How do we know which one is who?

[Myna]

Those who have done PLR or seen past life visions, how do u guys figure out what u have experienced?

Akso, I need some insights on follow:
When I keep seeing memory flashes in form of films/movies without audio repeatedly in different times of reincarnations and in those scenes ALWAYS appeared 2 people, how could I know which one was me?

When we see those kinds of flashes, how could we know & not confuse those of others with our past life memories; maybe other spirit beings telephatically communicate with us to show who they are by showing THEIR past lives? And we might think they were ours?

When you guys know about your past life, does it help you advance this life? Did it change your current situation & condition in this life? Or those memories hold u back from progressing because you keep longing or daydreaming your old lives?

 

[Mere Dreamer]

I mentioned something on another thread about one possible reason you don't know who you are in your memories, but your question about being given the memories of someone else is one I've thought through a lot. In a way, I have experienced a form of connecting to others' memories ... but it wasn't at all the same quality as my meditations when I regressed to my own life. It helps that I've met people who have the other half of our shared memories, and they recognize me from their perspective as well.

I've tried to see other people's lives out of curiosity, to see if I can. First, I usually try this with people who are close to me, so what tends to happen is that I'll remember a life we shared and witness them from my perspective in that life.

For example: Two old men in a cave/enclosed stone room. I know one is me because I can't "see" him, I just "am" him and looking out through his eyes. The other I can see in the flickering firelight, looking back at me. I can sense the emotions (and am pretty certain of the thoughts) of the other man. We understand each other. We've spent our lives hunting together and now, as widowers, share our room, happy in the knowledge that our families live nearby. I know he feels just as comfortable and at-home with me as I do with him, and that mutual emotion comes across very clearly in the memory.

Even in this life I "feel" other people's emotions frequently. It took me a long time to learn not to take responsibility for them (since being psychic/empathic wasn't a possibility in our belief system) and to recognize the difference between "my emotions" and "their emotions" so it's not surprising that empathy is a characteristic of past life memories, also.

However, even when I meditate on the experiences of other people without having "been there" myself, I don't experience "being them" when I receive an answer at all. It's often like someone (perhaps the person themselves) is telling me a story. They might convey all the emotion to me, but I'm reflecting back through my own separate experiences in order to empathize with them, like I do with a well-told story or movie, not directly experiencing what they experience from their perspective in the memory.

I talk to a lot of individuals in spirit, some of whom are alive now (though I think it's an aspect of themselves they aren't always aware of). I know whoever I speak to is directly connected to them because of the accuracy of the information and personality they share. Some of those I interact with aren't incarnate or are acting as guides and conveyors of information. They all have distinct qualities that make them themselves and not anybody else. It's like talking to someone over the phone, in a way. Once you know them you'll figure out quickly who you're talking to even if they don't bother to give you their name. Only I sense them on more channels than just audio, too.

I'm still not 100% certain that I only experience my own memories, but at this point I think it's pointless to worry about it. I don't need to KNOW for certain how it works to experience what I experience and learn from it. If a memory affects me strongly enough to change my life and help me become a better person, then it becomes part of me within that process, even if I'm learning from someone else's experiences.

Generally speaking, I'm as certain as is possible that these memories are my own. Until I add senses that are currently inactive or somehow access further information that is currently out of reach, it's not worth worrying about or wasting time in fear when I've only benefitted so far. What would I do with that energy? It's not something I can just go research at the nearest library. Others' experiences don't define mine and mine don't define theirs. My experience is my experience.

 

[Mere Dreamer]

I asked her why her experience same as mine, she said coz she c thru her 3rd eye, that's why she said that mine should be the same as hers thru 3rd eye.

Hmm. I started with a method that has been shared a lot on this forum, linking the 3rd eye with the heart chakra when meditating. I think it is the heart that steps in as "myself then" and the 3rd eye that "witnesses the past" as I am now. It may be why I always have two perspectives on the scene. Also, I always ask my guides to assist. They tend to answer questions as I think of them, even mid-memory. So that's three methods, interconnected into one experience. Maybe that's the difference? *shrug*

For all I know, the reason I'm so confident is because I've spent many lifetimes learning to do this, and I just picked up at that skill level without realizing I have that advantage. I've experienced trying to learn from people who "just know how" to do things, and they never can explain the initial steps very well. I'm probably not explaining clearly, because regressing myself isn't something I practiced slowly and eventually figured out. I basically reached this level of detail on the first attempt, and then immediately received strong real life confirmations that I couldn't ignore on the first three memories I explored. Since then, I purposefully maintain a low-level skepticism that will hopefully allow me to notice new information or inconsistencies, but it's not enough to act as a "fear" to interfere with remembering or prevent me from simply experiencing the process.

