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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if you believe in past lives?

396 replies

Sayhellolikethis · 28/05/2023 15:06

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!!

OP posts:
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Frabbits · 28/05/2023 19:39

KarmaStar · 28/05/2023 18:57

Absolutely!
And it is so fascinating.It's quite rare for adults to remember but young children recall events ,people and facts in incredible details.
Read some books,there are plenty that do a collection of stories from many people whose children have recalled their previous lives.
There are some new souls on the earth plane but the huge majority of us have had several lives.
You can go to a trained therapist to be taken back to a previous life to heal something causing you issues in this life but it must be someone qualified.

"Qualified".

In what? Making shit up?

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 19:42

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 19:36

To the doubters: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
As a scientifically minded person you should know that.

If the hypothesis explains the facts (i.e. explains the things children say), then don't discount the hypothesis because you don't like it.

I think many people have an emotional investment in 'not believing woo stuff.' Perhaps it comes from fear.

As a scientific minded person, I don't accept completely ridiculous things without some degree of evidence and I have no "emotional investment" in that in any way whatsover.

The most likely and obvious explaination is that kids have imaginations and make stuff up all the time, not that they are recalling some past life.

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 19:46

I don't accept completely ridiculous things without some degree of evidence

So you have decided in advance that the hypothesis is 'completely ridiculous' before you have looked at any evidence?

HermioneWeasley · 28/05/2023 19:56

Yes @Stillcountingbeans if something is being claimed that is in complete opposition to how something is known to work, then it’s an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence. See also: homeopathy and water having “memory”

KrisAkabusi · 28/05/2023 19:59

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 19:46

I don't accept completely ridiculous things without some degree of evidence

So you have decided in advance that the hypothesis is 'completely ridiculous' before you have looked at any evidence?

There isn't any evidence!

ToParentOrNotToParent · 28/05/2023 20:01

The holographic principle in quantum mechanics sounds utterly woowoo at first glance, but is very much real and being researched by award winning physicists.

There is an awful lot we don't know or understand yet.

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 20:06

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 19:46

I don't accept completely ridiculous things without some degree of evidence

So you have decided in advance that the hypothesis is 'completely ridiculous' before you have looked at any evidence?

As soon as anyone comes up with credible evidence, I'll look at it.

Jifmicroliquid · 28/05/2023 20:16

I have a theory for this. I genuinely think that a past life memory is a memory that someone has from being a baby/too young to remember things. So something might have been on the TV and they have seen the images, although too young to understand what it is or understand the words to go with it. For some reason they store that memory, or multiple memories, that jumble together and then when they are a bit older and have an understanding of language and can decipher that memory, they think it’s something they actually done because it’s happened at a time that they shouldn’t really be able to remember anything. If that makes sense. So it’s sort of a glitch memory that feels real because they were too young to essentially recognise it as anything else.
I think it explains why not everyone seems to have a past life, and why so many children come out with these things, because they are simply recounting that memory.

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:19

Shhhquirrel · 28/05/2023 19:24

The naysayers fascinate me. You’re living on a planet in space travelling at 1000 mph. That’s mind blowing, yet you probably take it for granted. Whose to say past lives aren’t real?

Exactly this!

We didn't know this for a long time and it would have seemed insane before we discovered it and how it worked. Now we take it for granted.

Who's to say what else we might discover years from now that science might explain.

Years from now someone could be telling their child about how chomping wingbats from space are all in the imagination and telling them to go to sleep because they have to be up early to time travel back and visit their grandad in 2190 in the morning.

We just don't know.
Science is ever evolving and we've so much of the universe yet to discover.

Owlglasses · 28/05/2023 20:32

@Againstmachine

We are living on modern world we shouldn't be believing this woowoo.

Why shouldn't people believe in this? What harm do you think it does?

I'm genuinely interested in the people who are so brutally derogatory about believers on threads like this and also threads about ghosts. It would be possible just to say no, I don't believe, but there is a real vehemence about the need to put down posters who believe and crush their argument. Why is that?

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 20:38

If something is being claimed that is in complete opposition to how something is known to work

How do you know how reincarnation or death and rebirth is "known to work"?
And why do you assume that is in complete opposition to everything else you already know?

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 20:41

As soon as anyone comes up with credible evidence, I'll look at it.

There isn't any evidence!

Two people who have decided in advance the existence or quality of evidence before they have seriously looked.

SinnerBoy · 28/05/2023 20:46

Stillcountingbeans · Today 20:41

Two people who have decided in advance the existence or quality of evidence before they have seriously looked.

Or who have looked and concluded that what is being presented as evidence is nothing more than entirely unverifiable, unprovable anecdotes. They used to burn women as witches, because of the evidence of loads of people saying it was true.

Peverellshire · 28/05/2023 20:49

Odds are IF anything in it, our 'past lives' would be dullsville and banal BUT everyone's Mary Queen of Scots not Hamish the potato farmer.

