Is there good reason for not remembering our past lives?

I hold no spiritual beliefs, but if there is anything real regarding spirituality, I feel reincarnation is an answer. I'm not one to claim it may be a voluntary process for the soul since birth itself is involuntary to the physical child.

As for why past life memories are hard to come by, there may be a myriad of reasons. Since there are no facts on the matter speculation can go anywhere.

The inability of past life recall may just be how the veil of time affects memory on a non-corporeal soul. I only remember mainly significant events from my youth and nothing from my first few years of life. Past lives by defintion would span decades if not centuries (or more) of memories. The soul may just not be able to keep up or access all those experiences.

Reincarnation to this planet may not be that common an act of souls. Perhaps most souls do their duty in one life and never return or they reincarnate on another planet. The majority of us may be freshmen who don't need to repeat class.

Perhaps the rules of reincarnation are that you're not supposed to remember for some reason related to learning the hard way to ensure more suffering rather than actively avoiding it. The rules of the reincarnation game may boil down to how much you can endure in an extremely limited savage world that can't possibly exist on the "other side" which might be the exact opposite. Remembering past lives would be in effect "cheating" in the game.

Perhaps children do remember, but terrestrial religious beliefs and methods for raising children deny them these memories as delusions and dreams. I'd say this is especially the case where reincarnation isn't included in religious beliefs like western civilization.

I would not think past life recall would hamper life in any way if one could remember them no matter how ultimately tragic they might have been. In my opinion such awareness would give you ehanced life experience, a loss of fear of death, and a greater comradery with your fellow man as every person you come across could have been a potential friend or family member years prior. Violence, war, and homicide would essentially cease to exist with everyone around you potentially being somebody you know and loved. Society in general would likely become like a large extended family. Racism, classism, and other traits that hamper man's kinship with his fellow man would not exist in such a world.

Negative aspects of knowing past lives might include increased rates of suicide since fear of death would likely be gone. Current family structures (if you think they're positive) may dissolve as humans begin to think of their children as ultimately not belonging to them since the child remembers other lives. The act of sexual intercourse may lose the current major influence on society (if you see that as a bad thing) since it may become seen as simply a duty to bring other souls to this side of the fence or even potentially an act of incest or something else altogether weird since souls may be genderless and appear in male and female physical form.

I personally think the potential positives of past life recall outweight any potential negatives as I believe most of the worst traits of man would be eliminated leaving only a possible new sense of strangeness in its wake that would create much less suffering than what we currently put up with.

Of course this is all speculation and I do not believe even the subject of the soul has been completely quantified as a reality and not just the fantasy of a species that desires to be more than a frail mortal creature in a vast dark void.

[edit on 30-5-2009 by Frith]

Originally posted by NephraTari
It's not about taking the knowledge and thats not what I am suggesting.

Some strive to find the truth.

Retaining those memories may make it hard to live in the life you are. … In order to fully experience each incarnation we have to start it with a clean slate to have an unbiased view of that lifetime.

I don’t think so. During lifetime we encounter hundreds of problems. It certainly HELPS to be able to remember how we solved them earlier. Life is about learning solutions and viewpoints. “Bad” experiences are helpful lessons also, hence it isn’t “bad” to remember them, but utterly advantageous.

In the “technical” sense memories of a past life would be something like “old” (e.g. childhood) memories from 20,30,40 years ago. Are these damaging? No. The remembrance is a part of our knowledge, of our personality. As mentioned, even bad experiences are important and crucial.

If you retain all those memories, why would you want to live the life you are in?

Come on. Are you really asserting it’s a better life if you forget all your past experiences? To be completely dumbed down to zero? It would certainly be advantageous and beneficial if we could set up a new life based upon and including our past experiences/knowledge. Who’d want to have to learn the same lessons again and again and again and again.., every new lifetime? You? I certainly not.

As this boy has shown he wants to pick up where he left off, thus robbing himself of a new life experience.

These are mainly confusion issues. Most probably just because of the memory manipulations and because people (e.g. his parents) were lied to. If memory wasn’t deleted and we knew, we'd handle it well. Just take the story you posted: “…telling the boy that he might have had a previous life, but should now "forget about the past and live in the present." The approach seemed to work and the youth, whose family declined to comment for this story, returned to school and a relatively normal life.” Hence the story proves it is NOT a big problem to handle past life memories.

[edit on 30-5-2009 by WonderfulWorld]

Originally posted by CavemanDD
I think its quite simply that we could not handle it for various reasons:
1. Amount of information
2. Leak-through causing interuptions in our present..you know how its a struggle to live "in the moment" sometimes when you're thinking about something uncomfortable from last week? Imagine that x 10000+ lives
3. Unhealthy or distracting attachment to the time / people / memories etc.
4. Again I want to emphasize the weight of carrying life-times of guilt, fear, and all sorts of unresolved personal and karmatic issues.
...
I think when we get flashes of past lives its for a specific reason / message.

