There are places that I know and never in this life have been before,; there are people you just 'know', there are talents that no one in your family has; dreams, visions, hints...

Yes, they happen. When I talk to people, in dreams, when I read a book, when I see someone and just know "we met before" and see something of the situation then. It's not so important whether they are past lives or not, but what is interesting, they always tell you something about what you didn't knew you know. They disclose little fragments, but contain whole worlds. Some kind of knowledge, about you, experiences, and also about another person. The images explain how they relate to life, or to specific circumstances, or why people have an interest in certain things, or a special talent... and also why people have unexplainable problems with situations, or fears. It can be interesting to explore those worlds that present themselves, read about it, and learn, because often you will learn a lot about yourself. Or write about it, and see what else comes up in that process.

One night I dreamt I was an Asian monk in a life where I was close to someone who was a poet in this life. I had just read a poem by him. I then started to read his books, and found his 'world' very recognizable, the atmosphere, the ideas, the wisdom, compassion the way of looking at things. I learnt a lot reading his books, there was a lot of resonance. Perhaps who I was in that life is not so important, but what I learnt about myself and others in this life because of that fleeting image in a dream...

I have had things that did not fit any other category of mental experience
that yet still somehow seemed very much like real life memories but
not from any perspective (the environment, the seeming date, the
visible people, etc) that I literally could have known in this lifetime. That
is all I can say about what they were objectively, I think. There is
something that has seemed almost 'autonomous' about them that
tends to impress itself upon my mind and emotions, very deeply
sometimes even, especially at times in life that feel extremely important.
I have always been wary of them, my mind is always striving to be very
much in the immediate moment, the now, to where things seem clear,
to where I am not missing anything, and for that I will always prefer to
let such things fall aside ..what is interesting is if or when they arise
again, while my mind is clearing, almost as if seeing it, even in passing,
is important to the whatever is involved in the process of becoming
present and 'whole', part of an integration maybe ..what I like to think is
that even if they are indeed past life memories, their point is to help me
become truly present ..at which point I wouldnt need them ..I think, like,
even the memories of this lifetime end at some point, when I have
learned from them what I didn't at the time or if their guidance has
finally been fulfilled, for instance. If there are past lives and past life
memories my thinking is still they are memories and will do what they
need to do and then end / integrate like all memories do eventually in
favor of the present, or perhaps rather 'the timeless', 'the eternal', a
memory is a memory is how I feel. I dont necessarily find what I have
had that might be past life memories 'odd' ..I think I gotta make them
'part of the mix' like anything else mental and emotional, let them be
what they are, let them work themselves out in letting them be what
they are.

i have experienced one of my previous lives in utter technicolor clarity, and confirmed it with my friend who , then was my half brother, by marriage, we rememberd the same things, the same people, the same events, fleshed out the memories for one another, finished the descriptions for the same places, from different perspectives of course. I remember learning to shave, for instance, for the first time, and him chastising me for doing it wrong , learning the rapier and sucking at it and being fierce instead with the saber, i was a big brute and very stupid, while he was charming and well educated being the first son and i was the bastard son that nevertheless was an obligation on my fathers part. i recieved second rate education and was seen as more of a burden than a true son, as my mohter basically shamed our father into taking us in, as this was the best she could arrange for me. This entire experience was verified to me by my friend (this life, half brother last life) by our shared memories, i have NO doubts as to its validity, i remember my entire life, from my first experiences as a young man to my death in my early twenties and every bit of it was as real as my memories now, in some ways more so as last life i accomplished more. im very different now than i was then and i have since come to understand many of the goals of my soul and how it accomplishes providing my life lessons, lol, i seem to be quite hard headed from life to life.
for example most people have no need for remembering their previous lives as it only serves to clutter up ones persective, and distracts from ones true life focus, (unless one is exceptionally hard headed, and needs the baseball bat of memory to get your butt in line again).
If i were seeking my past life memories id ask my soul (through prayer, meditation, etc) to provide me with an answer whether its good for me to know or if i should concentrate on the lessons THIS life has to teach, and trust, TRUST absolutely that my soul knows better than i do whether its a good idea to pursue or not, LISTEN, listen to your soul, obey , trust, stop letting your ego direct what your doing and just LISTEN to what your soul tells you, if you are meant to know if you TRULY need to know, to be RE-educated, all over again, ( think of it like sumer school, do you REALLY need to learn it AGAIN?)TRUST that your soul will give it to you.