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:50

Isn't energy indestructible anyway? I mean, the food cycle and all that...

Quick Google search mentions 'the law of conservation of energy'. That all things are made up of energy and that energy is only ever transformed into something else, not created or destroyed.

Suppose that would fit in with theories like...chi?
Potentially even reincarnation?

Isn't there some scientific theory about how there are several other dimensions right where we are standing too?

Maybe science will prove some things we never expected it to one day.

Peverellshire · 28/05/2023 20:51

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:19

Exactly this!

We didn't know this for a long time and it would have seemed insane before we discovered it and how it worked. Now we take it for granted.

Who's to say what else we might discover years from now that science might explain.

Years from now someone could be telling their child about how chomping wingbats from space are all in the imagination and telling them to go to sleep because they have to be up early to time travel back and visit their grandad in 2190 in the morning.

We just don't know.
Science is ever evolving and we've so much of the universe yet to discover.

The idea that we might be some 'experiment' and in a giant computer game seems more/as rational. Esp as there's 'radio silence' out there...Pretty soon we might be able to have SIMS that have consciousness so...

Peverellshire · 28/05/2023 20:52

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:50

Isn't energy indestructible anyway? I mean, the food cycle and all that...

Quick Google search mentions 'the law of conservation of energy'. That all things are made up of energy and that energy is only ever transformed into something else, not created or destroyed.

Suppose that would fit in with theories like...chi?
Potentially even reincarnation?

Isn't there some scientific theory about how there are several other dimensions right where we are standing too?

Maybe science will prove some things we never expected it to one day.

Fascinating, isn't it. The idea that 'time' doesn't exist and everything happens all at once, is just impossible to imagine as a concept...Yet it might...

KrisAkabusi · 28/05/2023 20:54

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 20:41

As soon as anyone comes up with credible evidence, I'll look at it.

There isn't any evidence!

Two people who have decided in advance the existence or quality of evidence before they have seriously looked.

I'm one of them. If evidence is presented, I'll look at it. But nobody has ever presented any evidence of any paranormal phenomena that has ever stood up to scrutiny. Don't you think that if there was any evidence for reincarnation it would change absolutely everything about our lives?

Also this:
Why shouldn't people believe in this? What harm do you think it does?

Because it sets actual science back and can harm people. I've seen people refuse life-saving medication because they believed they would be healed by crystals and other nonsense. It didn't.

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 20:56

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:19

Exactly this!

We didn't know this for a long time and it would have seemed insane before we discovered it and how it worked. Now we take it for granted.

Who's to say what else we might discover years from now that science might explain.

Years from now someone could be telling their child about how chomping wingbats from space are all in the imagination and telling them to go to sleep because they have to be up early to time travel back and visit their grandad in 2190 in the morning.

We just don't know.
Science is ever evolving and we've so much of the universe yet to discover.

But that's not the same at all.

I'm (and others) are saying they don't believe in it because there is no evidence for it.

If there was sufficient evidence for it, it stops being a matter of belief and becomes actual fact.

There are countless things you don't believe in. For instance, why don't you believe that you are actually a badger who just thinks they are human?

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 20:57

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 20:41

As soon as anyone comes up with credible evidence, I'll look at it.

There isn't any evidence!

Two people who have decided in advance the existence or quality of evidence before they have seriously looked.

Here's your chance to show us some quality evidence then. Have a go at changing some minds.

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 20:58

Don't you think that if there was any evidence for reincarnation it would change absolutely everything about our lives?

No I don't think it would change anything at all, except that possibly some people would try to be a bit nicer, in case they incurred 'bad karma' and had a worse life next time.
What do you think it would change?

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 20:59

Pinkbonbon · 28/05/2023 20:50

Isn't energy indestructible anyway? I mean, the food cycle and all that...

Quick Google search mentions 'the law of conservation of energy'. That all things are made up of energy and that energy is only ever transformed into something else, not created or destroyed.

Suppose that would fit in with theories like...chi?
Potentially even reincarnation?

Isn't there some scientific theory about how there are several other dimensions right where we are standing too?

Maybe science will prove some things we never expected it to one day.

A memory isn't energy. Nobody thinks of being able to remember something in the same way as, y'know, kinetic energy or sound. Because that would be daft.

Stillcountingbeans · 28/05/2023 21:07

Frabbits · 28/05/2023 20:57

Here's your chance to show us some quality evidence then. Have a go at changing some minds.

No thank you. I don't feel the need to do your research for you.

Nanalisa60 · 28/05/2023 21:11

My little boy up until he was about 4 , always told me he did not really like the dark sea because he had drowned in it and died, he loved swimming pool put never liked the sea. We also lived by the sea and when we walked to the harbour he would look over the harbour wall and say it was in sea like that I died in the dark cold sea when the boat went down.