Past lives, do you believe?

[Blackjack]

Not a question about religion, How many of you have seen someone and knew you'd be friends or lovers instantly. The same goes the other way, someone you meet that you instantly take a disliking to for no reason. Could this be past life interactions? Do we meet and interact with the same people over and over and don't even realize it? How about phobias? being afraid of water even though you've never gone swimming, did you drown in a previous life. I saw a movie back in the 70's called the Reincarnation of Peter Proud that always stuck with me and I find it a very thought provoking subject.

 

[AmateisGal]

Yes, this has happened to me a few times. I don't know if it's past lives or just a very strong instinct that eventually proves correct.

 

[Stearmen]

Patton would go to the battle fields, and talk about how he died there hundreds and even thousands of years previously!

 

[Zombie_61]

I do believe in past lives and reincarnation. Yes, sometimes our fears, phobias, or whatever you want to call them, are carried over from a previous life, but not always; often it's because one of the reasons you've reincarnated is to work on ridding yourself of them.

And with regards to your question, "Do we meet and interact with the same people over and over and don't even realize it?", the answer is yes. Those people in your life that you feel a strong "connection" to have possibly spent previous lifetimes with you. Just as we, as human beings, have families here on Earth, our souls maintain similar groupings. Quite often two or more souls will incarnate in the same lifetime(s) to help each other progress towards becoming a more perfect entity. That, by the way, is the answer to the big question: "Why are we here?" We are here to learn, and we are here to teach. Simple as that.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

No I don't believe in reincarnation or life after death. This is it, we've only got one crack of the whip & we're living it, no dress rehearsals, straight onto the stage.
I think that when we take an immediate dislike to someone, without even knowing them, it's because we see in them something we deeply dislike in ourselves.
Likewise we can meet someone or even see someone from afar & immediately be attracted to them, maybe it's instinctive, we are subconsciously detecting things that enable us to trust certain people
Also some people have a very strong charisma which is difficult to explain as it isn't always linked with beauty. It's a bit of a cliché but some folks can walk into a room & all heads will turn. We are not alone in feeling these powerful attractions or repulsions though, animals too can have their preferences & can also 'irrationally ' dislike someone on sight.
I guess the reason why our ancestors passed through evolution, thus enabling us to exist today, is because they had such instincts & intuitions which may have helped them make judicial decisions regarding alliances & so lead to more harmonious relationships, which is undeniably a trump card in the survival stakes.

 

[Edward]

I am inclined to keep an open mind, but reincarnation isn't something my belief system encompasses. I am, however, a firm believer in the concept of genetic, or "inherited" memory. Interestingly, research in recent years looking into long-term storage of records (starting from the point that digital data storage degrades over time, and future-proofing formats is difficult) has shown that DNA has an incredible capacity for information storage. I do firmly believe that there is more passed down, encoded into our DNA, than simple physical characteristics, and this is the source of what is often believed to be memory retained from past lives.

I am also inclined to agree that much of these sorts of snap decisions that prove accurate are based on subconsciously gleaned information. We may have the sheen of civilisation, but we are nonetheless much closer the animal than is often comfortable to admit.

 

[Blackjack]

I'm not saying I do or don't believe but, it's just like being here. Why are some folks drawn to an era, that can't be subconscious information. We, enjoy the eras of the 20's - 40's , their actually quite a big part of my life. They have been since I was in my teens. A lot of people I know don't. There HAS to be a reason some are so connected to an era they aren't living in where others could care less. It's just all very strange.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've led at least seven different and distinct lives just in this one. Who knows how many there were before that.

As far as my connection to the Era goes, I don't think there's anything metaphysical about it, it's more a question of imprinting on the surroundings I was raised in, which were twenty years or more out of date at the time. When I learned to recognize and identify everyday objects as a very young child, they were the 1930s or 1940s versions of those objects, not the 1960s versions. So to me, those are still the default mode.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Being drawn to a particular era or historical event is just a question of what you relate to, which has more to do with the influences you were exposed to growing up & individual sensitivities than to a shadow from some 'past life'.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've led at least seven different and distinct lives just in this one. Who knows how many there were before that.

As far as my connection to the Era goes, I don't think there's anything metaphysical about it, it's more a question of imprinting on the surroundings I was raised in, which were twenty years or more out of date at the time. When I learned to recognize and identify everyday objects as a very young child, they were the 1930s or 1940s versions of those objects, not the 1960s versions. So to me, those are still the default mode.

When I was growing up in the late '60s / '70s, so many of the object, appliances, etc. in our house dated from the '40s - '60s, that like you, those images are what those things are to me 'till this day. A radio will always first look like the '40s bakelite model we had in our kitchen and would listen to the news on. The first TV I knew (before, completely out of character, my dad bought a color TV - and had it for the next twenty years) was a black and white set from the '50s, with a convex screen and rabbit ears (I think it was an RCA, but am no longer sure). A toaster was a very heavy object with a fabric-covered cord that easily weighed more than three new toasters combined do today. I could go on, but like you, it is these Golden Era versions that are the template in my head for these everyday items.