This sums it up for me, too.
We don't need to know ALL about a past life, just what is needed for THIS life.

Interesting, but I was told about a few of my past lives from someone who said I was in THEIR past lives. (I guess we shared those specific lifetimes.) Honestly, I don't remember those, but one explained why I dislike riding horses in this one, as well as a couple other things.

Originally posted by Frith
... I personally think the potential positives of past life recall outweight any potential negatives as I believe most of the worst traits of man would be eliminated leaving only a possible new sense of strangeness in its wake that would create much less suffering than what we currently put up with.

Exactly.

Problem is, some groups want to keep on profiting from that suffering.

[edit on 30-5-2009 by WonderfulWorld]

I don't ...believe... in reincarnation, but I don't ...believe... that I'm sitting in front of the computer typing at this moment. I don't ...believe... anything. In college my logic professor proved to my satisfaction that we cannot ...know...anything. Just make observations that are useful in living our seeming existence. But if reincarnation is true I am certain of where I lived until about maybe 13 years before I was born this time. I feel such an affinity for that time and place. Plus, it was in a foreign country and that language was never foreign to me. I always understood it when I heard it spoken. I think the reason, if there is one, is because we might wish so much to go back to that time and place, as the canadian lad seems to want, that we don't get on with this life. I want to go back there so badly. But of course I have to somehow put a roof over my head and feed my cats in this life so I do get on with it. But sometimes the longing, the homesickness, is almost overwhelming. I remember having a dream where I was there, in that life, at work, I knew who my wife and children were, (I didn't remember them after I woke up) and I vaguely remembered THIS life as if it were a dream. Since then, my other nonbeliefs being a given, I haven't REALLY been certain that THIS life is real, or maybe I'm actually there and this is the dream. Rather like Buffy the Vampire slayer waking up in the funny farm. Never being certain again which one was the dream and which one was the reality. But I wish I could wake up there and stay there for the rest of my life, even if it turned out that it was a dream.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
I have always wondered who I was in a past life. I have always been obsessed with France and the culture and just everything about it. I swear sometimes I must have been French in a past life. Why else would I have such a strong feeling towards a place I have never been? My entire family says I have been this way since I was very little. I remember being in 2nd grade and telling my teacher I was going to live in France. Why I remember that I have no idea. I just have this feeling I must have been French before. Sounds odd but to me it seems right.

The 2nd life that came through during my regression had me in France, I think Paris?? But I am very sceptical of what was revealed cos after doin some research on it, I think I was someone well known.
The chances of it being genuine must be millions to one but it's what I saw and felt during the regression.
It made me question the whole validity of the process--whether images could possibly be transmitted into the brain from the therapist ????
I really can't believe I was who I described !!!

There are really some amazing stories here and I started a thread on this just the other day because I was struggling with some memories that I could not place.

I'm not sure if they are past life's, dreams, visions, or delusions. Regardless they have had a profound impact on how I view the people in my life. I started to wonder if I could locate other people from a past life and if so how could I identify them today.

If anyone has any answers or would care to contribute you can find my thread here.

The way I see it is, you have no longer any need for your previous life. You lived it, learned your lesson and that's it... Why go back?

No good comes out of remembering your past lives, since you were underdeveloped back then.

This topic has been on my mind lately.....why? I don't really know, just keeps popping up, "Why can't we remember"? The answers, or should I say opinions, that have been posted are very interesting. I have had some truely weird dreams and as I child my parents said I had a very broad and detailed imagination. I truely wish I could remember, it would answer some very unsettling questions that linger on......oh yes, one more thing before I leave...did anyone put a connection of past lives and being gay? Interesting thought..........

I have remembered very few of my past lives, but always Egypt the best. I have had many people tell me that I am an 'old soul' and I feel as though it is true.

My past life memory that comes as a dream....

I was in Ancient Egypt and I could feel that I was such a spritiual being. It felt so good, I was dressed in the most beautiful linens and my eyes were painted. I remember walking out of the pyramid and looking out at the sun rising over the sand. I was really high in the temple and could look down and see lots of stairs. I looked at the sun and raised my hands up to the sky, doing a sun ritual. It was so wonderful and beautiful and it is so hard to describe the 'feeling' that I felt.

