Do you believe we have past lives??

[RevolvingPivot]

Inspired by my other thread....

Places you have visited with a strange vibe http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4260839-places-you-have-visited-with-a-strange-vibe

There's a brilliant documentary on Netflix called "Surviving Death". There are several episodes and one is specifically about reincarnation and former lives.

The stories on there are jaw dropping - little children who describe in great detail their previous life as people who have been proven to exist.

Sometimes I get a visceral feeling about certain situations - I can't explain it, but a huge feeling of sadness or fear.

There's so much we just don't know. I'd never dismiss it out of hand.

The stories on there are jaw dropping - little children who describe in great detail their previous life as people who have been proven to exist

Amazing how people who claim to have had past lives never seem to have been an obscure nobody previously.

No. I think sometimes there's things we don't understand for whatever reason, and we seek out other means of explanation.

Amazing how people who claim to have had past lives never seem to have been an obscure nobody previously.

After my little flirt on the woo side I did one of those YouTube past life regression videos for a laugh.

All I got was the name Alice, I think somewhere like Connecticut? And I'm pretty sure I was poor.

I am about 90% sure I made it up in my head though probably watched The Crucible one too many times and fancied me some John Proctor / pre-reincarnation Daniel Day Lewis.

I think I will get it done properly one day (I mean with proper hypnosis), just to see. I read a theory that a birthmark is a sign of how you died in a past life and I have one right on my hipbone. I feel like I'd pay good money to find out how that happened?

I think in my next life im going to be surrounded by a loving extended family and im looking forward to that.

@hennybeans

Yes, but not in karma as such or that we can be animals.

A person's body/ spirit/ soul is energy and we know in science that energy never disappears, just transfers or moves around.

You are using words without knowing what they mean.

“A person’s soul is energy” is meaningless nonsense and has nothing at all to do with what science knows to be energy.

@blameitonthecaffeine

No, I don't. I'm a Christian so I do believe in eternal life but not on this earth and not as other people.

I do rather love the idea of reincarnation though. But only if we could remember our past lives. It would be like having one reallllllly long, multi cultural, highly eclectic, interesting life with so many people in it to know and love. Or it could just be really shit. I don't know.

My mind is slightly open - mainly due to really spooky, hard to explain stories like winched told - amazing!

So you are a Christian, which means you 100% shouldn’t believe in reincarnation but if something is hard to explain, then it might sway you?

You sound really… gullible.

@yupyupyup

Maybe we do have past lives. But we don't remember them so what does it matter?!?

OK so this morning, DH and I were driving to a not-so-distant town. We drove past a place that looked so familiar to me. I remembered this place had been in a dream recently, although I'd never knowingly been there. It was surreal. Didn't say anything to dh as I knew I couldn't make it sound like it made any sense!

I'm almost certain these little deja vu moments are snippets of 'past lives'.

Why would they more likely be past lives, which we have no good evidence of occurring and errors in the brain and memory, for which we have enormous amounts of good evidence.

@Fleetw00d

100% yes I believe we do have past lives. I also think we can tell if someone is an old soul and has been here before, or a new soul who is on their first round. I believe that newer souls are usually the ones who don't believe in past lives as they haven't experienced it, but older souls have something within them that reminds them that they have been here before. I also think that this links to soul mates and that souls are linked, sometimes you find your soul mate if you're lucky but sometimes you go through life being in love, but not with a soul mate as they may not be in that life. Just my thoughts and it brings me comfort to think this is true 😀

Why do you believe it is true, though? It sounds like made-up bollocks to me. How do these new souls come about? When does a foetus gain their old soul? How?

@PatriciaBateman

My favourite theory is that all lives are our life. Past, present/parallel, and future.

So in another life, I was my grandmother, in another my brother, my husband, in another my child (latter 3 all currently living), in another someone on the other side of the world. I am you and you are me, and "we" are every single life - just in different "runs" of the game from a place where time isn't linear.

This story - The Egg by Andy Weir is the closest I've found in print to my adopted "belief".

Well, it’s a theory, but it sounds unhinged. You might like it as an idea, but why on earth would you consider that it might be true? What evidence is there?

@DrinkFeckArseBrick

Yes but only from the point of view that the elements that make up our bodies would have been in other things before us

Agree with this. From a physical science point of view, I believe energy and matter is endlessly recycled in to different forms.

Have we all seen The Good Place on Netflix/NBC? Or the Pixar movie Soul? Both are someone’s constructed idea of the afterlife but no-one is pretending that they are real. All the stupid ideas on this thread have as much likelihood of being real as these fictions i.e. none.

