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Do you trust your past life memories?

I try to trust my memories, but I find it hard until I find some validation or something that I wouldn't have known about the culture/place that I find out due to a flashback or just knowing. I'm sure it's easy to WISH you had a past life somewhere or in some decade, and make up the scenario in your mind. I try to trust my memories, but I try to prove them, as well...Most of the time, when I write about my memories and things, like in my journal, I don't do it in concrete FACT. I write something like "I may have been in a man who lived in a jungle, in my vision I saw an elephant, blah blah blah, instead of just ASSUMING that I AM that man. Or, if I see a flash of, say, Marilyn Monroe, I don't assume that I was her, or Andy Warhol, or anyone like that. I'm not sure if that makes much sense.....
 
I don't believe everything I hear, even when it comes from me. My memory isn't infallible or complete.
On the other hand, I don't remember lives when I was famous, exceptionally good or bad, rich, etc. Elements normally associated with fantasy are absent from them.
Therefore, my honest answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no.
 
I don't remember any famous PL's either, but I think I might have been a person on whom you can find some information. And another time, whose name can be found on the Internet and history books, but nothing else. But these are only intuitive guesses supported by some memories etc.

I think that many people think they were once famous not only because it's "cool", but because you can find so much more information on famous people than on the average-joes. Sometimes researching PL's can get frustrating because you can't find any information to support your memories/dreams etc. and then it can be really tempting to believe you were somebody whose life can be tracked down.

This, on a smaller scale, may have happened to me too.

Some days I'm really convinced and trust my intuition, and others I'm really sceptical, frustrated and annoyed. But I'm always trying to think that believing in PL's doesn't hurt anybody and at least I'm learning so much history while researching them, it's not a waste of time by any means.

Karoliina
 
You might be interested in Helen Wambauch Ph.D and her book Reliving Past Lives published in 1978

She has many graphs and sample tests she did. In one she refers to 1,088 cases. Her question was to know how many of her subjects had been wealthy or famous in a past life. She even went so far as to state that one of the frequent objections to past life recall is that "so many people seemed to have been Cleopatra or high Priests in Egypt in past lives." So she tested 1,088 cases.

She plotted them on a graph and a clear pattern emerged. The upper class and famous was very small - less than 10 percent of the cases she studied in every time period. 2000BC to present day (1978). She actually breaks it down into these different time periods and gives an actual count of famous and wealthy and the ratio of past life memories to those time periods. They are accurate percentages and fit historical records.
 
Thank you to everyone who has responded. I have been enjoying reading everyone's thoughts and I hope that others will also post.

I guess since I'm the one who brought this question up again, I ought to share my own thoughts on the matter.

The night I bumped this thread up, I had discovered that I have a false memory of something that happened in my current lifetime. It was not a significant event, but I was *truly 100% really definitely for sure certain* that I'd remembered it exactly as it happened . . . only I found out it happened a different way! So that got me to thinking about false memories in relation to past lives.

I doubt that I'll ever be able to lay my hands on hard facts that will verify any of my past lives. So until then, I have to consider the possiblity that they are false memories. I do believe 100% in some of my recollections, but then, I believed in my current life false memory, too. Still, I am confident enough to say: "Yes, I believe this stuff" until I learn otherwise. (And if that happens, I hope that I will be able to gracefully say: "Yes, I used to believe this stuff and then I found out I was mistaken.")

Leaving that point aside, I tend to categorize information about my past lives into four categories: "YES", "probably", "could be", and "um, weird".

"YES" is for memories that I've had for as long as I can recall. This is a set of scenes that I've remembered or dreamed about all my life. I feel confident about any information that is contained in those memories.

"Probably" is for information that follows logically from my "YES" memories AND that I've gotten sort of an emotional verficiation for.

"Could be" is for information that just feels right, even though it doesn't always make sense. I'm sure y'all know exactly what I mean by that.

"Um, weird" is for everything else -- things that don't feel right OR make sense, things others have suggested, etc. I like to think of this stuff as being on file in case it ever seems to relate to something I'm more certain of.

And of course, I test every memory as much as I can -- Could it be something from a forgotten movie? Is it historically accurate? And so on.