BUT as I went back inside the temple someone hit me over the head with a rock...all I remember is seeing my blood on the floor and the feet of the person who killed me. (In my dream I know who it was)

I have had that dream since I was a child, and my mom said since I was little I have always talked about Egypt. I always wanted to buy scarves and dress up as a Priestess.... I think it was a past life that ended up badly. But I still love the dream even though the ending sucks...

Maybe that is why we don't remember, because some people may not be able to handle the memories.

I had a friend who interned one summer encoding these sorts of cases for Dr. Ian Stevenson at UVA. Wow...just looked Dr Stevenson up on wiki...and he died in 2007. I am getting older...

en.wikipedia.org...

Looks like people are continuing his work though. If you've got a great story, check that wiki and track them down. They are especially looking into North American cases. There are tons and tons of cases in India where the cultural belief in reincarnation is very strong and people are very inclined to recognize past life evidence when it happens (or see it where it isn't).

I know they are more interested in childrens' experiences as there is less chance for culture and fantasy(how is a kid supposed to speak other languages, or talk about things they couldn't possibly have experienced) to enter into the equation, but then again the interns go through all the stories they get and rate the info and such. The more the better, as they ultimately want to use it to track down any surviving evidence of the previous life, to find the real person.

Why wouldn't you want to who you were? I get the feeling you can't separate memory from personality so cleanly.

I remember hearing about one hilarious case. One day, a mother was giving her 2-4 year old daughter a bath(don't remember the age exactly). Suddenly, she starts talking...differently. Like an old black man from the south. Then, the big discovery..."WOMAN, what have you done with MY PENIS??" Then the little girl starts rattling on about how her penis was the only thing she could ever count on to make her happy in life. In another incident, the little girl saw a Kenny G commercial and started making fun of Kenny G's saxophone playing. They later got a name and some more information out of the kid and were able to track down the existence of a saxophonist with the right name in the right place and time.

I think General Eyes has basically got the right idea. How does an old black jazz saxophonist live life as a little girl, and live and learn the lessons of the new life? With that memory/personality, they'd come out much the same and growth would be limited.

I get the feeling that most of the time people don't exactly get to pick their new life from a list of all possible lives, they have to take what they are offered based on how they lived before.

Originally posted by Volatile
The way I see it is, you have no longer any need for your previous life. You lived it, learned your lesson and that's it... Why go back?

No good comes out of remembering your past lives, since you were underdeveloped back then.

No? If you remembered that in your previous life you were a careless driver and ended up crashing into a school bus, killing numerous kids, injuring yourself and dying a horrible lingering death, just maybe you might be a more careful driver in this life. Lots of things you could decide not to do if you remembered how badly they turned out the last time.
You say "you learned your lesson and that's it". How do you know that you learned anything from something you don't remember? It's rare that people learn anything from the mistakes they remember, which is why they keep voting for the same party (and it doesn't matter which one). Do you really think that forgetting something happened is more likely to make you not do it again?

the reason we dont rememberour past lives is because we didn't have them lol. you only get one life and that's it. sorry.

reply to post by NephraTari


Culture. If you grow up in a culture that beleives in reincarnation you will be helped to accept and live with your past lives. If reincarnation is not accepted you will try to forget these memories as they upset the people around you. Children see things that as adults most of us have been conditioned to not believe in or maybe not even see in a physical sense. If as an adult you face these things alone you may not be able to handle them. Our culture determines how the rest of us handles these situations(when someone remembers). In our western culture we see them as insane. We do not know how to help them. As children I think we learn to repress things. Things that are accepted we use.

A simple reason for not remembering our past lives, or incarnations, is sothat they don't interfere with our present one.

Have you guys actually sat and thought about the implications of being able to recall a past life? It would have so many scientific implications, such as the nature of thoughts...what they actually are and how and where they are stored, among other things.

So the boy did not have these experiences until after he visited the city in India, correct? That would seem to indicate that past life memories can be involuntarily triggered. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to remember something that you never experienced in your current life before. It must be confusing as heck, and scary as well.

I wonder if this would happen to everyone, if they happened to visit the place they spent a previous life. Or is this something that only happens to "sensitive" people? Strange to say the least.

What if you were a solder in several past lives and knew hundreds of different ways to kill people? I think if you had a strong desire to avoid working in the military maybe your subconscious was trying to direct you on your path you want to learn about. A life where you're not killing someone every time you turn around. I have never killed anyone that I know of. If I did have past lives where I killed lots of people, then I believe if I remembered everything, I might have a hard time living my life as I knew it. It would be especially hard to do so or next to impossible if I actually enjoyed killing other people and suddenly became aware of all the evil knowledge.

