h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They say that you can recognise somebody you have known in a previous life by looking deep into their eyes…….and that you will “know” them by some means. In my opinion, maybe or maybe not. I like to think that I remain ambivalent on that matter, but I remain in doubt. Let me start at the beginning. In the late 70’s, I met a family on a plane that was delayed at Heathrow due to an Air Traffic dispute. The plane was delayed long enough for the crew to open up the bars and start serving drinks – like they would do that now…………NOT!
Still, back then the wine/beer/Jack Daniels flowed and before long the passengers got to stand up and mingle. I met a family from South Dakota who after chatting invited me to come over some time to stay a while.
The next year, I did and they drove me all over the state and they took me to the Black Hills, the Badlands and everywhere in between. Despite the mosquito bites, I fell in love with the place and immediately felt completely at home. There was something about the place that just felt warm – I do not know how else to explain it.
Still – I came home. 19 years passed and after a period of time, I needed to know exactly why I felt drawn to this area. I flew back, and by myself, immediately felt that I was “home” again. It was in May, and there was snow on the ground and no tourists.
I travelled around, going into the Sioux reservations and finally stopping at Wounded Knee. I stopped the car and got out into the stinging cold rain, alone. On a small rise was a cemetery where Sioux warriors were buried after the massacre, and I stood there alone. I felt I belonged…….

I have said all of that upfront because I needed you to know that before I took the trip out to Dakota, I had needed answers and had gone for past life regression.

It was done in Windsor, and I had no clue of what to expect. I did not want to go and see just anyone, so I had researched for some months before I chose somebody who appeared to be “recognised” as professional in that arena.

I arrived, and was asked to lay down on a couch – she sat on the other side of the room. She asked me to close my eyes, and tell me what I felt. I said that I felt “cold” in my stomach, and she asked me why. I said there was a hole there, and she asked me to concentrate on that………I could “See” the hole and looked out to see two eagles flying in the sky…….
What followed took 90 minutes, and at some point in the 1800’sI saw what I believed to be my daughter raped, and her tongue torn out to stop her screaming. I had been mortally wounded in her defence, and I felt her weight as her corpse was thrown onto my body.

I know. You are thinking that this was all in my mind and that it was simply made up in my head as wishful thinking. To a large degree, I would believe you, except for one thing. I am a complete sceptic, and wondered if I had read a book, seen a film, read a magazine and had extrapolated that into “Wishful Thinking”
The problem was the “weight” of the body thrown onto me. I felt it pressing into me, and it was tangible. I can write off everything else as fantasy, but I cannot explain how or why I “felt” a real weight when the woman conducting the regression was more than ten feet away on the other side of the room.

Has anyone else on here undergone a regression? Has it left you with more questions than it answers?

I haven't undergone Past Life Regression.

You say you felt the weight of a body, but because the only other person you were aware of being in the room was far away you find this compelling, yes?
I'm curious as to why you think you were likely to have felt the momentum of a body moving into another person 200 years and more than 2000 miles away either?

Here might be a good place to start - http://www.skepdic.com/pastlife.html

The suggestion that one could have 'memories' of a past life is impossible to demonstrate scientifically. The fact that regression is generally done under hypnosis means that almost anything can be suggested to the 'mark' whilst they are under.

The feelings you experienced in the US are quite likely some form of autohypnosis and the connection between that and regression in the UK a confabulation of some sort.

Sadly there is no evidence for a 'racial' memory, 'reincarnation' or past life memory. The land cannot remember anything and there is no way of passing memory down generation other that by known and reliable means of communication - writing, oral tradition, pictures.

Your connection with Wounded Knee is likely to be some form of wish fulfilment and the feelings of belonging relate to the relationship you built with the family from Dakota.

t. (skeptic)

>> The land cannot remember anything and there is no way of passing memory down generation other that by known and reliable means of communication - writing, oral tradition, pictures. <<

This is not the belief of North American aboriginals. The altered perceptions created by minor neurotoxins such as tobacco and by major psycho-active natural substances like peyote reveal another layer of reality. And many live in that reality. Remember, the judgment of what is real and what is insanity is ultimately a democratic one. I've cast my vote, and I will not try to cast another in this poll. Now if you'll excuse me I gotta go think about snow.

~jwf~

I don't believe in reincarnation....



... but in a former life, I did

"You say you felt the weight of a body, but because the only other person you were aware of being in the room was far away you find this compelling, yes?
I'm curious as to why you think you were likely to have felt the momentum of a body moving into another person 200 years and more than 2000 miles away either?"

Good morning Jack

"find this compelling, yes?" Well, no, not compelling but more of a "I cannot logically explain this part" feeling. There was nothing there, but I clearly "Felt" a weight on me.

As for the second question, I didnt think I was "likely to have felt the momentum of a body" It took me totally by suprise, and I have already said that I too am a real sceptic and completely understand how your mind can "Project" wishes, scenes from films, books, conversations, etc and fool you into believing it.
I can find all kinds of rational reasons for dismissing the whole episode, but for that one element of a "Weight" on my chest.

