I am interested in reincarnation and think it's extremely possible. It would make sense of the age old question of why we are here. We are here to learn through this life before moving on to the next one. But do we ever reach the end? Maybe we do and become one with the higher intelligence/spirit/God who knows.
I think the evidence from children is the most compelling, when they say things they couldn't possibly have know. As adults I think we've absorbed too much to make any evidence tainted. I always feel drawn to the 1890s but I don't know if that's a past life or early influences. I was heavily into The Phantom of the Opera and Sherlock Holmes when I was young. Did I like them because of the Victorian element or did I like the Victorian element because of them?
What happens in you add in parallel universes too? What if they exist? Do we cross them? What if that's why some information is slightly wrong when investigated?
Something interesting through, I hate Airships they make me feel ill and send a chill down my spine. The sound, the movement, everything I can't stand them (Although I am fine with barrage balloons which are the same shape). The odd thing is you very rarely see airships these days (that God) so where did this come from? Did I indeed have a run in with an Airship in a past life.
Hi MorningAngel,
You make good points and your own experiences are interesting. I get what you mean - my own experiences are similar, though different in content.
I don't mention it much, even around here (I'm seen as weird enough already!) but from my earliest memories I can recall another existence in which I was someone else. There isn't a whole lot of detail, but if it was my childish imagination (and maybe it is, maybe it isn't) it must have been a doozy, because I recall being a man named John, from Michigan.
My siblings enjoy telling the story of a wall-eyed fit I had when I was two. I was rolling around on the floor, crying hysterically because of a song playing on the radio. It was
Long Cool Woman by the Hollies, and I was screaming "don't make me go back to the jungle! I don't want to go back to the jungle!" I only have a vague memory of this, but there was some music I couldn't abide - anything by Creedence Clearwater Revival would upset me also. Eventually I stopped freaking out, but those songs created a sort of indescribable sense of dread up to a certain age.
I would also ask my mother about the time we went to Detroit, about how windy it was that day, etc. She would tell me that we'd never even been to Michigan. I didn't believe her for the longest time, because I clearly remembered that trip to Detroit. I could also recall a place that was laid out in a pattern of squares, a room with flourescent lights where I was waiting for a bus, in the dark before daybreak. (I'd never actually been on a bus at that point in time)
There were certain words in my mind (they would often turn up in dreams) that would also cause a sense of dread when I was small - "chop-chop" which I knew referred to food, though I'd never heard anyone use this term, or "boonie" or "Cochinchina". In my teens, I ran across the term Cochinchina in a book and almost passed out from the wave of dread that came over me. The term "elephant grass" (and many others) also got to me for reasons I couldn't explain, except that they seemed to come from this other life as another person.
For years I couldn't watch any film dealing with the Vietnam war - in my teens I happened to see a few minutes of
Apocalypse Now (not even one of the scary parts!) and I had the worst nightmares I'd ever had up to that point, just ghastly. The same thing happened after seeing just a few moments of
Full Metal Jacket. There was a time where there was spate of Vietnam war movies and I'd have to leave the room if any of the advertisements came on TV, because I didn't want to risk the nightmares.
These strange fears and dreads relating to "John" finally began to drift away in my mid-20's. I figure if these really were past-life memories, they faded once I'd got past the age when John had died. I can now listen to that music or watch those movies without any fear (well, except the fear that's meant to be there -
Apocalypse Now and
Full Metal Jacket are pretty harrowing films, really. But without the same almost spritiual dread that used to be there.)
I did look up the online Vietnam war memorial and found a page for one person that gave me a strong response. He seemed very familiar. The time of death seemed about right, too, as much as such a thing can be (I'd judged this by the dates of music that scared me vs. music that didn't scare me - there is a definite cut off date). Anyway, there was a message on his page from a school friend, reminiscing about how much they'd loved basketball and hamsters.
Well, I love hamsters too, though that could be anyone, that's not a rare trait - but I've always had a memory of basketball, playing in the gym, and the distinctive smell and feel of the ball, even though no one in my family is sporty and I haven't actually played outside of 6th grade gym class. I'd always wondered about that.
But, ultimately, who knows? There's no way to prove anything. I guess I will always have to wonder.