1. DÉJÀ VU
We’ve all felt it as some point: that eerie,
creeping feeling that something we are going through has happened exactly this
way before. Psychologist Arthur Funkhouser has broken down this phenomenon into
sub-categories: déjà vécu (an event already experienced or lived through), déjà
senti (already felt), perhaps triggered by a voice or music; and déjà visité (a
place so familiar we feel we've been there before).
While scientists and
psychiatrists insist there are neurological explanations for these phenomena,
others consider that these strange feelings are vague, fleeting memories of past lives. You enter a house or building, for example, in a town
you've never visited before, but somehow, every detail of this place is
familiar. You know what's in the next room and up the stairs. You have the
overwhelming feeling that you've been there before. Have you - in a past life?
2. OUT-OF-PLACE MEMORIES
Sometimes, you may have memories that you know
for a fact never happened. They might be childhood fantasy, misunderstanding,
or even a dream that you now interprets as reality. Or, you might be
remembering something that happened before you was born into this lifetime.
As it is, the untrained human memory is a bit faulty and inconsistent (not to mention
selective), and it’s quite commonplace to have memories of things that family
and friends can attest never occurred. So the question is: Is it faulty memory
or a remembrance of lives past?
3. DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
Recurring dreams and nightmares also have been
suggested as being memories or at least clues of past lives. It might consist
of locations with specific details that you’ve never been to. Pay attention to
the level of detail you experience; are they memories of something important
that happened in a past life?
In a similar vein of
thought, nightmares can
be reflections of past life traumas that have clung to our spirits and haunt
our sleep.
4. FEARS AND PHOBIAS
Where do your fears and phobias come from? Fear of such things as spiders,
snakes, and heights seem to be built into the human psyche as part of our
evolved survival instinct. Many people suffer from phobias that are completely
irrational, however. Fear of water, of birds, of numbers, of mirrors, of
plants, of specific colors... the list goes on and on. People suffer from all
kinds of bizarre phobias.
Reincarnation believers wonder if they are
carried over from a previous lifetime. Does a fear of water indicate a previous
death by drowning? Could a fear of the color red suggest, for example, that a
person was struck or killed by a red streetcar?
5. AFFINITY FOR FOREIGN CULTURE
You probably know a person who
was born and raised in the United States but is an ardent anglophile - a person
who is interested to the point of obsession with British culture. You might
also know someone who can think of little else but getting dressed up and
acting the part for the next Renaissance Fair or Civil War reenactment. There
are "philes" for virtually every culture on the planet, both modern
and ancient, affecting people who seem to have no rationale for their
obsessions. Why? Are they merely trying to find familiarity in a culture in which they lived 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago?
6. PASSIONS
It's good to have things that we
are passionate about, as long as they do not become obsessive and debilitating.
But from where do passions arise for books, art, antiques, fashion, gardening,
theater, cars, trains, aircraft, the paranormal - or any number of other
subjects? Intense interest in a specific subject might be totally natural, of
course, but might there be a past life connection in some cases?
7. UNCONTROLLED HABITS
How about those uncontrolled
habits and obsessions that take over people's lives and can even marginalize
them in society? Obsessive-compulsives and hoarders fit into this category. A
man who is obsessive compulsive about the details; a woman who hoards so much
junk that she can’t get out of her house. Each of us has at least one bad
habit, from fingernail biting to gossiping to procrastination. The extreme
forms include addictions to everything from television to Facebook to drugs.
Again, psychological explanations can be found for these uncontrolled habits,
yet those who believe in reincarnation say they might have roots in past lives.
8. INEXPLICABLE PAINS
Do you have aches and pains that the doctors
cannot quite pinpoint or find a medical explanation for? You might be labeled a
hypochondriac - a person who imagines his or her ailments. Or, as past life
proponents suggest, those mysterious pains, sores, cramps, and more could be
reflections of suffering you endured in a previous existence.
9. BIRTHMARKS
Birthmarks have been touted as
evidence for reincarnation. In one fascinating case, an Indian boy claimed to
remember the life of a man named Maha Ram, who was killed with a shotgun fired
at close range. This boy had an array of birthmarks in the center of his chest
that looked like they could possibly correspond to a shotgun blast. So the
story was checked out. Indeed, there was a man named Maha Ram who was killed by
a shotgun blast to the chest. An autopsy report recorded the man's chest wounds
-- which corresponded directly with the boy's birthmarks. In a similar way,
various other physical traits - even deformities - have been suggested as
having their precedent in a person's former life.