I would really like to believe in reincarnation and for years I did. But I've come to the conclusion that the evidence is just too incoherent and contradictory to be considered evidence, and that there is nothing in any of the literature or testimonies that cannot be explained without reincarnation. The idea that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon is a complete and utter mind- and one I find really hard to coem to terms with, but have concluded that there's no evidence for anything else other than the power of wishful thinking.

However, those are my beliefs, and I am no evangelist. You can believe in fairies, teapots or the flying spagetti monster and I'll just nod sweetly and say nice things.

But.... since you've asked us for our opinions ....

Captain Black - what you describe could be characterised as a physical halluncination. Aural and visual hallucinations are well known, I someimes have olfalctory hallucinations. No reason not to have a physical hallucunation. As what ~jwf~ has said implies: our senses are astonishingly unreliable.

Wish I thought it could be true though.

It's something I've always been curious to try, for the experience.

Captain Black how did you go about finding someone you felt confidence in for conducting the process?

I've never done it and although I would be open to the idea of inherited memories but I'm not buying the supernatural element. I have experience of sensations of weight and weightlessness in a variety of different halucination types, such as those brought on by sensory deprivation or through lucid dreaming and night-terrors. Not to mention good old fashioned drugs. A weight on the chest is particularly linked to certain extreme nightmare type of experiences. I've got some info on it somewhere, *pats pockets* not on me though.

I think I've probably mentioned it elsewehre, but I've had quite a lot of out of body/supernatural type experiances, but I don't believe at all that any were 'supernatural'....
The most obvious one was the out of body experiance, and memories I have of flying 'out of my body', whilst in a coma dieing in hospital... well obviously I didn't die (or did I? )...
It all comes down to a matter of inturpritation.... I think the plethra of drugs I was on at the time, my head brain having just been partly distroyed by a articulated lorry, the brain haemordige, and the not relaly being very chipper or well, plus being in a coma... Probably works pretty-well to expalain it without having to resort to supernatural or 'other worldly' explinations...
During this I remember 'leaving my body', floating up and out of the hospital ward, aroudn teh grounds of the hospital etc., etc...
I've had quite a few other hallucinagenic experiances all of which were pretty well explained by err
*cough*
waht we'd just 'taken'
I guess the out of body stuff and to an extent some of the hallucinations are a bit like what I get when I'm lucid dreaming, but I'm aways aware I'm lucid draming (you do kinda have to be I guess by its definition), and it is just differnt, to say the experiance under drugs in hospital, or on LSD and other hallucinagenics...
Doubt I'd be able to have an 'out of body experience' anymore mind... there's just too much body here now for me to try and get out of

Is it absolutely proven that 'out of body' experiences, trips, astral travel, hallucinations etc are not also valid views? I'm not suggesting that the detailed beliefs people have around those experiences are literally real, I mean that this 'other' place which is often different depending on who you are, why you're 'there' etc. doesn't exist and have some meaning?

I guess I'm asking if it may well be simply down to real and direct forces on our brains, does that make it any less real or meaningful? I mean, supernatural? I'm not convinced. Some connection to a concept I call 'universe' (hell, it's space and has more dimensions than we can currently measure, right? The scientists call it the universe, so will I!) which may or may not allow us a greater (or smaller!) insight into ourselves and the world and things we can and cannot identify, measure and neatly pack away in a happy box of proof and certainty?

I mean, generally speaking I dont think we should set *too* much store by these things. Like, dont harm anyone because of a thought or a dream etc. Including yourself.

Sorry, didn't finish. There should have been a 'why not?' at the end of the rather confused 2nd paragraph

>> As what ~jwf~ has said implies: our senses are astonishingly unreliable. <<

Not exactly. Reliability implies an anticipated or predictable outcome.
("We have done this experiment before and the lid always blows off!)

While the senses can be dulled or even enhanced, it is the perception,
comprehension and manipulation of that neurological data by the mind
which has certain... uhm... variables which create (by a clinical definition)
a sense of unreliability thru a lack of statistically sound predictabilities.

I may see a cloud shaped like a whale and someone else sees a steamboat,
but the wise man sees that it is going to rain and
takes shelter from the storm.


~jwf~

Robyn, I'm not sure what you are saying there.

>> Is it absolutely proven that 'out of body' experiences, trips, astral travel, hallucinations etc are not also valid views?

You cannot prove a negative, so one cannot prove that it is impossible for any OOB to be 'real'. What you *can* demonstate is that only a minority of reported OOBs accurately report events and locations.

Also - what do you mean by 'valid' in this context?



>> I guess I'm asking if it may well be simply down to real and direct forces on our brains, does that make it any less real or meaningful?

Well, yes it does. You cannot have it both ways. Either something has a demonstrable physical existance or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then it isn't real. There is a limit to how far you can push the language and not turn into Humpty Dumpty.

I think the question you are asking is whether some of the things that aren't real are nevertheless more valid because the people reporting them are sincere?

The answer to that one is 'no'. My friend who's a homeopath is no more effective a healer than the 'spiritual healers' who are knowingly frauds and who are miked up to get information 'they couldn't possibly know' about members of their audience. She's sincere, and a good person, but that doesn't make her more effective.


