Finding out about past lives

[Velleity]

I've always been really curious about my past lives, as I've had quite a lot of 'resonance' with particular time periods and groups of people (so much so that it feels more like home than the present time does), and so I've always wondered if I'd lived then, or in the periods I love so much. I think the high resonance is actually what got me into believing in past lives and living more than once. It seemed to make more sense. I had also met people in my life where I was sure that I knew them before.

Anyway, as much as I've been curious about my past lives, I've found it really difficult to access them by myself. I don't know if it's just that I'm on the action axis and am therefore more tied to the physical plane, or that I just don't have as good visualization skills as I need...

Much to my delight, it's great knowing that I could have past life info channeled for me. I just don't have all the funds for it yet, nor really know how to go about it. I'm also selfishly drawn to the "was I anyone who would turn up in the history books" question, as I'm a king so maybe I'm sure I must have at some point? But who knows.

I did once have a past life hypnosis session, but the results were a bit skewed as I had it in my head that I might have been someone relatively well known that I was slightly obsessed about. The session was interesting though, as though it was difficult for me to visualize, there was a LOT of kinesthetic detailing, things like 'feeling' colors and feeling angry, feeling sad, feeling the wind and seeing the trees move, feeling delirious with illness etc.

Have any of you found out about your past lives through other means (besides channeling)? Or have you channeled Michael/info for yourselves?

Just kind of interested in all the different methods and experiences...

[Dave]

I don't know why this question isn't getting a response, but as you know, I've done past life regressions in the past, and now just recently had several more. In fact, I'm having another session tomorrow and wonder what interesting person will emerge this time.

Although it's considerably easier to have a facilitator guide you through the process, you could probably do a PLR on your own. As you mentioned, it's important to keep an open mind and remove any expectations about what might transpire. Usually the lives we are shown are not necessarily glamorous or famous, but they do echo current life issues that we are struggling with in this lifetime.

Best,
Dave

[Chiara DB]

Hi Elisabeth --

I first started learning about my past lives by paying attention to things that intensely moved me for no apparent reason.

As Dave says, these lives come up in connection with some issue that is happening in your current life. For most of my life I've had to deal with the issue of slavery -- not that I was ever literally a slave, but I was raised to believe that my needs, preferences, and desires were completely unimportant, and that my function in life was to serve others and make them happy. Pretty good description of a slave. Anyway, I have always been extremely distressed by the knowledge of slavery and of institutionalized racial discrimination - not just like any normal person with a heart would be, but where my whole body would be possessed by outrage and a sense of injustice and anger when I heard about it. I started to understand that I myself had had slave past lives by doing things like noticing a scar on my ankle, and letting that kind of open my mind to the idea of a slave past life. I had an experience where I allowed myself to emotionally go into the state of one of these lives, and I learned the name of this person and everything about his life (American South, his name was Thomas Payne). I did this by myself, without anyone else there.

I also believe I was a slave in Ancient Greece, because when I learned about the philosophy of Aristotle in class for the first time, I was overwhelmingly flooded with sensations of him as a person, of knowing and loving him as a person, things having absolutely nothing to do with the actual philosophy and completely not present in reading about his philosophy (or really anything about him, I've come to find out).  I then had a dream-experience that wasn't really a dream - it was like I was in some in-between state between dreaming and awake. Everything was absolutely black, and in that blackness I knew everything about Aristotle and his philosophy. I understood it perfectly. As soon as I woke up, it was all gone. But since then I have looked into the life of Aristotle and it turns out he did teach and have intimate relationships with some of his slaves. I had strong images of walking through gardens and talking with him, and I also found out later that that was how he usually taught his students.

I've also had some intense past life memory experiences with my ET when we first were getting to know each other. I don't know how to explain it other than we went into a kind of trance state, without trying, and in one of these states we re-enacted a life where he was the slave woman and I was the young girl of the house (American South). In that life, she was more of a mother to me than my real mother was. In another we were brother and sister in Ancient Egypt and we were intensely in love with and sexually attracted to each other.

I haven't had any experiences like this in a long time, or maybe if they happen they are just a lot more subtle now.

Anyway, the way to do it is to pay attention to little things that pull at you for no reason you can explain. Open yourself and go into them, and see where they lead you

[Velleity]

The only sort of irrational fears I've had in this life are fears of tsunamis/waves, and of planes flying low overhead and things dropping from the sky (i.e., annihilation from the sky, which included a phobia of comets for quite a while). 

I don't know, whenever I try to regress back by myself, it's really hard to let images or sensations come up. Even when I went to the PL regressionist. Was difficult to actually be hypnotized and to get down into that state, and then if I do see something it feels like my brain is making it up. I kind of have a vivid imagination, and my mind also works like a movie/film, so it's frustrating that I can't get it to work like that for seeing past lives.

I do have an amazing amount of PL resonances for particular time periods, and when younger used to draw a lot of 'characters' dressed in particularly accurate costuming from different eras. But it's just difficult to 'get' into the actual lives of those time periods and places.

As for current issues in my life, I've been relatively obsessed with the idea of mental institutions in the 20th century (a la sylvia plath), and do have trouble with depression and feeling a bit insane (at least, there's a strong pull of that sensation), and am not sure if that's just my 6th mature talking. But I'm not sure what else. Hmm.   

[Dave]

Most of my past life regressions haven't involved searching for famous personalities, historical resonances, or other preconceived notions of what I wanted to experience. I know that therapists do that all the time with patients, but I suspect it can make the journey more difficult, due to personal filtering and expectations.