What has surprised me the most in reading these posts is that a lot of you are more like me than I thought. Most folks here seem so certain of their past life memories. It made me feel a lot better to learn that most of you go through these long debates with yourselves, just like I do.

Looking forward to reading more,
-- Niamh.
 
No, I don't trust my PL memories unless I can verify them in one way or another. I've been able to verify about half of my prior lives but the ones that I couldn't verify, I just pass off as odd dreams. ;)
 
I have always kept an open mind...willing to accept my past life memories unless proven wrong in one regard or another. However, I am surprised at how often thoughts and memories have turned out exactly correct.

As an example: I am not sure how the subject of Dunkirk came up, but I had this incredible surge of anger and protectiveness come over me and I found myself thinking, "No one is taking SUNDOWNER anyplace but myself!!!" and the feeling that I wouldn't trust the Royal Navy not to sink her. I mean, this was an incredible feeling I have rarely experienced with PL memories. A few days later, I was reading my biography and it mentioned that when the Admiralty approached me about borrowing SUNDOWNER to assist at the evacuation of troops from the French mainland, that is exactly how I reacted.
Before this I had never read anything extensively on the subject--either the evacuation or the part of SUNDOWNER and myself in it.

Another very tiny memory: I always have believed that last life I wore a ring on the little finger of my left hand. Well, my good friend from last life found a large picture of me with my dogs and there, on my left hand, on the small finger, is indeed a ring.

So I still am cynical towards my memories but I am learning to trust them more and more....
 
I trust my pastlife memories to an extent, some alot more than others. When I first started remembering pastlives I didn't trust my memories at all. It took along time for me to start to trust them and that came through being able to verify certain memories.
 
Fiziwig,

I think this is an extremely important point, and I think the best course is neither complete naivete nor complete cynicism. Roger Woolger addressed this question by saying that the core, emotionally-charged memories are most accurate, and then the edifice of details that people build up around them are more likely to be fabrications. I would add to that, *except* for the case of the person who has a full-sensory flashback experience. Those tend to be near 100% accurate, as Lagrima on this forum will tell you, having verified hers historically.

So, when someone induces memories through hypnosis, say, and they have some memories and impressions but they don't have that full-sensory "you are there" immersion, then what's most likely to be accurate are the strongest emotional memories. What's least likely to be accurate, unfortunately, are the specific details that a researcher may ask for after the emotional experience, like, look at a newspaper and tell me what the date is, what is the name of this or that, etc. etc. Not that these details don't sometimes turn out to be accurate, but they also sometimes turn out to be inaccurate, which leads skeptics to dismiss all of it as cryptoamnesia.

On a personal level, I have been developing my intuition for some 30 years now as part of my spiritual life. I have learned from trial and error what I can trust and what I can't. When it comes to past lives, I trust my sense of *recognition* more than I trust any other aspect of memory. I have trained myself to be extremely honest with myself over this 30 year period. I can see when this sense of recognition is coming from this life, and when it probably isn't. So, I trust that relatively more. I know, for example, when I feel a strong and persistent sense of recognitition for a person I've never met before, and I can tell whether it's coming from a *likeness* to someone I've met in this life, or from a past life, because of the quality of the perception, how persistent it is, and whether it conforms to a certain pattern I've observed in these situations, like the accompanying emotional reaction that doesn't have a cause in this life.

So to summarize, I think this question has to be looked at in shades of grey and not in black-and-white, and it requires rigorous honesty with oneself to discern what one is dealing with, present-life memory or past-life memory.
Steve S.
 
A very pertinent thread this. I have claimed two lives on this site and both are sincere. However, I can understand why others would be sceptical, I am too sometimes. The only 'proof' that many might be willing to accept is that I have what seem to be real emotions when I think about those lives. However, I can understand why it is easy to dismiss my 'memories' as delusion. I TRY to make sure that I am as sure as possible before making any claims. How I wish that I had been one of those who talked about past lifes as a child instead of waiting all this time. So, until I can provide incontrovertible proof I suppose we are all wondering.
Hammy
 
I trust what I know of my past lives, even though I don't have real memories. What I know of my past lives comes form dreams and that is one reason why I put trust in it. My past life dreams are completely involuntary. I neither will them nor control them in any way. They invariably recurred till I got their message and then stopped. They always helped me solve a peice of the puzzle that my life is. Basically they taught me a lot about me and life and karma.
 