>> I guess I'm asking if it may well be simply down to real and direct forces on our brains, does that make it any less real or meaningful? I mean, supernatural? I'm not convinced. Some connection to a concept I call 'universe' (hell, it's space and has more dimensions than we can currently measure, right? The scientists call it the universe, so will I!) which may or may not allow us a greater (or smaller!) insight into ourselves and the world and things we can and cannot identify, measure and neatly pack away in a happy box of proof and certainty?

Huh?

"If an effect is down to direct forces on our brains, does that make it any less real?"

Depends on what you mean by direct forces - if you are concussed (direct forces) and then hallucinate , then it's reasonable to assume the concussion caused random electrical effects in your brain that were perceptable as hallucinations. There's the Pratchett-style Dungeon Dimensions argument, that other planes of existence exist, just waiting for things like a blow on the head to reveal themselves. But since the physical effects of a physical insult to a physical structure will explain the hallucination, I see no need for the dungeon dimensions.

I am sorry, but even when I paraphrase your last sentence, I can't get a verb out of it: "Some connection to [something greater than ourselves] which may allow us greater insight into things which cannot be measured." - I'm not sure what you are driving at there.

Anyhoo - can I have some of what you're having?

Ben

Oopps.

I ought to explain myself a bit better. I'd like to re-write that first paragraph of mine.

>You cannot prove a negative, so one cannot prove that no OOB could ever, under any circumstances, possibly be real. What you *can* demonstate is that only a minority of reported OOBs accurately report events and locations, and that this minority is consistent with chance. Most contain inaccuracies which show that the travelling spirit was - at the very least - astonishingly unobservant.

I'm afraid, Captain Black, that your description looking through the bullet hole is rather remarkably like a number of shots in the Sam Raimi film 'The Quick and the Dead'. And, how did your past personality manage to look through its own belly wound and see the sky? Where you a contortionist in a past life?

As for the treatment of the daughter: Have you seen any production of Titus Andronicus? I would be willing to bet as well that the exact scene is in at least on Spaghetti Western.

I have trouble understanding why, when one is confronted with the following choice of explanations for your experience, one would choose the second:

1) the human mind is wonderfully creative, which, among other things, is why eye witness testimony is so unreliable and why we have and are able to enjoy the plays of Shakespeare. Your creative mind came up with a ripping story which had the power of actual memory. (I'm reminded of a line in Hesiod's Theogony in which the Muses remark [I paraphrase] 'we know how to tell lies with all the power and authority of Truth.)

2) the memories (or perhaps even the soul, whatever that is) that coursed through a brain which decayed two centuries ago have been transmitted by some unknown mechanism (please see A42586266) into the brain of a contemporary person on the other side of the Atlantic.


I wish people wouldn't denigrate human creativity by denying its manifest functioning and attributing the fascinating experiences to some sort of facile magic.

>I wish people wouldn't denigrate human creativity by denying its manifest functioning and attributing the fascinating experiences to some sort of facile magic<

Yes well at least no-one here on this thread is doing that. I'm enjoying the fact that this thread has remained enjoyably questioning.

If people come here and turn it into samo ultra boring black and white religious thread, you won't see me for dust.

I find your experience very interesting Captain Black...for that..its experiential quality; it's process. I like process.

<>

I think that's the amazing thing about your tale. Because of a dispute (plane delay) you got to meet strangers who turned into friends, and got a free holiday. Are you still in touch with them? I think that relationship is more substantial than your regressed repressed grief for your 'murdered daughter'.

I can only apologise. I will have to post to threads like this when I'm not under pressure at w*rk .

For the record, I think that there is something that we are more likely to be aware of when we (oh dear, I'm going to sound all woowoo now ) become less attached to the physical world we are so tightly tied to.

I'm not convinced of the existence of angels, demons, fairies, ghosts, gods or tooth fairies. I am convinced of *something* that some people are more aware of than others, that people often assume is or convert into something familiar (if not comforting) to themselves, no matter how obscure or seemingly unconnected to their conscious selves.

Plenty of people have enough trouble being aware of their every day emotions and motivations, just look at someone who has a strange dream about, for instance, not being able to escape. Often it's quite obvious to an observer what their brain is processing, it's often something happening in their life that they cant or wont see. So, the subconscious exists, so why not a sub-sub conscious connection to something else again? It makes sense to me. Other people need to have something they can physically test and measure. I'm still willing to say that we dont know it all well enough to disregard things we cant 'prove' or even strongly theorise on yet.

That's just how i see the world, I totally understand that most of you will disagree with me. Some will be more tolerant than others with how they express it, but that's cool. If it helps, I dont need or necessarily want there to be something else. I'm happy to live a strange cosmic accident called a human life, die, go back into this planet and become a few stones, some ore, dust, wormfood and have that be the end of it with no meaning, need or cause. But I still think that there's something else going on. I just dont think it really means anything .

I am a complete sceptic too, but I have experienced some pretty weird coincidences in my life, that would make you almost want to believe in the supernatural.


The mind is a pretty powerful beast and can create all sorts of believable stuff to amuse itself. I wish that all this reincarnation and spiritual stuff was real, it would make life a lot less sad.