Questioning Reincarnation: Past life memories may not be what they seem to be.

a reply to: Puppylove

I have a theory that may fit in with your thinking.

What if those who reincarnate are those who are training to be angels or spirit guides.

Now from my viewpoint while most people choose to live only once, those that want to be guides/angels are to undergo special training and that includes reincarnating over and over again as humans or other physicals being to learn lessons. Once they complete their training they can then be full fledged guides/angels.

They can be poor, rich, man, woman etc. and from these life times these angels/guide in training can gain experience and learn enough so they can specialize on their roles.

They reincarnate into different time periods since time to them is meaningless.

Of course I believe if they took a role of an evil person, they are to be watched very closely and make sure they don't step out of bound.

This is a curious thread for me as I had a lucid dream last night. One that made wake up in a cold sweat and prevented from falling back to sleeep.

My dream:
I was a soldier in what I'm assuming was a medieval battle, Standing on a hillside looking at the enemy across a dale and our superior who was astride a horse giving us for lack of a better term a call to arms. We rushed towards our enemy and clashed with all the fury of men at war. It was a blur,intense and violent. I distinctly remember getting slashed from behind and falling to the ground only to watch helplessly as my companions fought sword to sword and fist to fist.I bled out and died right there on that battlefield. Only then did I wake cozy in my bed and drenched in sweat. It was a s real as typing on my keyboard right now.

Was it a past life? I haven't watched any movies or read any books that would influence my dream state nin such a way.

It was so intense and so realistic even sharing it here gives me a cold sweat of fear and adrenaline. Strangely I don't recollect any pain or suffering just a sense of helplessness.

This is a curious thread for me as I had a lucid dream last night. One that made wake up in a cold sweat and prevented from falling back to sleeep.

My dream:
I was a soldier in what I'm assuming was a medieval battle, Standing on a hillside looking at the enemy across a dale and our superior who was astride a horse giving us for lack of a better term a call to arms. We rushed towards our enemy and clashed with all the fury of men at war. It was a blur,intense and violent. I distinctly remember getting slashed from behind and falling to the ground only to watch helplessly as my companions fought sword to sword and fist to fist.I bled out and died right there on that battlefield. Only then did I wake cozy in my bed and drenched in sweat. It was a s real as typing on my keyboard right now.

Was it a past life? I haven't watched any movies or read any books that would influence my dream state nin such a way.

It was so intense and so realistic even sharing it here gives me a cold sweat of fear and adrenaline. Strangely I don't recollect any pain or suffering just a sense of helplessness.

a reply to: GreyScale

Its an interesting possibility, like I said in the OP, the door I saw in my dream stood right where my grandfather chose to build the door years later. So maybe it was an element of the future bleeding into my (then) present, and somehow the bizarre storyline was fabricated to make sense of it.

a reply to: Kukri

It could be a total fabrication of your subconscious mind, though, I lean more toward some kind of simulation incepted into your mind, or maybe someone else's memory transplanted into you by a demon. Who knows?

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: Kukri

It could be a total fabrication of your subconscious mind, though, I lean more toward some kind of simulation incepted into your mind, or maybe someone else's memory transplanted into you by a demon. Who knows?

Why would a demon implant a memory? Wouldn't they just give me night terrors of my soul being damned? Actually I don't believe in demons or angels. However I have seen ghosts or more accurately apparitions. No idea what that freaky shizzle is all about.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

There is a lot that I would like to respond to but it is late.

OP maybe you need to look for symbolic meaning in that dream. There are many sources on the internet for dream symbolism. You should immediately be able to understand what it means for you. Usually it is your first thought but for your it seems you have taken it literally.

Best wishes

This is my first post on this entire site. This thread came up through my RSS feed and I decided to join to post a response (which will lead to others, I'm sure).

I feel like I'm pretty in tune with the universe and where I'm heading spiritually or on a soul level and I've never had memories of past lives. I've had ponderings about possible past lives—ponderings in which I dredged up scenarios I would like to believe, or which might be likely given my current characteristics, but nothing has ever jumped out at me as a definite memory of a past-life.

