Pre-life memories?

Originally posted by mysticnoon
if you were a brain surgeon in a past life, it does not follow that you will instantly acquire the skills of a surgeon simply by recalling a few minutes of that life. The same goes for foreign languages.

Except that it isn't a foreign language -- it's what you supposedly spoke and thought for a whole lifetime, and I put that forward as a challenge to those who claim vast memories and intricate details, not minor recollections.

Sorry, it's just far easier to surmise that your "few minutes of the life" either represent fantasy or cultural contamination than they do memories of past lives. If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

reply to post by adjensen


My daughter is like that too, but she's a biologist, a geneticist and a staunch atheist. I can't relate a spiritual experience without raised eyebrows. But she can't explain my telepathic incidents, that she and her fiance have haphazardly witnessed. We believe that science will provide an answer, through quantum physics, I think.

As to strokes and brain development. The brain is an amazing thing. It has been proven that when parts of the brain are damaged, new paths are created. This is why they say brain exercise staves off Alzeimers. The mind creates brain paths of problem solving and logic.

reply to post by adjensen

If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

I think I can answer that, if you don't mind. The answer, imo, is unresolved guilt and trauma.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

I think I can answer that, if you don't mind. The answer, imo, is unresolved guilt and trauma.

That doesn't make sense -- the few minutes that you can remember is the only time of your life not impacted by guilt and trauma?

To be honest, the fundamental problem that I see is that short "snippets" are easily explainable by either imagination or cultural contamination, and long complex memories aren't bolstered by expected knowledge and/or are disproved when carefully investigated (a few months ago, I was somewhat impressed by the previously mentioned case of Shanti Devi, until I dug into it a little bit and found out that she had made loads of "false hits" -- things she claimed were facts of her past life, but weren't, or couldn't be -- and that dropped her back to the "claimed psychic" level... not believable.)

Originally posted by adjensen

Sorry, it's just far easier to surmise that your "few minutes of the life" either represent fantasy or cultural contamination than they do memories of past lives. If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

I can only remember a few minutes here and there of my early childhood in this very life in an effortless fashion, why then should I be expected to recall a previous life with ease in its entirety? Besides, the past life memory is not normally directly accessible by the conscious mind, it requires digging deeper into the unconscious aspect of mind where these past life memories reside. Sometimes they appear in consciousness spontaneously, but as I said before, these are usually snapshots.

Originally posted by mysticnoon

Originally posted by adjensen

Sorry, it's just far easier to surmise that your "few minutes of the life" either represent fantasy or cultural contamination than they do memories of past lives. If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

Besides, the past life memory is not normally directly accessible by the conscious mind, it requires digging deeper into the unconscious aspect of mind where these past life memories reside. Sometimes they appear in consciousness spontaneously, but as I said before, these are usually snapshots.

This implies that a methodology can be developed and put into place to pull these memories out of anyone, on demand, and yet that is not the case. All we have is small numbers of people who claim minuscule snatches of what they take to be past lives, but which can easily be imagined or the result of cultural contamination. The more detail that a case introduces, the more likely it is to be proven false, which seems like a fairly damning indictment of the phenomenon.

reply to post by adjensen


There is a further quality of past life snapshots which is difficult to reconcile with the assertion that it is nothing more than imagination. Past life scenes have an intense clarity and vividness which even surpasses present life awareness. In present perception, the line of vision is limited and prescribed by the range of the senses, whereas in past life recall, the vision is panoramic, as if seen from a wider perspective.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by adjensen

 

Past life scenes have an intense clarity and vividness which even surpasses present life awareness.

I'm sorry, I don't see how that is anything other than a subjective evaluation.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by adjensen

 

Past life scenes have an intense clarity and vividness which even surpasses present life awareness.

I'm sorry, I don't see how that is anything other than a subjective evaluation.

Naturally, it is subjective. So is any memory I may recall from my present life.

Past life memories are not open to objective analysis in the same manner as are material objects. Then again, neither are thoughts, or emotions, or dreams, and yet there is consesus that these exist experientially.

I do admit that experiencing past life memories does not prove that they are, indeed, memories of past lives, but to someone who accepts the existence of the law of karma and reincarnation, they are a simple fact of life, and nothing especially extraordinary.

It's not as such a memory, but an irrational fear that make me wonder if it's something to do with a past life...

I am terrified of the KKK, even just writing the words makes me freak out. I'm whiter than white, both in skin colour and behaviour so there should be nothing for me to be scared of, but I've had many sleepless nights just because I saw a photo of them earlier in the day. I know they look ridiculous, I know I shouldn't be scared of them but if I had to choose between going head to head with them or a giant spider, I'd choose the spider. Maybe I was murdered by them in my past life when I was "of colour"?? Who knows...

Originally posted by mysticnoon

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by adjensen

 

Past life scenes have an intense clarity and vividness which even surpasses present life awareness.

I'm sorry, I don't see how that is anything other than a subjective evaluation.

Naturally, it is subjective. So is any memory I may recall from my present life.

Past life memories are not open to objective analysis in the same manner as are material objects. Then again, neither are thoughts, or emotions, or dreams, and yet there is consesus that these exist experientially.

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain myself properly. What I meant was that the comparison of past life memories and current life memories, which results in the former being seen as more "vivid" and therefore differentiated, is completely subjective, and therefore not a reasonable conclusion. They may not be more vivid, or they may be more vivid because you value them or fixate on them, not because they have a different basis.

Again, I believe that you have had these memories, I just disagree with their origin.

