Past Lives

[RaeofLite]

So I've talked to some people that seem to know they have memories of past lives. Example, being hurt by things that haven't happened in this present lifetime or seeing places that they've never been to. What do you guys/gals think of that? Do you think it's possible?

[Ghostly]

Possibly, I know someone who went through hypnosis in order to visit a memory of their past life. It sounded kinda creepy 0_0 but I would want to do something like that even though it might not really work but just for the fun of it. I don't know if people are able to live another life once they die but I guess it's nice to think that way because when you die you'll believe that another life awaits you. I've also heard that you can sometimes even have traits in yourself from your past life, like a favourite food or something. There are many cultures that believe in reincarnation, I've always found this topic interesting because of that.

[Danny19]

hhmmm this is interesting ive always wondered about reincarnation but ive never really had information on it. maybe i was a girl in my past life the guy liking trait came with me. maybe thats why im gay lol :P

[malachite]

reincarnation is one of the only "what happens when we die" theories that makes sense to me, and while I don't believe you are destined to come back as this or that, I do believe that atoms are recycled to become something new

[Zontar]

Because of odd reports of young children recalling past life details, the only afterlife theory I ever took seriously was reincarnation.

There is the glaringly obvious problem of not knowing how "you" would move from one body to the next, but perhaps there's something yet to be discovered.

[James]

Yes, I do believe in reincarnation. I am thinking about booking an appointment next year with someone that my friend goes to frequently, to see what she has to say about my previous life.

[VireBlaze]

Oooh, random thing, cause I love making up theories, but what if someone dies, their traits and memories get broken up into fragments, which then manifest themselves in babies still in the womb, or newly born babies, or maybe some of these traits and memories are held back for awhile until someone suitable comes along, or something.

I know, not really any logic or sense to it, but because there's nothing solid about it, it's fun to make stuff up. x3

Actually, my mom went to a psychic, not long after I was born, who told her that in my past-life, I was a prince who was killed by food poisoning, so now I'd be picky about what I eat. This psychic didn't know me at all in any personal way, though she did see a picture my mother took of me. My mom kinda disregarded that for a bit, seeing as how I ate nearly everything I could get my hand's on. Not long afterwards, though, suddenly I wouldn't eat foods I would otherwise chow down on. Crazy stuff.

[query]

i have views on it i won't go into, but the short answer is 100% don't believe in it.

[Messed Up]

I don't believe in it completely. I still need more convincing

[Leif]

I have a very odd belief system and reincarnation is one of those things that's always been curious to me. The church I grew up in woils say, No there is no such thing as reincarnation. The logical part of me says; when you're alive you're alive, when you're dead you're dead and that's that. But me, that just doesn't feel right. I do believe in something after death, I'm not so sure what though. So why not reincarnation

[Ben]

I find rebirth and reincarnation interesting in a Buddhist and Hindu context.

But personally, I've never had anything convince me to believe in anything along the lines of reincarnation. So I don't believe in life after life. I can feel something inside me say "I really don't think I'm strong enough"…

[Austin]

Show me the proof?

I don't believe in it, really. But, honestly, if I were to believe in something, it would be a good candidate. I find it highly unlikely. But, I can't say it's for sure not real because I don't believe it's PROVEN not real. But that goes for Jesus, too.

Anyways, our minds are all just made of atoms and cells etc configured in a particular way to make up our experience. When we die those atoms just rot away and become part of the earth, those experiences/memories/thoughts don't just float out of the body and into something else. If you think about it logically. I'm sure much of the so-called proof or coincidences involving believe in past lives is easily disproven by science.

[Chip]

Dr. Ian Stevenson, a Ph.D and professor at University of Virginia, spent some 40 years impeccably collecting and documenting stories of reincarnation. He's very conservative about how he frames his work, doesn't make any outlandish claims, but his research seems to point to reincarnation as the most likely explanation for many of the case histories he and his graduate student assistants have documented. He is a skeptical scientist first, at an institution that is pretty conservative, which makes his research all the more interesting.

There's more about him here.

There's also Brian Weiss, MD, a conventionally trained psychiatrist, who has done extensive past-life work via hypnosis, and written about it in his book "Many Lives, Many Masters." If I'm not mistaken, Weiss was trained at Harvard and is certainly not some hippy-dippy type.

It's one of those things that when you look at the data, really makes you wonder, because it's not as easily explained away as many other things.

There's also data indicating that the soul or consciousness can and does separate from the physical body at times; this is documented in literature on survivors of severe abuse, people who have had out-of-body experiences during near-death encounters, and various other things. So it's possible that our consciousness is simply an overlay onto our physical body, and the consciousness itself survives the death of the physical body. That seems the most plausible (to me) explanation, and also makes sense in the context of reincarnation.

[Mad Man L]

I don't believe in reincarnation. I believe that when someone dies, someone dies. Sort of like a tape ending. Life just stops.

Although I find the concept interesting, I just don't see how someone's 'memories' can go to somebody else's. They could just be dreams or something of that kind.

[Bi As A Kite]

Originally Posted by Ben

So I don't believe in life after life. I can feel something inside me say "I really don't think I'm strong enough"…

ON TOPIC:

I've tried past-life regression...nothing much happened at all, and I could never - and still can't - tell if my mind is throwing up self-invented mental images or if it was really retrieving 'engrams', as they're called: screenshots, if you will, of past lives.

i have an affinity with 30's/40's and Victorian-era clothing, though, and would love to investigate that. So does my best friend, and I really feel like I've been through adventures with him in lives more than this.