I know that one person can't really judge objectively the experience of another person, but I wonder if people who have these memories of past lives are just hypersuggestibly susceptible to their own imagination. Of course, I'm saying that for a reason:

What I have for myself is not a memory of a past mortal life, but a past immortal life. Visions of scenes from that hit me deeply and without my direct conjuration, and it feels like something I'll return to one day, not something that's lost in the dust-bins of history. It comes across like it was a life temporarily experienced as an appetizer of what would become permanent after a run through a mortal life, that being this life I'm using now to type this message. It seems to be a personal, idealized version of myself existing with other people who have also idealized themselves. Everyone gets what they want, so everyone ends up content living in such a future reality. The whole description of it is deeper than that, but I didn't want to turn this first post into a novel. But the main point is that I wonder if people are cheating themselves by focusing on past lives when they could find more satisfaction in building what they want to be in some permanent future life in which everything they are is 100% to their satisfaction. The catalyst for this would be their own spirit which carries a blueprint that will format them for eternal existence. So in that regard, people already carry with them what they will be, and the mortal physical life can deceive people into believing they're less than they really are. Biological processes subject us to genetic happenstance, but the spiritual format imported into biological structure is what will someday "make dreams come true", even if it does sound cheesy and cliche.

[duplicate post deleted]

a reply to: Kukri

Yeah, they give you night terrors until the night terrors stop scaring you. Then they move on to other distraction techniques.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

The rational side of me wants to think that. But if some of these stories are true, it speaks to something we don't have a real handle on. Some of the reincarnation stories I've read just have way too much detail for it to be faked. That is unless the whole story is a fabricstion, I've never tracked one of those stories for new paper articles ect.

when your daughter starts learning to put sentences together..... and starts telling you things like..... Before I was born and I picked you to be my dad....... you would be amazed how quickly you start pondering reincarnation

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
It seems more constructive to me, to build knew knowledge and abilities upon already understood/applied knowledge and ability, which would logically require clear memory. If it took us multiple lifetimes to learn what we are destined to learn, then wouldn't God or the Universe just provide us with extra long lives in proportion to that agenda?

If reincarnation is true and if it exists in order to teach us lessons, it makes more sense than having an extra long life because being born a European aristocrat and then an African slave are going to give you different experiences that could never be reconciled in a single life.

Following on the previous assumption, we wouldn't be told the reason because that would take all the learning out of it. Have you ever been taught via the Socratic method? Have you ever been taught by rote memorization? Which one of those do you think actually leads to learning?

a reply to: pavil

My experience with the dream world, is that its like the internet. Some of it is random, a lot of it is not to be trusted, every now and then, there are fragments of truth. If people are getting their past life memories from dreams, then I personally would be very suspicious. Not because I think they are lying, but because there are entities out there that can pour ideas into our minds and tempt us to think that they are our own. Look at Nikola Tesla. He said that most of his ideas came from entities.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

There are entities (demons/trans dimensional beings/evil spirits) that interact with our minds when we enter the dream state...These delusions are incepted into our minds to distract us from discovering the truth, to cause us to ask the wrong questions.

Everything was going swimmingly until I read this.

What kind of people believe that crap?

Reminds me of the Creationist argument that dinosaur fossils were planted in the ground by the devil to trick people into believing that the planet must be older than 6000 years.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Personally, I don't see the logic in dying and returning with a wiped memory over and over again for the purpose of learning new truths

Perhaps your true existence is not here as a human lifeform and when you die as a human you keep that knowledge in your true after life form.

Perhaps coming back or reincarnated as human ,is a form of education / experience for your true existence in the afterlife? Wiping your thoughts and experience as a human being allows you to start with a non biased ,non prejudice ,non tainted , blank canvas.



???

I guess will find out eventually?

a reply to: CJCrawley

One day when you wake up out of an unusually terrifying nightmare and find yourself paralyzed while being tormented by monsters, and then you are suddenly ejected out of your body and can view the entire event in third person...that will probably be the day that you believe.

a reply to: Puppylove

Same here. When I read the Egg story my perspective of reincarnation and time had change.
Here it is, if you want to read it:

By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

originally posted by: starwarsisreal
a reply to: Puppylove

If what your saying is true I really want out. I rather fade into nothingness than to reincarnate into this savage world.

If I have no choice but to reincarnate than I would like to gather like minded souls and launch a rebellion against the creator of the Universe.

Aaahahahaha!! That's right buddy... You think you got problems now? Just wait till next life you reincarnate as peasant living in china circa 1400. Or a woman in a muslim country circa-anytime 600AD or later. Most lives are not easy. But, since you do have to live through Every life, including mine (its not a bad one at all, but probably not the BEST), after about, 100,000 mediocre and terrible lives, you'll get the life of a wealthy person, and once every million or so lives, you'll get to be a powerful person. The great majority of your lives though, will be filled with hardship and misery. That's where most of the great lessons lie.

Plus, for a lot of the lives, like a common Babylonian in 2000BC, you won't really know any better. You won't know how bad you got screwed this time in the game of "life roulette". You won't know anything about HD TV, or Mars rovers, or nuclear war. You'll get to know the answers to the questions some of us ask today, what was life like?

a reply to: IwantToBelieveMe

Ooooooh thank you, that story was awesome.