While I don't have any past life memories, I do have memories in one unusual place. In my dreams. Saying it happens all the time, would be an overstatement. But it does happen very often. Very often, when I dream-- when I'm in the presence of someone or someplace, I have a whole litany of memories about that person or places, seemingly built up over time and now remembered as history. The part that is always odd, is that all this past history. is as clearly event as the present tense dream.

I've discovered that from different stages of consciousness development, there are different perspectives. As the consciousness develops and matures, the way we perceive our self, even past lives, deities, everything changes.

For a three year period I had vivid daily experiences of past lives. Literally remembering how I would dress myself, what kinds of meditation practices I did, the ships I traveled on. I would even confirm them by returning to those states of consciousness I would enter as a Samurai, or ancient native person feeling the deep wisdom of Mother Earth. I recalled dying in the street drunk an English man, being an Egyptian physician, etc. There were particular lives that I had lived more spirituality than others, where it was far easier to recollect that consciousness.

What I discovered about this kind of knowledge is that I can not easily remember the previous languages I spoke, though I can easily remember the direct knowledge. It's kind of like retrieving what I know from previous lives, and in the process of retrieving it my consciousness converts it to my present mind/body language and mind contexts. Though the experiences like senses, visual, smell, etc have remained fairly in tact. I've also remembered being different animals and insects.

Though as I look at all this again right now, I also notice that I have the ability to just merge my consciousness with any part of cosmic consciousness. For example, I've learned a great deal in meditation from the deities like Ganesha, Hanuman, Kali as they would appear vividly like a person in front of me with my eyes open during meditation. I've also had experiences when I was close to certain friends that the next night I would have their dreams, and often I would think I was them. I recall a few years ago I dreamt I was gay, was having issues with certain drugs, and was concerned if I was going to get a certain consulting job in san francisco the next day. I realized the next day these were the exact things that were going on for a new business contact I had met who started telling me his concerns about the consulting gig that got rejected in san francisco!

The inner experience that I have is that I am everything, everyone, everywhere. Generally I need to have some kind of context to tune into it. Though not necessarily either as I had been communicating with the Abarhams years before anyone had written about them... and it took some work to stop communicating with them as it was distracting my 7th chakra.

I remain uncertain about past lives. My experience is that we are Existence, Life itself. I have observed how through the consciousness projection during love making my two children turned out exactly as hoped, both of them. By this discovery, I started looking at my parents and siblings and I began to understand how much of our consciousness is created by the hopes and projections of our parents during conception. Add astrological forces, and body genetics to that, then it makes partly some sense why the ancient Indians where very specific about dates to the hour and minute about everything including conception and why they perhaps created the cast system so that a Brahmin's consciousness would continue and evolve, while the Warrior cast would continue developing that way.

Just some ideas accumulated from my experiences here and there. Consciousness isn't exactly "definite" science.

I'm a very sure that I have. I doubted it at first when I was a teenager, because my self esteem was so low that I thought that was an ability for "special" people not for me. I did stay open and observant of those experiences because I didn't want to completely dismiss something that could be important for my life experiences. Later in life when I started practicing a very deep form of meditation, and began work as a massage therapist, suddenly I could tell the difference very clearly between what sensations belonged to a memory from this incarnation or a past incarnation. Every experience, whether the experience is happening in the Awakend mind, the sleeping mind, or the sensations of the body has it own distinct kind of vibrations just like musical notes. Just as one can tell the difference between a sound coming from a piano and a sound coming from a train. I can tell the difference between a vision coming from a memory from this current life and a memory coming from a past life. I do not, however, have these visions or memories in the sleeping state. I have these visions and memories fully awake. I don't have them as often now except in meditation because it would disturb certain people in my life to see me "go away" briefly, when something would pop into my view and my attention would be "THERE" instead of here.

I've learned to keep a lot of things to myself. I'm glad I could be here to talk about these things with you guys! Thanks for your presence.

Oh, and by the way, could you please define what you mean by "false memory" Thanks.

Imagine how difficult life would be if we remembered in totality, our Soul's History.

