I’ve literally read this thread through twice now and has given me so much to think about, especially after my recent experience with the ‘image in the middle of the Light’ during my last self-regression. So far I wouldn’t say I’d ‘experienced’ a past life as an all-encompassing, holodeck, surround-sound experience. Mine have definitely been ‘memories’, a bit like I’m trying (usually too hard) to remember something from this life, they have a similar feel, but a bit distant, like viewing them through frosted glass. If I concentrate, and keep the rational mind out of the way, I can get impressions of what was happening, although the context can be a little lacking or hard to pin down at first, but they’ve panned-out historically and there is residual emotion, but it isn’t my ‘here and now’ like others have posted about. Maybe I’m just trying too hard or am not in a deep enough meditative state, which acts as a block. I suppose that past life dreams could be described as ‘experiencing’, because in a past life dream that life is my ‘here and now’, but there is always a part of me that is ‘current me’ in there, and past life dreams still feel like dreams in a way, despite their comparative clarity.
In her studies, Helen Wambach found that those who felt they were making their experiences up usually weren’t ‘under’ enough; another try with more relaxation into a deeper hypnotic state usually fixed this and they experienced their PLs more fully after that. She also found that those with a deep desire to experience/remember their past lives were much less likely to experience/remember anything than those who were less intent; desiring a PL experience/memory seemed to act as a very effective block. I’ve found this too – some of my best PL information has come when I wasn’t expecting it! Wambach also described past life experiences as a tree with many fruits, each fuit being a past life; entering a hypnotic or deep meditative state allowed consciousness (ie the Soul) to move from one fruit/life to another fruit/life, to fully experience what was happening in a different area of space-time. This sounds a lot like what others have experienced and posted about in this thread.
When I had the recent experience in meditation, of the Light with an image in the middle, it felt like it could have been the start of an ‘experience’ as others have written about if only I could have gone through the little hole in space-time (in the first post Deborah described her experiences ‘as if I stepped into and through a veil in time’). Maybe, in order to fully ‘experience’ in holodeck/time travel style, we must first loose our ‘desire’ to experience? (at least, maybe for some of us
). Practice probably comes into play as well, the more you practice self-regression/meditation etc, the easier it is to cross the veil of space-time/move between the ‘now’ of different lives? Of course, this leads onto other topics, such as meditation practices, inner silence, consciousness, non-linear/simultaneous Time and the nature of PL experiences/memories and their relative healing power, which are probably too much to cover in a single thread!
Postscript:
Since I had this all typed out a few days ago, ready to post when I had time to sign in, I’ve had an experience that has helped me to truly understand what everyone else has posted about regarding the difference between ‘memory’ and ‘experience’. The other night I had my first lucid dream, it was based on real things that were happening the next day but the facts were wrong (wrong location, wrong times for booked trains) which got me questioning the dream, I even commented to someone there that I really hoped it was all a dream and that I would wake up in a minute and none of this would have happened! But, as I said it I looked round and thought it had to be reality, everything was as crystal clear and unbelievably real, down to the warmth of the sun on my face, at which point I saw a ‘sign’ that it was a dream, became fully lucid and floated away back into my real body without a break in consciousness. Without getting into the subject of lucid dreams, I now understand what people mean when they have had an ‘experience’; that dream was very much my ‘here and now’, it was almost hyper-real in its vividness, full of colour, texture, emotion, sensation. Now, I am remembering that experience as a memory. All very exciting, am so glad I experienced it, the difference between ‘experience’ and ‘memory’ is now so much clearer to me!