[Apollia]

impaul99 wrote:

This may already be answered somewhere Erin, but I'm wondering what is the reason why we "forget" our previous lifetimes?

Years ago I saw a thread on the newsgroup alt.paranormal.reincarnation which contained what I thought was a pretty good (though not totally conclusive) answer to this question.

draft FAQ: If I had past lives why can't I remember them? - alt.paranormal.reincarnation | Google Groups

Makes a lot of sense to me. I think quite possibly, people's past life memories are there, but people might just need their memories jogged, they might need to see something from their past, and then something might click for them. (Or, alternatively, upon encountering something from their past, I suppose a person could just have a strange feeling of deja vu, familiarity, nostalgia, unusually strong interest, or unexplainable liking or aversion, but not relate it to past lives at all).

My feeling is, it's much easier than many people think to get some ideas of their past lives. (Though I'm still not sure whether past lives are objectively real or not).

When I was younger, and first learning of reincarnation, I used to believe that it was probably so hard to remember your past lives (if they even existed) that to get any idea of what they were, you probably had no other option but to undergo a hypnotic regression, or talk to a psychic. I think this very belief blocked me from recalling (or dreaming up) more than I did back then.

These days, I suspect getting valid (or at least personally, subjectively meaningful) ideas of your past lives might be no harder than letting your mind wander, and not cynically discounting or ignoring what ideas come to mind.

One reason I think this is because when I was chatting with a relative about reincarnation, and asked him what U. S. state he thought we might have lived in in our (theoretical) Civil War lives, the first thing out of his mouth was "Was it South Carolina?" - which was exactly the state I had come up with in a self-regression.

We weren't experimenting with hypnosis, though - he was wide awake - driving, actually - and we were just chatting, and yet he somehow named exactly the state that was on my mind. Doesn't prove past lives, though, I guess, since maybe it's just telepathy, or luck.

I posted some ideas on how to maybe stimulate possible past-life recall over at the Past Life Forum a few years ago. Just thought I'd link to that post since I'm feeling too lazy to try to put the same ideas into different words here: out of memory? - Past Life Forum

Meaning, when we choose to come back to earth for another lifetime, wouldn't it be more efficient to remember our previous lives and experiences so that we can utilize the knowledge from those lifetimes to better ourselves in this lifetime?

I mean, what's the point of re-learning that when we touch the stove with our hands, that it will burn us. Why must we re-learn the alphabet, etc.

Seems like a rather inefficient way to evolve our consciousness.

Yes, I agree. However, it comforts me to believe (or suspect) that we aren't just starting from a total blank slate, that talents might often carry forward whether you remember where/when you developed them or not, and having done or learned certain things in the past might make it easier to relearn to do the same things in future lives.

Also, if it takes us like 20 years to fully develop our basic "human skills" for example, wouldn't we be better served as beings if we stopped dying and just continued to consciously evolve?

Sometimes I wonder if anyone is really conscious in the afterlife, since I can't understand why I would consciously decide to incarnate, at least if the afterlife is a nice, comfortable, cozy, perfectly happy place where I could stay forever. Why trade that for life here?

Very interesting thread, it would take me forever to reply to all of the interesting points raised, so I'll stop here.