To ask if you believe in past lives?

[Sayhellolikethis]

Name changed, as I’ve told MIL and DSis about this already…

Putting my little boy (just turned 4) to bed and he told me “I built 60 bridges during the war and I also built a bomb”. I asked him why he built a bomb and he said “I put 2 bombs on each of my bridges to protect them”. He also said “the factories were covered in camouflage”.

He then added “and a fighter jet plane falled to the ground”.

It was such a ramble of words and then he just wanted to snuggle down and go to sleep.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their little ones? He won’t talk about it any further. Puzzled!!

@Myfavouritepenguin Have you really never seen something you thought was one thing but turned out to be something else? That's a bit unusual, surely? I remember my son and I both thinking there was someone sitting in our car this winter, but it turned out to be a frost pattern on the glass. Things like that happen all the time.

"Also, are you ever going to engage with my other points?!"
Sorry-which other points?

That frost thing isn’t really the sort of thing we’re talking about - that’s something you immediately correct using your own senses. Some people have experiences that they puzzle over and wrestle with for years with no resolution.

My other points were the questions I have posed many times about the nature of human experience. Perhaps you haven’t been reading my posts? (Bit rude when some of them were in direct response to you!) I was making the point that we shouldn’t be surprised that there are many things we can’t explain since we all live with unanswerable questions about the universe all the time - eg what is the point of our enjoyment of art and music? Why are we moved by the beauty of nature? Do you believe in love even though you can’t measure it in a lab? Those sorts of things.

@Myfavouritepenguin Ah, right. Sorry. I thought I'd answered those points because I have said repeatedly that I know we can't explain everything. But my view is that we will eventually. I didn't look at the (actually quite scary) white form in my car and think "ghost". (Well, I did actually, for a moment, and my son certainly did!) I went to investigate, and found out what it was. With a different mindset, that would now be embedded in our experience as an unexplained experience, and probably in a couple of years she would have become a moving, recognisable figure. Maybe even a family member. Because that's how brains work!

I can't answer your questions about art or nature or love because I don't know. But just because we don't know some things that doesn't mean we don't know anything. I don't know why we are moved by beauty. But I do know how, for example, psychics work, or what sleep paralysis can do to our perception of the world around us. Or how scary an ice pattern in a window can look in early morning light.

Why are we moved by the beauty of nature?

As a result of our super evolved brains?

Scientists have not yet been able to explain consciousness. I do not think that we can infer from that that it is supernatural?

Fair enough, and thank you for replying. I think you’re suggesting that some people would not subsequently realise that the ‘figure’ was in fact just frost? Again, I do think this slightly trite explanation is a bit insulting to those who’ve had genuinely terrifying experiences that are not this easily resolved!

I’m interested in your view that, whilst we can’t currently explain everything, we will eventually. I do hope not! I’m assuming hereyou mean answers to questions such as why are we here, what happens to us when we die (especially if the answer is a categorical ‘nothing’ - because I think even the steeliest non-believing sceptic takes some secret, deep-down comfort of not knowing for certain that death is the end) and what is at the edge of the universe. I don’t think humans are designed to cope with all that knowledge. But here I think we disagree.

My unscientific guess would be that we are programmed to associate lush natural scenes with land fecundity - a place where we could have survived in the past.

Lol, this thread was surprising. I was expecting to open it and find the OP being inundated with lots of "no, of course not" replies.

Kind of makes sense though. If you believe you can be literally born in the wrong body, which lots of people apparently do, why wouldn't you believe you could be born with someone else's soul or memories?

That’s an interesting idea, yes. It doesn’t explain why we find beauty in, say, dramatic mountainous landscapes. I found Switzerland absolutely breath-taking, but I wouldn’t fancy my chances of surviving in the mountains!