I've often thought about this. Wished at times I could remember things about "before" only to realize that too much information could be destructive to my fragile mind and I suspect the same could hold true for many others. There's rarely a specific time frame - rememberance, as much as there are emotional *imprints* of people and situations that don't correlate with anything I've experienced prior to this current catalyst of remembering an emotional imprint.

My fiancee is another story entirely. Talk about fascinating. He would loose time and speak in other languages, fluently. There were times he'd look at me and call me something other than my name..though he'd recognize me. He spoke Arabic once. That was entirely weird to hear him speak fluently. When he'd snap out of these moments, he would never believe what I told him, thinking I was poking fun at him for passing out. When he would drink, the guards would really really come down and the chances of him having a moment like this was more than double that of him not drinking. When he would remember things, things that he unconsciously spoke about that I could hear.. he'd tell me about them without realizing he was already talking to me through it and he'd tell me about places he saw where we were together.. so many places and lands. When he lost a dear friend over the summer he couldn't go to the funeral b/c it was in NZ. He dreamt he was there, but when he was trying to find the place, he didn't recognize much of the land as he said it has been built on so much. When I looked it up online, he learned that what he saw in his 'dream' was in fact there.

The dreams I have aren't as much about 'past lives' as they are Soul Dreams. The dreams where God is there with you. Or the Universe or Love.. Whatever you want to call that energy. Those are the most powerful for me.

I'm going to share with the tribe a portion of a letter that I'm writing to a girl who I met when I was fifteen. That was 45 years ago:

What I told you in the Alderbrook garage, was that I know we were with each other in an earlier life and that I knew I would love you more than any other and that we weren’t meant to be together in this life. We would have to be apart to learn from these lives. I’ve told you that before but here is a more complete explanation:

That day, during the conversation, I saw your future in Florida and Georgia; yet, I didn’t know you had relatives in the south, or that it was in anyway possible. I also remembered you as my mate in a previous life. We had lived in hilly country with stone cottages and stone fences. We were old, short and round. I had big broad hands and liked making furniture for our home. We had spent a loving life together, and were both very happy. These were visions; a lot like having a dream in your mind while still awake. I suppose you don’t believe in them, but no, I had not started taking drugs at that point in my life. They were simply spiritual visions.

There was something about the visions that made them known as real memories rather than vague imaginings. For one thing, I wasn’t prone to have anything like this happen to me before that day. The other thing is how the vision ‘felt’ to me. There was a certainty to the memory that was exactly like any other memory, distinct from a dream, daydream, imagination, or verbal ‘story’ memory. Whatever you did an hour before opening this letter, you remember now. There is no way that you can undo the memory or think that it’s something you imagined. You know what you were doing. Well, the memory of our previous life was just like that. Also, there was also a feeling of ‘presence’ of my higher, spiritual, self. In that moment, my consciousness was transformed from an awkward fifteen-year-old boy who was interested in girlfriends, to a mature, knowledgeable, much older, spiritual being who I knew to be my true self. The only way I can explain that is that you know who you are, right now, at your home, reading this. You can also know that you are Nurse Peggy Deutsch, and when you think of that aspect of yourself you realize that you are not only the person you are at this moment but also someone who has a connected but different life than the persona you experience at home.

I knew as I walked away that day, down the Alderbrook sidewalk, I would come to you in my fifties, when our lessons were nearly done, to tell you that what I had said back then was true. I knew that day about bringing you the book.
END OF LETTER EXCERPT

The thing about this is that I didn't just have a vision of our past life. At the same moment I saw into her future, that she would have to go to Florida and Georgia for her life lessons. We were in California and I had no way of guessing that would be her future. I had only known her for a couple of days when I had the vision. Yet after being apart for forty years I did a search for her and found out that she did in fact have addresses in both states.

The memory of every moment with this person is etched indelibly on my soul. I have forgotten whole years of past marriages, yet every moment with her is as clear as if they happened yesterday. So, I guess that there is such a thing as a soulmate, though I hate that term. It's just that I feel the love for this person, an everlasting love, endured from that earlier life and broke through into this lifetime, and in doing so, it made me realize with certainty, that we are spiritual beings who live forever, and indeed, love forever.

I shared a memory with my father when he was still alive, he was aghast and said "how do you know that, you were not even born yet" I was still inside my mom watching through her eyes.

I was lucky that I was validated by my dad! Bless him and may he rest in peace when he isn't watching out over me.

Cathy