Imagine how conflicted you might be if you suddenly remembered lives as a cut throat solder, a general, an everyday worker in some poor country, a pirate making a living on the ocean and in port cities, life as the opposite sex in a life, and several other countless lives. Imagine if your memories stopped you from doing all kinds of ordinary things because you've done them countless times before and you were no longer interested. That alone might stop you from getting married and having kids. If everyone did that, life might cease to exist as we knew it. Your brain would be on overload and even sex itself might become just a boring exercise necessary to continue life on this planet.

If you lost your desire to do everything we do now, all kinds of problems might destroy us. Populations could plummet. People might stop buying all kinds of merchandise from stores and the economy would go into depression. Maybe some would even commit suicide because they did not like their current life and thought they would rather just start over. However if they could not remember time in either heaven or hell, that might make them wonder if they were breaking a contract by committing suicide.

On the plus side, if you weren't insane and you remembered everything you studied and you were Einstein, Galileo, Newton, Tesla, etc. all in different lives, then you might get a jump start on interesting new theories in a new body. Of course that is just an example and some of those people may have lived at the same time.

It would really suck if you remembered being human in all your past lives and you woke up as a cold blooded lizard on some alien planet where they never invented music, entertainment, and everything else you remember enjoying. You would spend your entire life in a lizard body not being able to return to anything you remembered as a human. Then you also know if you ever succeed in communicating with humans, many here will treat you as a hostile threat especially if you come from a civilization much more advanced than ours.

Well I hope this wasn't too wordy.

Originally posted by SlayerRock
the reason we dont remember our past lives is because we didn't have them lol. you only get one life and that's it. sorry.

I must agree. There are things that I call the "want to" theories, people believe in them because they want to, but there is no justification in doing so. Just people trying to ease their fears, deluding themselves into believing something that makes the idea of death easier to cope with. Not trying to rain on parades or derail the thread, and I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.

reply to post by NephraTari


Good question NephraTari.

I look at it this way, life is the educational program of the soul. As a child you probably learned that it is beneficial to share. If you share, others will share with you. Now, is it important to remember the actual event that brought about this realisation or is the realisation itself that is important?

On a grander scale, is it important to remember the actual life or is it the conclusion that life brought forth that is important?

Peace

reply to post by NephraTari



We do remember our past lives but only subconsciously. It is the root of our conscious decision making and the culmination of our lifelong lessons.

We as people are here to learn. And the past life experiences and their lessons are with us but operate primarily on a subconscious level helping to guide us on a gut feel level.

This is also why some of us have very strong phobias in this life. A carry over from the past life and a protection mechanism of sorts possibly preventing us from repeating the mistakes made in a past life.

Also as to why children are more prone to recalling their past lives because their past life is still fresh in their unimpeded new mind.

Also for example, why we are attracted to a certain type of individual. Because we have known and recall this individual before.

As far as past life stories, I like this one about a very skeptical Indianapolis Police detective who on a bet had himself regressed. Finding out that in a previous life he was a 19th century artist in New Orleans named Carroll Beckwith.

This case involves Robert Snow, who is a Captain in the Indianapolis Police Department, in charge of the Homicide Division. Based on a dare made by a fellow police officer, Captain Snow went to a past life regression therapist. Captain Snow, in his book, Looking for Carroll Beckwith, relates that he only went to the therapist so that it didn't look like he had "welshed on the dare." Captain Snow did not believe in reincarnation and did not expect to have a meaningful experience during the session.
A delightful aspect of Captain Snow's book is the high level of skepticism and a mischievous sense of humor that infuses the narrative. Let us share in Captain Snow's experiences through passages from Looking for Carroll Beckwith. We start with the regression therapist, Dr. Mariellen Griffith, guiding the regression. Dr. Griffith begins by instructing Captain Snow to imagine that he is relaxing comfortably in his den at home. Dr. Griffith continues: "Now, picture your higher self coming into the room to greet you," Dr. Griffith said. I did that, too, though as I sat on the couch with my eyes closed, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell I was doing there, particularly when she asked me what my higher self was wearing. How the hell would I know? This was her daydream. But I decided to give it a try. "White," I answered, "A long white gown." Wasn't that what all spirits wore? "Your higher self is standing there and asking if you're ready to go on a trip. It is telling you that it will guide you and protect you on your trip." Oh Lord, I thought, as I tried to maintain a facial expression of seriousness, I can't believe I'm doing this.
Eventually and much to his surprise, Captain Snow experienced past life memories during the regression that were powerful and clear. He recalled several different lifetimes, but the one that was most prominent was as a portrait painter in what seemed to be the 19th century. Captain Snow remembered 28 specific details regarding this lifetime as an artist. One of the specific memories involved painting the portrait of a hunchback woman. Captain Snow vividly remembered the experience, including his questioning why someone so unattractive would want a portrait painted.

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