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Mitochondria Memory and Past Life Memories

M

mendhak

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Dec 11, 2003
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I'll tell you what little I know of it, and if by chance any of you know anything further on this, post it!

What I know is that this is a theory, part of which states that mitochondria in the brain/nerve cells remain intact after death and the 'memory' of the individual is retained. It goes further to state that this may be the cause of past-life memories.

I know what you're thinking, and I can see the logical fallacies as well, but I don't know of the theory much and would like to read more on it, in addition to getting your opinons on past-life memories. :)
 
My daughter (now 16) swears she has always remembered her last life- she said she remembers being an old man living in a one storey wooden house in a hot dry place with his brother (who had the same name as her brother she has now but wasn't him). She and her brother were farmers and there was one of those tall water windmill pump things next to their home, there was some motorised technology but not very modern stuff. She wore denim dungarees all the time!
Anyway if that is a past life memory the mitochondrial thing wouldn't work as it would be too recent (plus she as the old man died of old age) and mitochondrial is female line only.
My mother sometimes has vivid visual flashes of an old part of Bristol, always at Christmas, where she knows its a long time ago, 18th or 19th Century, that might fit in with a mitochondrial memory theory.
 
I was sure that I had been a nurse before as a child and was just as sure I wasn't going to be a nurse this time around. We don't have any nurses in the family. Teachers yes, but not nurses.

I do like the idea of a "race" memory that is passed down biologically.
 
In my previous life, I was immortal.



;)





Yeah Tulip, I like this idea too, but it doesn't seem to hold much. That's why I was looking for link/explanations on this, to form my opinon on it. :)


Marion: Could you please explain what you mean by "mitochondrial is female line only"?
 
Past life memories aside, I sometimes wonder if our likes/dislikes/interests/characteristics, etc, in our present lives might be influenced by what happened to us in a previous life?

Perhaps, for example, a person who overeats might in a previous life have died in a famine.

Myself, I have a 'thing' about the colour red. I avoid it at all costs, I never wear it or buy or use red items if there is a colour choice. Maybe I lived in colonial America and suffered at the hands of redcoats in a previous life?

All pure conjecture, of course.

Carole
 
The Frog said:
Marion: Could you please explain what you mean by "mitochondrial is female line only"?
Click to expand...

Isn't it the genes you inherit purely from your mother? Or maybe thats something else. I'm not the worlds best researcher, I tend to rely on memory which we all know can change with time.
 
The Frog said:
What I know is that this is a theory, part of which states that mitochondria in the brain/nerve cells remain intact after death and the 'memory' of the individual is retained. It goes further to state that this may be the cause of past-life memories.
Click to expand...
It's certainly an interesting idea. Unfortunately memory is not encoded in the mDNA but in the structure of the brain itself. If we make an analogy with computers, then perhaps mDNA provides the instruction for making a single transistor (and possibly, in a general fashion, how to connect them up,) memory would then involve the states of all of those transistors at a particular moment in time.

The origin of the mitochondria is a fascinating issue as well. Is it the result of extremely intimate symbiosis between the primal eukaryotic cell and a previously free-living aerobic bacteria. :)
 
Yes, mDNA is inherited from the mother only; and yes, the mitochondrion may well be a degenerate form of primeval freeliving organism, like the chloroplast (although this might be impossible to ever prove or disprove).
As this mDNA doesn't change during your lifetime apart from a few random mutations Ican't see how memories can be encoded on it.

I suppose this doesn't rule out some sort of memory transfer between parent and child but mDNA is almost certainly not the route.
 
The other problem is to explain how (if there was some mechanism for encoding the memory experiences back into the mDNA) the memories after child-birth can be passed on to the off-spring. (Past life regressions seem to frequently include details up to the point of death. This may either be because this level of trauma leaves the greatest psychic echoes, or be because it makes for better drana with the therapist. ;) )

The other question that the theory would have to answer is how the memories are encoded into the mDNA. They would, presumably, have to live in the introns, but I'm not sure how many "bits" of information you would have to play with, if it was possible for the mind to monkey around with them.
 
Genes are always inherited from both the mother and father.

But I do see what you're saying here, in how it isn't a plausible route. It was just a thought that was stuck in my head and I needed to talk about it.

Even if the mitochondria somehow made its way to someone else's offspring, the chances of that happening are extremely low.
 
Interesting thread.
Other related topics one could throw in are:
Transplant patients who are reported to change their likes and dislikes, or even their personalities to match those of the donor, and
People of normal IQ found to have very little brain, which begs the question, is memory really stored entirely in the brain? The brain is still pretty mysterious even now, and I suspect that much of what we think we know is wrong.
 