Sometimes I still doubt if my dreams and flash backs are memories or a symbolic dream language
that point to current issues in my current life.
Because a lot of my memories are directly linked to issues in this life,
although my memories are totally different than the life I have now.
But under the surface of a Victorian flash back lies an emotion or a problem I also have to deal with today.

Curious Girl.
 
Yes, but how long have you had these dreams/memories? If they started in young childhood they would seem more PL related than not. And perhaps you dream in this period because it is one that is for whatever reasons familiar to you.

Incidentally, nice to see you here again, curious_girl! :)
 
Lights said:
Yes, but how long have you had these dreams/memories? If they started in young childhood they would seem more PL related than not. And perhaps you dream in this period because it is one that is for whatever reasons familiar to you.

Incidentally, nice to see you here again, curious_girl! :)

Hello Lights :)

My dreams started when I was about 15/16, perhaps even earlier but I'm not sure.
 
:) I'm glad to hear that. It makes sense that if you had "unfinished business" from last life, you would receive recall as a way of getting you to finish said unfinished business. Plus I believe me all have past life memories--it is just that some of us are taught not to believe in them or supress them if they are too painful.
 
This thread's a fascinating read, imo. I'd love to hear others thoughts........


Do you trust your past life memories?


Aili
 
This is a very interesting thread ~ I only trust the memories of the past lives that i have been able to validate. So out of the four lives that i can remember, although i believe in them all, there is only one that i am totally convinced of.


I think it can be very easy not to trust the memories, but when you take into account the emotional content of those memories, for me, that is the difference between fantasy and reality.


In my opinion, you can't really know something fully, unless you have experienced it. In my case, no amount of reading, or watching a movie on tv, can replicate the terror of facing an erupting volcano. You can imagine what it's like to be there, but you cannot fully know, unless you have experienced it, and i've known and relived that particular fear, from as far back as i can remember, before i learnt to read, and before we owned a tv.


Also, i think triggers can allow you to trust your memories. For example, how can a certain sound trigger a memory from something you may have read in a book, or how can a certain smell trigger that pastlife memory that originated from something seen on tv? I think triggers can be a good form of validation too, and i trust my validated memories 100%.
 
Hm...that is a good question. None of my past lives memories has been fully validated, so technically no, I don't trust them 100%. I feel very certain at one and somewhat certain at another, however.


I think not trusting pastlife memories - on my part - is a mix of many things. One is that believing in reincarnation still is a taboo and an area full of prejudices. This being so I feel that I have to come up with concrete evidence - just trusting my intuition isn't good enough.


That being said, I do take note of all pastlife-ish flashes and/or memories that flows through my mind, but I don't give them too much credit until I have more information, flashes or memories that supports it.


:) Very interesting thread.
 
I'm with Chris- I've got to see the evidence. And I think that's because of what Sunniva wrote: there is a lot of prejudice out there, and I don't want to look stupid coming out with something I am not sure about. I hope that's not the sign of a coward, I'd rather it was the sign of some maturity ;) As someone said: "be sure you're right, then go ahead."


enyeo
 
I'd be interested to read some more comments on this old thread... it's a good one :thumbsup:
 
This is one I struggle with a lot. I'm a very critical and analytical thinker, so evidence definately matters to me. I'm not the kind of person that jumps on the idea of something without something tangible I can hang on to.


I spent a lot of time researching reincarnation before I was swayed toward believing it. The conclusion I came to was there is too much evidence and too many people with validated memories for it to be complete nonsense.


As for my own memories, my most recent life is really the only one I have any real validations for. Without those validations I might not be here now. At first, I was convinced that I had made it all up. The validations that I found helped to change my mind. The other lives that I remember I feel like, without evidence, it's not much more than a good story. However, I'm learning to trust my subconscious enough to believe that there's at least a certain amount of truth to what I remember even if it isn't 100% accurate. As a matter of fact, what we remember from our current life isn't always 100% accurate. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.


This is an excellent question. :thumbsup: I'm looking forward to others' feelings on this.
 
Thanks for re-activating this thread, Chris. It's actually a critical question, because we all jump the gun with judgement at one time or another.