@Myfavouritepenguin The thing is-the explanations are always "trite". Or simple. Nothing insulting about that. My ghostly frost woman was genuinely scary, and if I had been slightly more scared or on my own I might well not have gone out to look, so I would have believed it to be a ghost. I have been alive a long time, and because I'm interested in this stuff, I could list a ton of experiences I have had or been told about that, if I had a different mind set would have led me to believe in the supernatural. Or if I had been looking for confirmation of the supernatural rather than the opposite. But they have almost all had a simple, rational, repeatable explanation. The others all fit the same pattern, but I wasn't there, or don't have enough information to decide which rational explanation is the best fit. There isn't a single one I think "Hmm-yep. Has to be paranormal", although other people certainly would. And of course a bit of me wishes that death was not the end. I want to know what my great grandchildren will be like! But I know it is, and I am comforted by the thought that those great grandchildren will know about me, while I am stardust again.

@CurlewKate
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree then. Personally, if I had a really weird and inexplicable experience which left an impression on me and which I told people about, and they offered explanations that included ‘it was probably a shadow’ or ‘you saw it wrong’, I think I would reasonably be a little insulted by that? You’re essentially calling the other person a fool! I think most of us have had loads of the ‘oh my god it’s a figure’ moments which we very swiftly correct. That’s precisely why the really inexplicable ones stand out! Can you not see the difference?

Incidentally, have you listened to any of the ‘Uncanny’ stories? They always have a sceptic on there who tries to rationalise the phenomena. Sometimes those explanations are really thought-provoking and likely, but sometimes they are just rubbish!

Finally, you don’t know death is the end. You might strongly believe it, but no one knows.

when some sceptics come across information they can’t explain, they fall back on “you’re imagining it”, which seems like a cop-out to me "

Maybe.

But then again simply 'expecting' any spirit world to be 'beyond understanding' or to fail to conform to our expectations seems equally glib to me.

But then again simply 'expecting' any spirit world to be 'beyond understanding' or to fail to conform to our expectations seems equally glib to me.

I don’t think we are quite discussing the same thing here? When I talked about phenomena not conforming to our expectations or rules, it was in response to the “spirits can’t be real because they would do x, y and z if they were” argument. It’s weird to imagine that if there were some supernatural realm (something that @CurlewKate has quite reasonably termed a ‘reality-defying’ situation), that it would fit an easily understandable mould based on our needs?!

I mean, as arguments against ghosts go (and I’ll admit there are some compelling ones!), to suggest they don’t make sense because they don’t do what we expect is probably the weakest! Their existence itself would kind of go against our expectations…

I dont need to be told about "frosted snowmen" and "always simple explanations" by rigid, close minded posters. I have had plenty of personal experiences of spiritual nature and they don't conform to such silly suggestions.

@Hopelesscynic No need to be so rude, surely?

Probably not. But I don’t think you quite realise how patronising it might be to be told that you didn’t hear/see what you think? If you constantly patronise people, you can’t be too surprised if they bristle a bit 🤷‍♀️

@Myfavouritepenguin Fair enough. Seems a little rigid and closed minded not even to admit the possibility of being wrong, but hey, each to their own.

You speak a lot of sense to me.

to suggest they don’t make sense because they don’t do what we expect is probably the weakest!

Well suggesting it makes sense not to expect it to make sense doesn't strike me as the strongest or least weird position either but the debate's now becoming circular and we're not going to agree so I'll leave it at a (hopefully amicable) disagreement.

I mean, as arguments against ghosts go (and I’ll admit there are some compelling ones!)

Can you elaborate on those you find compelling?

Can you elaborate on those you find compelling?

I won’t, if you don’t mind - I think you guys have got that covered!

I’ll happily admit evidence for ghosts/ past lives/ the supernatural is shaky… but there’s a lot of this shaky testimony out there. I just prefer to keep an open mind!

I still maintain that if there are signs/ communications from the ‘other side’, they’re unlikely to be that coherent or human-friendly just because- well, why would they be?

Anyway, I’ve genuinely enjoyed the respectful debate, so thanks!

Before picking people up on their understanding of the English language, it would probably be a good idea for you to try attributing quotes to the correct person. I didn't say what you've attributed to me.

@SaltyCrisps Many apologies. I'll ask for the post to be deleted.