Originally posted by TheHierophant
If not, —if atheist that is, therefore no belief subscription—, you would link/explain said plane crash with a more rational optic, not only psychological but also environmental at the time.

I stated my experience, not my belief. I said I remembered dying in a plane crash. This memory is recorded before all my life records. I remember the co-pilot jumping out, the music which was playing in the cockpit, the sky all around. And poof, darkness, and my life memories starts afterwards. I also had several visions which I cannot explain.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

If you can remember a few minutes, why can't you remember it all? If all you can remember is a few minutes, why can you remember any of it?

I think I can answer that, if you don't mind. The answer, imo, is unresolved guilt and trauma.

That doesn't make sense -- the few minutes that you can remember is the only time of your life not impacted by guilt and trauma?

Both my sister and myself were molested and raped as young girls. She barely remembers anything from her childhood. My memories are still emerging.

To be honest, the fundamental problem that I see is that short "snippets" are easily explainable by either imagination or cultural contamination, and long complex memories aren't bolstered by expected knowledge and/or are disproved when carefully investigated (a few months ago, I was somewhat impressed by the previously mentioned case of Shanti Devi, until I dug into it a little bit and found out that she had made loads of "false hits" -- things she claimed were facts of her past life, but weren't, or couldn't be -- and that dropped her back to the "claimed psychic" level... not believable.)

I have had memories from my childhood that my mother told me didn't happen, or didn't happen the way I remember it. Memory is a tricky thing. Perception is a tricky thing. How does the mind sort out dreams, movies, books and other related experiences from reality?

This implies that a methodology can be developed and put into place to pull these memories out of anyone, on demand, and yet that is not the case. All we have is small numbers of people who claim minuscule snatches of what they take to be past lives, but which can easily be imagined or the result of cultural contamination. The more detail that a case introduces, the more likely it is to be proven false, which seems like a fairly damning indictment of the phenomenon.

Past life regressionists, and believe it or not, Scientology do just that. All of Scientology's confessions and counseling sessions, that they charge so much for, are a technique to pull these memories out of anyone.

Scientology's methods are very tedious and exacting. They start with a list of mind sets, like "bigotry" and take the one with greatest read on their "E-meter" first. They examine every attitude, emotion, sensation and pain that the person associates with that mind set, and takes each of those and examine them on 3 tracks, when they were victims of bigotry, when they witnessed bigotry, when they administered bigotry, and examine every attitude, emotion, sensation and pain associated with these memories, then they take each thing, like I said it's very tedious, and take them back earlier and earlier, back into past lives.

Agree or disagree, believe it or not, this is ALL of what Scientology is, in a nutshell. You won't hear about the memories and breakthrough that Scientologist's have, because they are forbidden to discuss what happens during their sessions with anyone.

Originally posted by windword

Originally posted by adjensen
That doesn't make sense -- the few minutes that you can remember is the only time of your life not impacted by guilt and trauma?

Both my sister and myself were molested and raped as young girls. She barely remembers anything from her childhood. My memories are still emerging.

Sorry about that, of course, but that isn't what I meant. Yes, I understand repressed memories, but why would someone repress a whole lifetime, apart from a couple of seconds, which then can be recalled? Repression of trauma or guilt doesn't seem a likely mechanism to explain only remembering one or two scenes.

Past life regressionists, and believe it or not, Scientology do just that. All of Scientology's confessions and counseling sessions, that they charge so much for, are a technique to pull these memories out of anyone.

I don't believe in past life regression, obviously, and anything that comes out of Scientology is not credible -- the whole "E-Meter" thing is an attempt at shame and the resultant control, classic cult behaviour, and the results of it must be seen through that filter.

Here was the story of the teenager that woke from a coma only able to speak German. This is a case study that is less about past-life and more about neuroscience. She had been exposed to some German before her coma.

A Croatian teenager awoke from a coma last week to find she could no longer speak in her native Croatian -- but was fluent in German, a language she had just started studying in school, the U.K. press reports. Following a mysterious 24-hour coma, the thirteen-year-old girl from the southern town of Knin has been able to understand Croatian, according to the U.K. press. She can only respond in German and requires a translator to communicate with her family, the stories said.

abcnews.go.com...

The article also talks about foreign accent syndrome.

reply to post by adjensen

Sorry about that, of course, but that isn't what I meant. Yes, I understand repressed memories, but why would someone repress a whole lifetime, apart from a couple of seconds, which then can be recalled? Repression of trauma or guilt doesn't seem a likely mechanism to explain only remembering one or two scenes.

Some people walk through entire lifetimes, asleep. Past lives are but a dream. Many people don't remember their dreams. Doesn't mean that they don't dream.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

Sorry about that, of course, but that isn't what I meant. Yes, I understand repressed memories, but why would someone repress a whole lifetime, apart from a couple of seconds, which then can be recalled? Repression of trauma or guilt doesn't seem a likely mechanism to explain only remembering one or two scenes.

Some people walk through entire lifetimes, asleep. Past lives are but a dream. Many people don't remember their dreams. Doesn't mean that they don't dream.

Well, you're kind of making my point for me, but, as we have in the past, we will just have to agree to disagree on this.

Well I've read that cells have memories so its possible to have pass life memories. I've also noticed myself doing things I never knew how or thought I could do with ease.

My youngest daughter brings up her "brown mommy and daddy and family" from time to time. I've written about them here and here. I try and keep a cool and accepting demeanor when she talks about it. She has since brought her "brown mommy" up a couple times, but did not really go into more details, but she tell me her name was "Lama" again.

For her to bring up the same story with the same people and descriptions is a bit out of character for her if it is just make believe. She is just not that focused of a child.