Petrichor
Senior Member
I'm sorry for the length.
I know this discussion could turn heated, but my intention is not to start a debate of any sort. There are no right or wrong answers to this question. I'm simply interested in people's subjective perception. What is it that makes some cases feel more believable to you than others? Is it simply the amount of hard evidence or do other things factor into it?
This question was inspired by considering my own bias, and I'm sort of inviting other people to do the same if you'd like to.
Whenever I have met someone outside this forum, elsewhere online or irl, who had past life memories, it was always of a famous one. As has often been discussed on this forum, it's not believable that everyone had a famous past life, or that the famous one is the one everyone remembers. Especially since there are many people out there who claim the same FPL.
I realized that for me the simple fact that these people wanted to announce their famous past life to the world, made them seem not believable to me. And another thing that made me immediately disregard someone as a probable impostor was lack of depth. Not necessarily a lack of concrete hard memories, but a lack of depth.
None of the people I've run into have had irrefutable evidence, none of them have remembered something that wasn't in a history book, and confirmed it to be true. So, out of those people the ones who were humble and critical of themselves, and had insight into that past life, were more believable to me.
However, reflecting upon these things, I have realized that this is my personal bias. I'm a shy person, and I seek depth, but not everyone has insight into their emotions or mistakes in their current life, so why would they have insight into their past life? Also, some famous people were indeed famous at least partially because they yearned to be. Why couldn't they still yearn for it in this life?
This reflection got me thinking that sometimes, people also dismiss a FPL claim because it seems too convenient. Let's say someone claimed to be a famous musician, but that person also happened to have listened to said musician's work a lot since childhood because their parents were fans, and so that person had heard a lot about that musician's life before getting their memories. Then another person who claims to be the same musician, has remembered a lot of things before reading anything about them. Even so, the first one could still be the real one, and the other one could be a fan of theirs, from a past life. It has been pointed out in this forum a lot, I'm sure, but my point is that the real one might not even be the one that seems more believable, because when people start getting past life memories, they are most likely not trying to make a "case" of it that would seem believable to an outsider's eye.
My point with this is not to come to the simple conclusion that "only cold hard facts count" because yes, that is true, but the way we determine cold hard facts is not always good, and we might miss a lot of things because of our personal bias. And that's my point in a nutshell. I simply think it's good for anyone to be aware of their own bias, that we are critical of ourselves when we are faced with a FPL claim, and not only ciritcal of the person who claims it. I'm not accusing anyone of not doing this in forum, I simply thought maybe someone could gain something from my reflection.
It has been acknowledged that a lot of people with FPL memories are afraid to discuss them because of all this. Kind of like the MBTI theory were everyone wants to be an INFJ so the real INFJs leave INFJ spaces and start to think maybe they're not one. Weird comparison maybe, but I kind of really hate when this kind of thing happens. Because people go like "Oh another INFJ" and "Oh another famous person" in a really similar way and I wish people had more patience, even though it is hard to take everyone seriously.
I just wanted to:
1) Be critical of how I think.
2) Say to everyone with FPL memories out there that I'm on your side and you deserve to be taken seriously, and if your memories turn out to be of something else than you originally thought, that's FINE, and you shouldn't feel shame about it.
I'm not saying there aren't people who are in it just for attention, but for the sake of the ones who really have something to share, who are suffering because they can't do it, and from whom we could gain something, I just thought to write my thoughts out. Maybe if they felt like all the criticism wasn't always put upon just them, they'd feel more safe. I'm not saying this is how they feel, but it could be. Even if there ARE already a lot of people who do think critically of themselves, I just thought maybe if a lot of people wrote those thoughts out in the same thread, someone might gain confidence from it.
Sorry, this is getting convoluted. I really hope no one takes anything I said personally or as an accusation, because none of it was inspired by anyone on this forum.
Thank you if you read all of this!
-Petrichor
I know this discussion could turn heated, but my intention is not to start a debate of any sort. There are no right or wrong answers to this question. I'm simply interested in people's subjective perception. What is it that makes some cases feel more believable to you than others? Is it simply the amount of hard evidence or do other things factor into it?
This question was inspired by considering my own bias, and I'm sort of inviting other people to do the same if you'd like to.
Whenever I have met someone outside this forum, elsewhere online or irl, who had past life memories, it was always of a famous one. As has often been discussed on this forum, it's not believable that everyone had a famous past life, or that the famous one is the one everyone remembers. Especially since there are many people out there who claim the same FPL.
I realized that for me the simple fact that these people wanted to announce their famous past life to the world, made them seem not believable to me. And another thing that made me immediately disregard someone as a probable impostor was lack of depth. Not necessarily a lack of concrete hard memories, but a lack of depth.
None of the people I've run into have had irrefutable evidence, none of them have remembered something that wasn't in a history book, and confirmed it to be true. So, out of those people the ones who were humble and critical of themselves, and had insight into that past life, were more believable to me.
However, reflecting upon these things, I have realized that this is my personal bias. I'm a shy person, and I seek depth, but not everyone has insight into their emotions or mistakes in their current life, so why would they have insight into their past life? Also, some famous people were indeed famous at least partially because they yearned to be. Why couldn't they still yearn for it in this life?
This reflection got me thinking that sometimes, people also dismiss a FPL claim because it seems too convenient. Let's say someone claimed to be a famous musician, but that person also happened to have listened to said musician's work a lot since childhood because their parents were fans, and so that person had heard a lot about that musician's life before getting their memories. Then another person who claims to be the same musician, has remembered a lot of things before reading anything about them. Even so, the first one could still be the real one, and the other one could be a fan of theirs, from a past life. It has been pointed out in this forum a lot, I'm sure, but my point is that the real one might not even be the one that seems more believable, because when people start getting past life memories, they are most likely not trying to make a "case" of it that would seem believable to an outsider's eye.
My point with this is not to come to the simple conclusion that "only cold hard facts count" because yes, that is true, but the way we determine cold hard facts is not always good, and we might miss a lot of things because of our personal bias. And that's my point in a nutshell. I simply think it's good for anyone to be aware of their own bias, that we are critical of ourselves when we are faced with a FPL claim, and not only ciritcal of the person who claims it. I'm not accusing anyone of not doing this in forum, I simply thought maybe someone could gain something from my reflection.
It has been acknowledged that a lot of people with FPL memories are afraid to discuss them because of all this. Kind of like the MBTI theory were everyone wants to be an INFJ so the real INFJs leave INFJ spaces and start to think maybe they're not one. Weird comparison maybe, but I kind of really hate when this kind of thing happens. Because people go like "Oh another INFJ" and "Oh another famous person" in a really similar way and I wish people had more patience, even though it is hard to take everyone seriously.
I just wanted to:
1) Be critical of how I think.
2) Say to everyone with FPL memories out there that I'm on your side and you deserve to be taken seriously, and if your memories turn out to be of something else than you originally thought, that's FINE, and you shouldn't feel shame about it.
I'm not saying there aren't people who are in it just for attention, but for the sake of the ones who really have something to share, who are suffering because they can't do it, and from whom we could gain something, I just thought to write my thoughts out. Maybe if they felt like all the criticism wasn't always put upon just them, they'd feel more safe. I'm not saying this is how they feel, but it could be. Even if there ARE already a lot of people who do think critically of themselves, I just thought maybe if a lot of people wrote those thoughts out in the same thread, someone might gain confidence from it.
Sorry, this is getting convoluted. I really hope no one takes anything I said personally or as an accusation, because none of it was inspired by anyone on this forum.
Thank you if you read all of this!
-Petrichor