Genes in the cell nucleus are inherited from both both parents.

Mitochondria are cell organelles which provide the energy to drive the cell processes and only comes from the mother.
The fact that mitochodria have their own DNA separate from the rest of the cell is one the best arguments for their origin as assimilated bacteria.

One question:
If the memories do remain encoded in the mDA after death for a while (before decomposition destroys them) how do they get from that dead brain into a living one?

And Beak, the brain is a very adaptable and remarkable organ. People with 'normal' brains tend to have the same parts performing the same functions. However, after injury, stroke, or in the case of Hydrocephalic patients the individual brain can sometimes cope by redistributing functions to other parts of the brain. Tis a fascinating subject and there's a whole thread devoted to it somewhere.
 
My pet theory on this subject involves the fact that we're all carbon based lifeforms. Our brains all use electrical impulses to control our bodies, and (possibly) store memories. Carbon as an element can hold an electrical charge (I think).
So, when we die the carbon that makes up our bodies, which is still holding the electrical impulses that made up our daily lives, is recycled into another lifeform (hopefully human), which, in the right circumstances (enough of the carbon from one body being recycled in the same place), can decode the electrical impulses to regain the memories of a previous life.
Probably absolute sh1te ;)
 
I'm afraid it would be like trying to reconstruct a Scrabble board pattern from the pile of tiles left scattered on the ground after a game.
 
Have any of you heard of the supposedly true story of a mother and five or six year old son, in which the son started talking to his mother and relating incidents from her fathers life. She eventually believed that her son was her father reincarnated.

When Discovery interviewed the kid, he mentioned "I didn't want to come back, but God sent me."

Now, while I have a hard time believing the reason he got reincarnated, I'm pretty sure there's a much more logical reason behind this.

Anyone got any reincarnation stories?
 
Fortis said:
I'm afraid it would be like trying to reconstruct a Scrabble board pattern from the pile of tiles left scattered on the ground after a game.
Click to expand...

True. The odds of Britney Spears singing a quality song in her lifetime are higher.
 
The Frog said:
Have any of you heard of the supposedly true story of a mother and five or six year old son, in which the son started talking to his mother and relating incidents from her fathers life. She eventually believed that her son was her father reincarnated.

When Discovery interviewed the kid, he mentioned "I didn't want to come back, but God sent me."

Now, while I have a hard time believing the reason he got reincarnated, I'm pretty sure there's a much more logical reason behind this.

Anyone got any reincarnation stories?
Click to expand...
From what I remember, I wasn't too thrilled about coming back, and didn't have a very high opinion of the happy "souls" waiting to return, either. Jeesh, what if I was a Nazi or something in my past life?

I know a woman who's daugter talks as though she's her own grandmother. "J's" mother died when J was pregnant. Now that J's daughter is a toddler she says things like "you did / said this when you were my age", "when I was your mom I did things this way". J hasn't really thought of reincarnation, instead, she has decided that her daughter may be channeling her mom and bought tickets to see John Edward. I assume she's going to be disappointed.
 
It's said that souls 'choose' their next life, so that they mightg 'choose', for whatever reaons, to come back as a seriously disabled person or whatever.

What if, before I entered this present life, I 'chose' to have a life which turned quite rotten from middle age onwards?? :eek!!!!:

Oh, dear, I'm quite worried now! What a small-minded person I am . . .

Carole
 
The Frog said:
True. The odds of Britney Spears singing a quality song in her lifetime are higher.
Click to expand...

H'mm. :hmm: My money's on the monkeys with typewriters turning out a version of Hamlet . . .

Carole
 
carole said:
H'mm. :hmm: My money's on the monkeys with typewriters turning out a version of Hamlet . . .

Carole
Click to expand...

It's a bet then. Loser buys the winner Britney's album of the Hamlet song.

:goof:
 
I remember six previous lives. (But I don't want to go into them here).

I don't think the DNA thing stands up to the evidence when you actually examine reincarnation cases. Yes there are people who claim to be reincarnating into the same family but these are in the minority. Mainly I don't believe it because it just doesn't seem to be true in my case - how do I put it - in none of my previous lives was I white but I am this time. (Although this is just the lives I am remembering).

However I do believe that I actually had a genetic link with my mother but that it is not quite the same thing as the usual theory normally trotted out in reincarnation books. I believe that she was once a distant relative of mine in a previous life and although I did not know her in that life other than as a vague aquaintance the fact that we had once had shared DNA meant that I could be her child in this life.