When I say I "speak" it's on a similar level as one would speak in a dream or imagination. (The part of the mind that translates subtle information.) I rely on my inner eyes, inner ears, inner voice, inner hands, inner presence, etc. to interact at this level. Sometimes it's as though my physical existence is less real than the meditation experience, and other times I'm more aware of my tangible self, which makes the memories/interactions more fragmented and difficult to follow. But I never lose track of which heart is experiencing the scene, even when I know what others are thinking.

However, when I dream I often experience the confusion of not knowing which person I am in the dream. I'll switch bodies and perspectives sometimes, making who is doing what impossible to sort out when I wake up. I'm not sure if it's a similar effect to what you're explaining ... but I think I can at least understand a little of what you're talking about.

Here is the quote of my comments in the other thread.

Myna, your confusion over who you are in your memories makes me wonder whether you might have been a third person witnessing those two individuals' lives. Maybe you weren't either of them, and that's why you don't know. I always know who I am, because I AM the person ... but I never "see myself" or "am told who I am" in the memories. I just experience others interacting with me or the emotions and thoughts of the character I had in the moment. I might simply "know" things about myself, because the person I was then knew these things (like the color of my hair or something).

There are multiple senses in regression, and not everyone senses all of them. I'm one of those who steps back and actually experiences everything except scent, but the way you experience a particularly vivid memory or dream, as both a witness and a participant. Some people only see glimpses or "photographs" of a moment. Some witness more immersive video clips. Some step in like they're taking part in a play that they can't change. Some only know the answers to questions, like someone is telling it to them when they ask. Some hear conversations or sounds in the memory. Some people feel emotions without explanations. Some experience a sense of relationship to objects and places. Some remember specific skills or words. The list goes on and on. Some methods of remembering are probably less immediate and informative than others, but they're all worthy of respecting as experiences.

Feel free to start a private conversation with me if you'd like. We don't have a hidden section of this forum for memories at this point.

 

[Mere Dreamer]

Do u need other to be present next to u in order to see their memories? So u never saw yrself in the mind movie?? Have u seen your face?

Oh, I missed a couple of your questions. I don't need to be next to someone, just "connected" to them somehow. Sometimes I can't do it with people I technically know very well (like family in this life) and sometimes I can do it with strangers that I technically don't know in this life. So it's based on connections beyond this life only. I don't think I've ever "seen" my face, since my past personas didn't seem to focus on looking at their reflections much. I knew things about myself, just because it was my body, though.

I'd rather prefer to know whether it's my memories or other spirits, coz by having their memories is like carrying a new neg karmic baggage to the next life e.g. Being a murder or being murdered, having thought u have murdered, it's enough for u to share some of the karmic load. If nice ones it's okay, but when u started grasping that it was your life, u started having nostalgia to be in that scene or country that u fond of, where some ppl do that, this one is still okay, coz by keep thinking that place, maximum yr next reincarnation will be directed to the country that u always daydream.

I think this is only a risk if you haven't learned to accept the lesson and let the past be the past. One of the things I had to learn in this life was letting people have their own lives and not anchoring myself (or attempting to bind them) with promises or saving them from themselves. When it's something we need to work on we're given opportunities to work through it, along with the difficulties that come with the process.

How I experience "karma" (for lack of a better word) doesn't match what you seem to believe. Karma is like walking across a street without looking and getting hit by a car. Lack of caution doesn't always end in tragedy, but when it does you have the long term process of healing broken bones and possibly learning to walk again. Unlike the physical body, though, when we suffer in a life/lives and recover we end up stronger and more able/aware/complete afterward.