Just about all of my regressions have started with what seemed to be a mundane image: a Native American woman collecting wood in a forest, an island native standing on a beach with a bag of fish, a well-dressed gentleman in a 19th century city walking toward a theater, a midwestern woman driving a horse and buggy down a lonely country road. None of these were images that would normally attract my attention, but they always felt more authentic afterwards because they came to me so unexpectedly.

Deriving the take-home value from these experiences still requires more pondering on my end. This is where I tend to get bogged-down.

Best,
Dave

[Chiara DB]

Just saw Thor yesterday, and it reminded me of what I'm sure is a past life in ancient Scandinavia. I felt this the first time I went to Norway and went to the Folkmuseum in Oslo, where they have examples of ancient dwellings, villages, and carvings. Everything in me just lit up at being here -- I felt a definite familiarity, a feeling of being home. The more I learned about the Vikings the more I felt close to them and that I understood them, to the point where I became annoyed at how milquetoast the modern Norwegians are compared to the Vikings. The Norse mythology is the only pagan mythology that has ever appealed to me on a visceral level -- everything else so far just falls flat to me. When I think about what my life may have been like, I mostly get a picture of trading in a market, and that's about it.

I do wonder what relevance this past life identification has to my current life, but so far I haven't done much to find out. Mostly the resonance just feels invigorating, so I enjoy the experience.

[Chiara DB]

I also listen to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" a lot 

[Velleity]

Same here! Though it was in art history when the norse stave churches and carvings came along. I also have some norwegian heritage and felt much more 'loyal' to it and fascinated with the 'art' when I was younger (as opposed to the very german side of my mom's family). My grandmother had all sorts of norwegian things around her house and it felt very natural. There's also something about pagan russia that's familiar in the same ways.

It is a lit-up kind of a feeling isn't it?

Architecture and 'styles' seem particularly interesting when they resonate... I remember being completely fascinated with the thai dancers from It's A Small World, and the styles from there still really feel like home. Once they went to thailand on america's next top model and made them learn thai dancing. Was so jealous! That feeling that it was something I'd love doing and could do it well. I also prefer their buddha statue by far, which is kind of the thing, it seems odd that things like that are particular but I just like it better for some reason. heh.

[jk]

Elisabeth, the thing about imagination - dont they say that things like this do feel like you are making them up, but that does not mean its not genuine? Perhaps try to examine it later - would you have a reason to make that particular thing up?
Also, there are tips for recognition peppered through the MFM and MMFM books.
I think it may be helpful to first get clear on one's intent. Therapeutical? Curiosity? Confirmation of an insight? One has to be careful about expectations of the false personality. In most lives we would have been ordinary people and in some, we might have created karma.
It is more valuable in my mind to make little recognitions by yourself, then not attempt this at all and just have everything channeled.
Have you ever met someone who you felt like you knew although you have just met them for the first time? Have you ever dreamt a dream where you have met people you now now, but in different bodies? Or has someone else dreamt this about you? Etc.
Yes, the phobias may be also telling. Like my daughter is scared to walk under scaffolding, specifically between any two parallel vertical posts. She starts panicking and gets into compulsive behaviour. She never had any accident involving this. So why? When I found out, I had a thought she might have got trapped/crushed under it in another lifetime. She is also claustrophobic and very overweight and I feel the weight is a protective cushion.
Even though i could theoretically go and get multiple channelings done about this or that, I don't. I want to see what I can see for myself and then if later I get it confirmed with Michael, that would be helpful, and more valuable than just letting them to get it all for me which I think they are reluctant to do, particularly where the wish is false personality driven.
Also like Chiara says, there is that thing about things/places that intensely move you for no apparent reason or more than you can account for. This can be anything and everything. Perhaps you visit a place for the first time and feel like you came "back". Or you get tearful.
Or perhaps you know/can do something that you have "never" learnt. Although I guess this may be a kind of spontaneous channeling rather than a recollection.
Have you ever had a dream that felt very real? This could be a recollection too.

[Betty]

What if you have never had any of that happen?  I may be mistaken about this, but I seem to remember that Michael said about if there is no resonance, then it might mean that you have resolved any issues having to do with that life.  Could that be why some people have no past life memories/resonances/deja vu?  Of, if they do, that it is just a mild feeling?

[Mike42]

  I had feelings from  past lives before I had heard about past lives and came to believe they are real.  I was a gang leader of some kind in a past life and was very angry when I got killed and some of that anger would come out in this life when I would get killed in -of all places- online games such as compuserve back around 1980.  The anger seemed out of place since I didn't know it was connected to a past life.  When I meditated in 1990 I started remembering past lives up to just over a dozen of them.  Michael backed me up on some memories when I asked about them. I remember destroying things in Atlantis in a war and was uncomfortable asking Michael about it at first as I think of myself now as relatively harmless.  I didn't want to accept at first that I was a bad guy in past lives but finally decided it is a natural part of evolution.  That helps me accept others who are younger souls and are bad guys now.   
Mike

[Dave]

I think it's a given that we have all had lives where our shadowy selves won out and considerable karma was created.    Just think of the learning curves necessary for each set of overleaves we choose. There are considerable opportunities to fall flat on our face and I think we do more often then we'd care to admit. But our essence is apparently remarkably resilient and we get back on our feet, brush ourselves off, and jump back into the game.

Best,
Dave