I have to admit, though, that I've had to be very careful about some dreams and "flashbacks", which have featured vivid images of events that didn't happen. I've experienced such occasions of vivid images drawn from other real events, which I'm certain did not happen. All the features were there including friends, weapons, sounds, smells and even the accurate use of Vietnamese, but I know that I was not really involved in that particular "memory". So, I can be certain that such a memory did not happen. However, when it comes to vivid images of a long past event that happened before my birth, I have no way of establishing that these are memories of experiences that have actually happened.


In cases that can be documented such as those investigated by Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker, I think we can be relatively safe in assuming that past life memories actually happened.


The trouble with being mature and experienced adults, we are capable of visualizing realistic images and events, which may unconsciously draw from an unprecedented variety of media. In addition, our ability to visualize almost anything is probably beyond our own comprehension. It is true that we are drawn to or frightened by that which can be attributed to past lives. But, how can we be certain? The exact events might be our way of reviewing our experiences with those of other people. I don't mean psychic awareness, necessarily. But, we may be capable of creatively viewing possible events as if through the eyes of someone else.


Most of the folks in this forum are well-experienced with this subject, and can differentiate between creativity and true memory. But, there are others, who are new to this topic, and should always be warned not to misidentify supposed experiences without considering their own subconscious creative skill and imagery. I know that this site has done that from time to time, but sometimes bears repeating.
 
So, my first post. This thread seemed appropriate as I have always valued critical thinking and try hard to avoid self-deception. In fact, I used to be a full-blown sceptic and I can still hear myself mocking the sad losers who needed something as silly as reincarnation therapy to face their problems. Then life intervened and a couple of years later I was in regression myself...


It certainly was a profound experience, but has it brought me any closer to the truth? That's the million euro question. There are two findings in my – very limited – experience that for me carry real weight. Both have to do with a life as a Cathar boy in the south of France. First, I was able to find the small town or village I lived in on a map, right in the middle of Cathar country, a region of France I had never been to in this life. Now of course, I COULD have picked this name up somewhere as being connected with the Cathars, but I knew very little of them and it wasn't Montsegur or anything well known like that, so I find that hard to believe.


What clinched it for me however was another fact, that at the time seemed pretty dubious. In this life as a Cathar boy the woman who in my current life is my forbidden love was my mother. And she was one of the Perfecti, the spiritual elite of the Cathars. Now this worried me, because the information I could find (there was no internet then) described the Perfecti as ascetics who had renounced the way of the flesh and considered sex and procreation a sin. So how could one of them be my mother? In fact from what I read it seemed improbable that there could be women among them at all. It was only a couple of years later that I found out that there were indeed women among the Perfecti, quite a lot even, and that some of them had been married and could have had a family before they renounced the world.


Memories like this I feel are among the most reliable past life experiences: when the facts turn out to fit the historical record but seem to contradict your knowledge at the time you had the regression. So yes, I’m inclined to trust these memories (though I still doubt them from time to time when I’m especially critical of myself).
 
I can really relate to what Truthseeker said:

I'm learning to trust my subconscious enough to believe that there's at least a certain amount of truth to what I remember even if it isn't 100% accurate. As a matter of fact, what we remember from our current life isn't always 100% accurate. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.
If there's one thing I've learned in the past 3 years is that no, I can't trust my past life memories, because I've been given "information" that clearly contradicts my previous memory. But it's similar enough that I'm willing to say, yes, I was definitely alive during the American Revolutionary war period, I was a sea captain whose business it was taking enemy ships, and I have been to France as a foreigner during that life. And I had a hot temper. (I still do, but I repress it much more these days and that causes me different kinds of problems.)


I trust my motivations for "remembering" what I remember, even if I don't get the details right. I think there was a definite, positive reason for me remembering what I did in my adolescence -- I remembered three past lives as a man (I'm a female), and I think that was very important for my psychological well-being, entering puberty as I was, having been a tomboy in my childhood. I think a lot of people who suffer from gender dysphoria may have felt a lot more comfortable in their own bodies if they remembered past lives as the opposite sex.


More recently, (in the past decade or so) I've become extremely disillusioned with my own government, gone on my own personal crusade to try to help things, and started to feel emotions very similar to what a particular famous person did -- like being spied on, smeared and thwarted at every turn. It's been a very difficult period of my life. Whether or not I was actually that famous person who was brought to my attention 3 years ago, his struggles resonate a lot with mine and I was able to learn a lot about myself by reading about them. So no matter what, I trust there is always a reason I am presented what I'm being presented by the universe.


