

When she went home, her children, who had lived in fear of her outbursts, could barely recognize her. Her eyes had changed. “The blue had become so clear, so beautiful,” her daughter, Roxann, says. “If you looked in, you could see that she was as innocent as a baby. She was happy all day long, every day, and she seemed to be brimming over with love.”

Katie, Byron. A Mind at Home with Itself (pp. x-xi). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.


Sounds interesting:)
 
I'm too involved with the forum today it seems. In addition to my ramblings about finding peace and direction, I started reading a newer Kindle purchase, A Mind at Home with Itself, where part of the Forward states -

For readers who haven’t heard about Byron Katie, here is some background. In the midst of an ordinary American life—two marriages, three children, a successful career—Katie entered a ten-year-long downward spiral into depression, agoraphobia, self-loathing, and suicidal despair. She drank to excess, her husband brought her pints of ice cream and codeine pills that she ate like candy, and she ended up weighing over two hundred pounds. She slept with a .357 Magnum revolver under her bed. Every day she prayed not to wake up the next morning, and it was only because of her concern for her children that she didn’t kill herself. For the last two years of this ordeal she could seldom manage to leave her house; she stayed in her bedroom for days at a time, unable even to shower or brush her teeth. (“What’s the use?” she thought. “It all adds up to nothing anyway.”) Finally, in February 1986, at the age of forty-three, she checked herself into a halfway house for women with eating disorders—the only facility that her insurance company would pay for. The residents were so frightened of her that they put her in an attic bedroom and booby-trapped the staircase at night; they thought she might come down and do something terrible to them.

One morning, after about a week at the halfway house, Katie had a life-changing experience. As she lay on the floor (she didn’t feel worthy enough to sleep in a bed), a cockroach crawled across her ankle and down her foot. She opened her eyes, and all her depression and fear, all the thoughts that had been tormenting her, were gone. “While I was lying on the floor,” she says, “I understood that when I was asleep, prior to cockroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there was—there is—nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born.” She felt intoxicated with joy. The joy persisted for hours, then days, then months and years.

When she went home, her children, who had lived in fear of her outbursts, could barely recognize her. Her eyes had changed. “The blue had become so clear, so beautiful,” her daughter, Roxann, says. “If you looked in, you could see that she was as innocent as a baby. She was happy all day long, every day, and she seemed to be brimming over with love.”

Katie, Byron. A Mind at Home with Itself (pp. x-xi). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.


Sounds interesting:)

I sort of understand this. I’ve experienced before moments of what the indian mystics call ‘Samadhi’. It first happened to me in this life when I too was suffering immensely with agoraphobia and suicidal depression as a teen. However this state was not permanent for me. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Eckhart Tolle, but reading his first book it seems he also experienced something similar.

I have read accounts of POWs in Vietnam talking about how when their suffering was very great that they entered a state of mind from the starvation, suffering and lack of stimulation that was similar to what monks and mystics attain. Although again for them it was not permanent.
 
To further elaborate, I left my last life sorely unresolved. I've jumped into this life which has no resemblance to that life and lived sheltered, and hidden and trying to get as far away as possible from who I was as Terry. Even doing activities that Terry enjoyed I've run from (for example, I started running track when I was around 8-9 and stopped because I recall it triggering pain in me, it was an all girls club and I hated the girls and how they were -- lo and behold Terry also ran track and was good at it -- found it in a newspaper clipping).

Everyday ask myself why I chose this, why? My mother who knows of Terry tells me this is my karma because I left my family behind in my last life. My karma to live out my lives miserable, and live not according to my nature. Now can't see a way out, and am having to go under crises control because I'm at risk of taking my own life. How does it feel to have to mention to a complete stranger that you are 50-50 on ending it all? It feels like you might imagine it.

This is the truth of it. I say to you Kenz, get some proper help (meaning not a group of strangers on a forum -- but folks who can help) & don't be like me. You are young, and you have your life ahead of you. I'm 28 and done a lot of damage, and have three kids to think of so that I don't end up ruining their lives.
Landsend, like you, I wouldn’t know what I’d even say. I’m pretty sure if some 16 year old girl walked into a counseling session and said she needs help coping with memories & flashbacks from world war 2, they’d probably try and put me in some sort of mental facility. I don’t know who to talk to about this besides the people on this forum and in private messages.
 
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