Past-life memory and age at death

[michaldembinski]

Here's something I'm grappling with right now. If (as we believe), humans reincarnate, and this is a common, usual thing for most people (debates about old souls/new souls, numbers of souls etc put aside for the moment), how come most humans don't have uniformly clear memories of their past lifes AS INDIVIDUALS?

Some people have none, others are haunted by very vivid emotions from past lives that regularly return.

I'd put forward the proposition (for debate here) that dying old, one loses a lot of 'wetware memory' (try asking an elderly relative some detail about their youth), but maintains a lot of 'spiritual memory' and wisdom, which does get passed on into the individual's next life.

Over the years, I've worked out (putting together the evidence from dreams and flashbacks - atavistic resurgences) that in my past life I died in my early '30s. This is why I recall a lot from that life, details that get thrown up in dreams like debris washed up onto the shore by waves.

For me, despite a childhood in 1960s London, now living these past seven years in Warsaw, Poland, I feel extremely familiar with the United States of the 1930s through to 1950s. Watching films from that era (Asphalt Jungle dir. John Houston), or about that era (Paper Moon, dir. Peter Bogdanovich), brings me intense feelings of deja vu - the clothes, the cars, the streets... I am drawn to that country of that era.

Has anyone's past life been long? Or are short past lives the norm? (A much earlier past life I can put my finger on was in 16th Century England; I died in my late teens-early 20s).

Michal

 

[curious_girl]

Re: Past-life memory and age at death

Originally posted by michaldembinski
Here's something I'm grappling with right now. If (as we believe), humans reincarnate, and this is a common, usual thing for most people (debates about old souls/new souls, numbers of souls etc put aside for the moment), how come most humans don't have uniformly clear memories of their past lifes AS INDIVIDUALS?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, about not having clear memories as an individual?
Do you mean that most people don't remember, or that memories aren't based on a individual person,
but more on a specific time period?

Curious Girl.

 

[Eevee]

I have memories of several past lives where I died young. A few examples:
a life as a girl in Victorian England, dying from a disease at age 12,
a life in 17th dynasty Egypt, where i was murdered during an attack on the palace, feels also like age 12,
a Mayan boy, probably killed in or after a secret ceremony at age 14,
a 4 year old very poor child in France, maybe around the year 1100. Here I believe I died from starvation.


Eevee

 

[Phoenix]

Re: Past-life memory and age at death

Originally posted by michaldembinski
Here's something I'm grappling with right now. If (as we believe), humans reincarnate, and this is a common, usual thing for most people (debates about old souls/new souls, numbers of souls etc put aside for the moment), how come most humans don't have uniformly clear memories of their past lifes AS INDIVIDUALS?

Some people have none, others are haunted by very vivid emotions from past lives that regularly return.

One thing to think about is that memory resides in the subconscious and it has to either be retrieved consciously or unconsciously (i.e. dreams and hypnosis) or it simply bursts forth on it's own.

It's hard to remember early childhood for many people-I've astonished people by telling them of my earliest memory which is very richly detailed but took place when I was less than two years old-I was riding around in the cart at the grocery store wishing that mommy would finish up her shopping and take me home because there was poop in my diapers and I really wanted to be changed. Horrid sensation, that.

But few people can remember back that far, the memories are neatly stored away in their subconscious, but difficult to access without help. Unless those memories are traumatic, then they never go away.

So, it's not surprising that few people, particularly people who have been conditioned to believe that reincarnation isn't real, that past life memories are not real, can recall them without help.

Originally posted by michaldembinski
Has anyone's past life been long? Or are short past lives the norm? (A much earlier past life I can put my finger on was in 16th Century England; I died in my late teens-early 20s).

Most of my past lives have been long, in fact the shortest past life that I remember was my most recent one and in that life I died at 45. The life before that I died around 60. The memories from that life surfaced long before the memories of the other life (mercifully).

 

[michaldembinski]

Re: Re: Past-life memory and age at death

Originally posted by curious_girl
I'm not sure what you mean by this, about not having clear memories as an individual?
Do you mean that most people don't remember, or that memories aren't based on a individual person,
but more on a specific time period?

Curious Girl.

This is I think one of the most fundamental questions. Do we die, and become part of the continuous whole, part of God, if you like, or do we maintain our identity as individuals from life to life? If so, don't we remember more? Are some people prone to recall more from their past lives than others - and if so, why?

Or, on a new life, a new body, are our souls plucked from a collective spiritual Play Doh, so we have the ability to have multiple parallel past life experiences from numerous people simultanously?

My thinking is that if we were all endowed with total and absolute proof that we'd just lived before as INDIVIDUALS and will therefore be born again after our current life ends - we will not make the most of our current life, even ending it prematurely - in the hope that there's better to come in the next life.

But dying young, I believe, leads to more vivid than average past life recall.

Michal

 

[michaldembinski]

Re: Re: Past-life memory and age at death

Originally posted by Phoenix
One thing to think about is that memory resides in the subconscious and it has to either be retrieved consciously or unconsciously (i.e. dreams and hypnosis) or it simply bursts forth on it's own.

I'd differentiate between physical memory and spiritual memory.

The unbidden memories that come to me from within my current life, present life flashbacks, as it were, are of moments when I was in a state of childlike joy, unburdened by self-absorbed thoughts.

Memories of this quality that come to me from past lives. Memories of joy, not of the pain that comes from disatisfaction of one's present lot. However, dreams bring glimpses from the past life that are far different from the atavistic resurgences that come to me in waking life. Unlike these, feelings of a time and a place when my spirit was at one with the All, my past life dreams call up specific episodes in my past life (and exclusively come from my immediate past life, unlike the flashbacks).

Michal

 

[deborah]

HI Michal,

But dying young, I believe, leads to more vivid than average past life recall.

I remember vividly dying of old age 3500BC and at age four in the 4th century AD. I remember vividly dying at a very elderly age (80's) in the 13th century AD. In 1958, my last life I died at age - 57; of ovarian cancer. I have found after 20 years of research - that recall is an individual matter. The souls path - and life's journeys can either enable them to remember or not.

For example - a soul that lived several life times as a devote Christian -even serving as a clergy in the most current past life -might not allow the subconscious mind to remember - or even entertain the idea of reincarnation. God - for that soul is in heaven and only one life is possible. Or a soul that was burned for heresy during the requisition - or was beaten by a parent in a past life and told repeatedly that they are sinners and guilty - might also inhibit their ability to remember. Not to say they cannot remember - but the subconscious mind has a lot of resistance to remembering because for life times- to even enterain the idea was a sin.

But a soul that has lived as an American Indian in the 10th century...was a Buddhist Monk in the 12th century - lived as a Mayan in the 14th Century - has had other soul training. Their soul remembers - other possibilities - and knows other perspectives. Just my 2 cents.