That being said, I really, *really* wish there were a way to validate these memories! Because it's really lame to feel like a poser. Yet I really do feel like I've been very unfairly treated this past decade, and I'm pining for *some* sort of validation.
 
Welcome to the forum Revised Edition, thanks for sharing your regression experience.


I agree that critical thinking is good, but if you don't mind me asking, I wonder what happened between the time you were a full-blown sceptic, and your first past life regression? What opened your mind to the possibility that reincarnation really happens? Were your past life memories having a negative affect on your present life? Hope you don't mind me asking.


Chris :)
 
Is reincarnation true? Well I guess none of us will truely know until we die. Unfortunately as human beings, we are separated into three groups - the scientists who only believe in something until it has been completely proven time and time again without fault for decades - the spiritualist, who believe that anything is possible and are open to hear about the unusual, and those who are niether here nor there - they don't care either way. For me I like to believe that we don't have all the answers, especially the scientists, and that there have always been and always will be strange and bizzare things which happen in the world which no one can truely explain. How do the doctors explain to patients that the cancer they had which was inoperable has suddenly disappeared - they can't and won't give an answer. Yes positive thinking goes a long way, it gives you the courage and self esteem to achieve that goal you have been striving for, but don't mistake positive thinking for something that even the scientists can't explain, there is a difference. My baby son passed away a little over a week ago, and I truely hope and pray that his little soul will return to our family. As a family we left special things in his coffin that only we know, and we have vowed not to speak of them. If my son's soul is to return to us and he mentions the items I will know it is him, and I will be the first to tell the world what a wonderful miracle it is to have him back. I believe in God, and I know he works in mysterious ways that we humans can never understand, and that is my little piece of hope that I have and will never let go of.
 
Thank you Wendy for your beautiful post. I'm sorry for your loss and pray you find peace. In my previous life I lost my two sons to diphtheria. My two sons in this life are those same two boys. Life was horribly cruel then and those memories are very difficult. Yet watching these two live and grow in this life gives me a perspective beyond words. Your trust and belief in God is good, and to trust the mysteries will certainly manifest joy someday... it did for me.


To answer the original thread question, yes I do trust my past life mysteries. To do otherwise would be to dishonor this gift and all the perfect mystery.


Tman
 
Up until the last year or so I could say I trusted them inside but I was willing to entertain the idea some details may have been wrong. I have a certain memory that has been glued to the inside of my head my whole life and I remembered some of their faces. I found a picture of one of the people I remembered and from there I found another one that had 5 of the 6 people in it that I had from that memory. One of the people in the memory I was willing to think I was making up since apparently that guy didn't draw as much of my attention then as the others, he was a little fuzzier in my memory, but he was in that picture.


So because of that picture I'm just assuming that all the other memories are as is. There are some that are similar and I may have details from each other mixed up but I don't question the fact that they happened.
 
You've had nice validations with pictures, Wednesday. That must have felt good! :thumbsup:


Karoliina
 
Good topic.


The way I see it, it comes back to the old left brain/right brain conflict.


The need to find validation, I think appeals to our left brained sensibilities and while it is great if you can get it, I think it's unrealistic to expect to find real-world validation of past lives. Why? Chances are, the lives we've lead have been those of "everyday people", the likes of which do not get recorded in history and are therefore forgotten about in time.


That said, it is also important not to get carried away on flights of fancy, but this is where intuitive/right-brained thinking comes into it. I have not had a full regression yet, but I have had a number of flashbacks and snippets, and the thing that distinguished those moments from "mere" dreams is their emotional weight. The two that stand out the most are past life snippets of myself as a young, mute boy and another of an intoxicated woman who'd just escaped some kind of institution. In both cases, I instantly KNEW things about the people in question and the situations they were in; I felt like I knew them intimately and, their feelings were MY feelings. Most of all, there were things about these people that alluded things about my present life (the recurring theme, for instance in both of these past lives was that of being misunderstood in some way, which is something I've always felt about myself now).


Either way, it is certainly good to critically analyse any supposed past-life memories, but one should also have faith in themselves.
 
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