So if we "pick up" someone's karma (basically accept their experience as an opportunity to learn) and truly accept and integrate what we can learn from it, we actually don't have to experience it first hand because we've gained the strength/insight/etc that allows us to avoid the root of problem in the future. Yes, some people get stuck, but they would get stuck on their own problems at some point anyway. It can't be avoided, because life brings those experiences our way whether we've figured out how to handle them or not. People who get stuck are in a place where getting stuck is how they handle it, until they sort themselves out and learn to incorporate the growth within the experiences.

I do this all the time. The problems I get hung up on are things I'm learning from, working through, and becoming capable of dealing with. It may be no fun in the middle, and I might spend years longing for it to be over or wishing someone would just rescue me... but at the end I have a new skill or insight. Even if the same problem comes up again I can move through it on a completely different level than before, and it simply can't anchor on the same places in me because those blind/lacking spots have been smoothed out or eliminated. Everything is an opportunity for growth.

There are different areas for this process, and we make progress at different speeds in each one, possibly depending on what we've decided to process most actively in a current stage of life. For example, I'm strongly connected to several individuals and would love to live closer to them instead of scattered around the world as we are now. My attraction to places is mostly because that's where they live now, and also where we shared lives back then. I'd soon lose most of my interest in the location if they moved.

However, like you, I wouldn't give up the opportunity to experience incarnate lives at the same time as them just yet. Even if I could "move on" right now I wouldn't want to move on without them. I don't think that's a negative quality, whatever Buddhism thinks.

 

[Myna]

Btw mere, r u male or female?

 

[Mere Dreamer]

Btw mere, r u male or female?

Ah, that you needed to ask makes me happy for some reason. I'm neither. I tend to be in a male body in most of the memories I've had, though I think I've lived as both sexes often enough to be comfortable as either. I'm in a female body this time around, which has its good points even if it doesn't match completely. Human bodies don't seem to have an non-gendered avatar choice. Hah.

It took a while to find the thread on heart center meditation. All my links are from the old forum server, so I had to search for it again here. (I only just managed to update the links in my signature yesterday.)

I see you found this thread on astral projection. Check out the FAQ section, too. There are a couple threads on various types of meditation there, also.

I don't think meditation techniques are one-size fits all. Figure out what works for you, personally. It might be very different than my process.

 

[Barblynn]

When I started having PL dreams, I saw the whole person as if watching a movie. After more dreams, meditation and regression, that person was not me, it was my PL mother. I believe that she was showing me what happened because I never saw her again in that life.

 

[Myna]

I've never had a proper PLR, but when I remembered things I saw them as if I was living them first person, so no, I couldn't see my own body from the outside.

I had also visions where I couldnt see the body but arms of 2 ppl, since it was vision of this life, I knew which arms were mine.

Now if I think back, I did saw the ancient Chinese guy only his right arm painting & writing, so means he was me? But later, the vision shifted that I could see his whole body, face, room, table.
I didnt really notice which emotion that time, coz I was basically still strong in grief, so all I know feel painful, but when I saw hand writing & painting, I was just wondering what was written & amazed how beautiful the calligraphy & painting were. My visions last 5 seconds, then blurred, then come back again with other new ones, then blurred. So I didnt have long movie. Sometimes the story to be continued when I resume again. Those visions appeared upon wakeup & fallasleep or as soon as I just close my eyes & focus in the light.

The only occasion in which I saw myself from behind (imagine my perspective as a third person videogame) was a dream of an extremely important mission I did, an incredibly long time ago.

I saw myself from the back just once. I know it was me coz wearing same shirt on that day I had vision.

How I knew it was me? Well, for some reason my perspective kept shifting from third person (so that I could see my appearance) to first person, so that I was that individual. Secondly, I could perceive his strong emotions and thoughts as my own. Putting the two together, and recognizing the psychological traits of this person, I realized it was me in the remote past.

so u saw yourself as whole in the beginning, then in the end u just saw yourself interacting with other in your scene?

My aunt had a few visions of memories in which she could see herself as from an outside perspective... she was sailing on an old ship and saw herself from the dock. She knew that it was her, on some unspoken level. Sorry I can't give you any precise explanation but I guess that as always we tend to trust our instincts.

did her vision shift from 3rd to 1st person? Was that the only experience?

Thy so much for taking time to write & share what u know