 

[Blackjack]

Being drawn to a particular era or historical event is just a question of what you relate to, which has more to do with the influences you were exposed to growing up & individual sensitivities than to a shadow from some 'past life'.

Ok, all well and good but I didn't grow up in a house that had a lot of 40's decor, and as far as I remember I was drawn to the 40's. I don't know how anyone can give a definitive answer on this because none of us know for sure whether or not we've lived before. To say "it's not" or "this is what it is" is just an opinion nothing else unless of course you've died and come back then you would know. That being said, I don't know...but I find it fascinating. I could very easily slip back and live in the 30's with no issues, and I'm fully aware of the hardships that era had. I would be very interested in anyone on here that is convinced they did live before and why.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandmother strongly believed in reincarnation, which was kind of odd to me because she was otherwise a straight-ahead 1910s Methodist. But she insisted that she expected to come back in her next life, specifically as a cardinal. Not a Catholic cardinal, or a St. Louis Cardinal, but the bird kind. Whenever I see a cardinal at my window I figure I better shape up, just in case.

Speaking for myself, I don't insist on any doctrinaire belief one way or another about What Comes Next. All I know is that eventually we're all going to find out firsthand for ourselves, and every day that passes brings us one day closer to that moment.

I think I'd fit in just fine in 1937 -- it was the Golden Era of loudmouthed labor organizers. Me and Genora Johnson would be best pals.

 

[Fading Fast]

My personal views are that I have no way of knowing if reincarnation is real or not. I, like many people, have had tenuous experiences, thoughts, feelings, impressions that are broadly consistent with having had a past life, but (at least in my case) they are very, very far from conclusive (I know some people have had experiences that are conclusive for them). It seems logical to me that "something" else - God, another universe, some construct that is beyond our present understanding - almost has to exist as our universe didn't spring out of nothing.

Sometimes I think Einstein made one very small step (a gigantic step by human standards, a tiny step in the big picture of what the "else" is) in getting us closer to the bigger picture as he showed how our linear timeline is not an absolute. I'm open to come what may, since I don't know what it is and have no control in the matter.

I do think my feelings for the Golden Era are very temporal and, as in my post above, are related to my upbringing by older GE parents and, maybe, some default or developed-early setting in my personality that is attracted to that time period.

 

[ButteMT61]

What is interesting to me are the people who are drawn and relish in the past. Me and my family are such people, but we also have friends that can't put the past behind them fast enough. Those folks seem to often be more monetarily successful, or it's a coincidence.
I don't believe in past lives, but my wife does. I really don't believe in anything beyond my time here, which also saddens me. I'd love to think/believe that there IS something, I just don't any longer.

Interestingly, I do believe in intuition and other things that fall under the "wacko" cloud for many people. I've seen things happen that simply I could not explain otherwise. Connections between mothers and children where something happened and they knew it without any formal communication.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

If you were raised in the 50s as I was (born '47), you lived in the early days of television. Throughout that time, the Hollywood studios refused to release movies made post '49 to television. So the tv stations ran films from the '30s-40s and they ran them endlessly. So my generation saw all the movies our parents grew up with, but we saw them out of chronological order and we saw them over and over again. Thus we were imprinted with the Hollywood version of those two decades. The spread of color television in the late 50s created an irresistible demand for post-40s movies, which NBC met in 1961 with "NBC Saturday Night at the Movïes.

 

[emigran]

occurs for me there's no reason not to believe... energy is continuous, no...or at least transforms into something else.
Back in the day we called it "vibes", man... he's givin me bad vibes, bro...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think there's two kinds of people who are interested in the past in the way that we are here -- the type who look back on it as some kind of mythologized Better Time, and those who simply feel that it's a better fit for them. You could have a size five shoe and a size nine shoe, and the fact that one of them fits you better than the other doesn't make that one "better." It just makes it a better fit for your particular foot. That's how I look at it for myself.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I personally think, people, which are thoughtful by nature are automatically kind of "romantic" to melancholic or even nostalgic.

 

[ButteMT61]

I think there's two kinds of people who are interested in the past in the way that we are here -- the type who look back on it as some kind of mythologized Better Time, and those who simply feel that it's a better fit for them. You could have a size five shoe and a size nine shoe, and the fact that one of them fits you better than the other doesn't make that one "better." It just makes it a better fit for your particular foot. That's how I look at it for myself.

I'm both.

 

[p51]

Nope. I don't buy into it, at all.
I think it's from an inherent need among humans to want something else to happen to them once they die, other than just fading to black.
I'm reminded of a movie (I think Kevin Costner said this?) where someone asks why when people think they lived past lives, it's always someone famous (or at least, very interesting)?