I know this sounds a bit mad and I am not sure if I am quite explaining myself properly but I do actually believe that there must have to be a genetic link with the mother (not with the father) in order to be able to be born into a body. If there wasn't you would just be able to reincarnate randomly into different species.
 
zoe said:
I remember six previous lives. (But I don't want to go into them here).
Click to expand...
I hope you share your memories in the reincarnation thread Zoe. I look forward to reading them if you do.
 
I don't particularly subscribe to reincarnation (at least, not as regularly as I do to FT! :D). However, when I was about 3 years old, I was visiting the village in the Ukraine where my great-grandparents had lived for the first time. We went to the cemetary there, and I ran straight up to my great-grandparents' grave and started kissing it (apparently...), despite not knowing their names or having ever been there. :eek:
 
My great-grandparents were from Ukraine also Taras. Galicia to be exact. I always felt a strong connection to the eastern part of Europe myself as well as Siberia. Wouldn't be surprised to find out I lived past lives there.
 
Personally I believe in the theory of genetic memory as a mechanism of evolution. In which learning,information and feelings are recorded and passed on into the genes of offspring.
Thereby planning future traits based on past experiences.
However I don't think it is soley within the genes themselves that this information is recorded and stored and subsequently utilized.
I believe there is a parallel process in which the same type of thing is going on in a "non-physical" or non-atomic form,ie: recorded in an energy field that matches the physical form.
I believe these traits/memories could possibly,in part be passed onto descendants even if the genetic link is interrupted by the organism dying before it has reproduced.
Sort of an energy pattern that continues on in between carnate cycles.
In kirlian photography amputated limbs and plant leaves can still be seen to show their energy pattern after the physical structure is removed.
This energy-pattern may be responsible for re-incarnations as well as instances where the pattern is channeled through a carnate form(medium).
 
Fascinating topic. In my own experience, I can tell you that for some reason, large ponds scare the hell out of me. The bigger and calmer-looking the water, the more frightened I am.

I remember that smooth ponds used to feature very heavily in my nightmares as a child but to my knowledge, I never fell from a boat or anything. I wonder whether I drowned in a past life?
 
I remember seeing something on TV(Unsolved Mysteries) about a guy who was absolutely terrified of water.
Under hypnosis he recalled drowning after his ship was struck by a torpedo. He was trapped in a room that filled with water.
He also recalled childhood experiences from this past life,really mundane things like a breadbox he had a habit of leaving open as well as always entering his house from the back door,never the front.
Weird thing is,a family(England,I believe) heard the story and replied to the show. They arranged for the guy(American) to meet with this English family and although there was not any real sense of famliarity between them the man and the family discussed all these things that the family's son had done before he was killed in the war(drowned on a ship).
There are a few very interesting stories like this in Sylvia Browne's book,....The Other Side,or some similar sounding title.
 
If you read enough "past life memories," including both hypnotically recovered and spontaneous ones, a few things become clear.

1) These memories are not genetic in the usual sense. When children spontaneously remember recent, traceable past lives, they may or may not be related to their original, but the relationship is seldom direct if it exists at all. In order to account for reincarnation genetically and still treat it as a single phenomenon, you'd have to find a way to trace genetic links laterally across generations; at which point you've left the realm of falsifiability far behind, because if you try hard enough you can link us all back to mitochondrial Eve. (BTW, male lines can also be traced back to a single Adam figure, who never met Eve; the process is described exhaustively in *The Real Eve,* Oppenheim).

2) Memories that can be traced to a documented supposed past life usually contain startling accuracies - but they also contain puzzling inaccuracies which reincarnation enthusiasts overlook with an enthusiasast's normal insouciance.

3) Past life regressions which can be demonstrated to be false nevertheless relieve symptoms.

4) Past life memories recovered under hypnosis correspond to the expectations of the hypnotist most, but not 100%, of the time.

5) Spontaneous past-life memories in young children are more interesting and more puzzling than the ones generated by hypnosis.

What does it mean? What does anything mean?

Readily available books to see for yourself:
Children's Past Lives : How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child
by Carol Bowman
OLD SOULS : Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives
by Thomas Shroder (Author)

Alas, though I conscientiously write down the titles and authors of books I read in the back of my diary, I cannot identify the book by the man who started out to prove that his memories of a life as a painter were entirely confabulated, but turned up startling evidence that they weren't - except that he was completely off on the name of the obscure original's wife. I'll have to hunt this up again, as it was a new book when I read it and it was fabulously Fortean, with the author chasing down an endless hall of mirrors finding answers that led only to more and more questions.
 
Eh, zombie thread alert:

Anyone seen this?

Three year old boy tells aprents he was mudered in a past life, and then leads them to body and weapon...

Thoughts, musings, rants?
 
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