@baroqueandblue

I think people who refuse to entertain the possibility are the deluded ones. Quite misguided, actually. The whole fact of existence and consciousness in any form is still pretty much beyond human explanation, and even without my own subjective experiences of other 'dimensions' I would have to concede the probability that we live 'other lives'. The mathematics inherent in the structure of the universe establishes that probability. But many 'rationalists' miss that point.

Apart from anything else, when we make even the smallest choice between two or more alternative actions, we leave behind the universe that consists of the opposite action. According to quantum physics, that universe goes on existing somewhere beyond our conscious awareness (and not just as a theory) 😲

It is a long way from not dismissing the possibility to conceding the probability. I will be convinced that people live past lives if you show me good evidence of it. The multiple universe theory doesn’t mean that you or I have lived before or will live again.

Why do you believe it is true, though? It sounds like made-up bollocks to me. How do these new souls come about? When does a foetus gain their old soul? How?

@MasterBeth just curious, do you not believe in the concept of 'a soul' at all then?

@winched

Why do you believe it is true, though? It sounds like made-up bollocks to me. How do these new souls come about? When does a foetus gain their old soul? How?

@MasterBeth just curious, do you not believe in the concept of 'a soul' at all then?

Tell me what you mean by a soul and I’ll let you know.

Chillychangchoo this is how I see the world too . It’s not a belief Iv chosen, it just is .

There is no such thing as the soul - just a set of connections between neurons in the brain. so there is no possible mechanism for people to have a connection to a past life.

@ArabellaScott

No. We don't go anywhere, either. All.of us remains here and is recycled, endlessly.

What about increases in population? Where do those souls come from on this ^ scenario?

@parietal

There is no such thing as the soul - just a set of connections between neurons in the brain. so there is no possible mechanism for people to have a connection to a past life.

You know as much as anyone else about this eg. Nothing

I don't actually know, maybe. I know that energy is always conserved and just changes forms, so I wonder if our consciousness is a form of energy and gets recycled? Who knows. I wouldn't totally disregard the idea and I'm pretty rational (I think)

No, I don't believe its possible.

I don't believe in a soul - as individuals, who we are is shaped by nature (genes of our parents) and environment (what we go through carves us out as individuals).

I'm ma die hard cynic about this kind of stuff - though I would like to believe, I just think its something a human thought up a long time ago to help them cope with idea of death.

That said, I don't believe death needs to be feared either.

I’m not sure either way on this... it’s more of an ‘I wonder...’ and the reason being is since being young I cannot have anyone or anything touch the front of my neck - I couldn’t wear chockers (90’s!), can’t wear polo necks, scarfs wrapped tightly or any clothing near neck, even the cape at the hairdressers has to stay loose or I start a mild panic. So... I do wonder if I was hung or strangled in a former life? 🤔. Also have many dejavu moments. It sounds mad and who really knows?

Yes, the soul is a matter of philosophical enquiry and extremely difficult to pin down and define. Massive phenomenological question, and a worthy one because so much unsubstantiated rot is blithely talked about the soul.

I'll get back to you about that probability thing though... 😄

@eandz13

I don't actually know, maybe. I know that energy is always conserved and just changes forms, so I wonder if our consciousness is a form of energy and gets recycled? Who knows. I wouldn't totally disregard the idea and I'm pretty rational (I think)

But the people who discovered through their scientific endeavour that energy is always conserved and just changes forms would think you were nuts to then speculate that “consciousness is a form of energy.”

You can’t just use a carefully proven scientific theory to power your made-up bollocks. No, consciousness is not a form of energy. Learn some science.

@LozMuffin

I’m not sure either way on this... it’s more of an ‘I wonder...’ and the reason being is since being young I cannot have anyone or anything touch the front of my neck - I couldn’t wear chockers (90’s!), can’t wear polo necks, scarfs wrapped tightly or any clothing near neck, even the cape at the hairdressers has to stay loose or I start a mild panic. So... I do wonder if I was hung or strangled in a former life? 🤔. Also have many dejavu moments. It sounds mad and who really knows?

Fuck me, that’s a hell of a leap!

Maybe you experienced a sensation of choking as a child. Maybe you have an especially sensitive neck.

Maybe an alien abducted you and transplanted a robotic throat transmitter in your neck.

Maybe a fairy put a curse on you.

Why leap to “past lives”?