Generally, I try to talk about things that are more centered in "reality". Things that I, or the people around me, have witnessed or experienced. However, being a blog focused on the "ab/para" (as I've come to describe it) I'd like to talk a little bit about a slightly more mystical experience. As far as my skeptical point of view, let's get it out of the way right off the bat;
Most likely I imagined this all, and generally, I am inclined to follow this notion.
Now that the party pooping is out of the way, let's look at my two experiences with past life regression.
In our western world reincarnation is laughable, and why wouldn't it be? You die, you die, right?
Or wait... Do you die and go to an afterlife? What was the point of life? To learn? What if we have more than one lesson? Does my spirit (or as I'm more inclined to think; me) learn everything I need in my current life, as I would as say... a 1 percenter? Or as a Malay farmer? The more I consider it (and other eastern philosophies, karmic debt for example), the more I find it difficult to rule it out.
So, on the 4th of July 2019, I gave it a shot. I found a Brian Weiss video on Youtube, waited for a silent house, killed the lights, and laid down. First you are told to relax. Then a sort of hypnosis session begins, though I do not feel as though I was not in control at any point. You relax. Relax more. Relax more. From there you remember a childhood memory. Any memory. Focus on it. See it. Be there. Float above it.
Then further back. In utero is the aim, but the point (I believe) is to jump start the next part, regardless of whether you remember being in utero (or the state of non-being prior as possibly remembered and described by a surprising amount of people).
He tells you you see a door. Step through it.
Where are you?
Look at your hands, look at your feet. What is around you? Are there people around you?
Your mind is not only capable of but duty bound to filling in blanks, and were it not for a few confounding reports of people remembering minute details only to be later verified independently, I would write the process off then and there.
However, I am an explorer. A wanderer. I want to see the journey through.
The regression is in three stages.
First, a random point in the life you are revisiting.
Second, an important event in that life.
Third, the end of that life.
These are the notes from my first regression, written immediately after coming out:
merchant/sailor?
17 or 1800s? English/French?
on a boat. blue coat. white shirt. brown leather boots. not a captain, or dont feel like a captain... maybe my ship. i feel emotionally lost. the sea is my respite but it also makes me feel detached as though i am wasting my time.
home now. wife (name Rebecca?) strained relationship. (my name is gregory? gerald? nathan pops into my head too but i dont think i am nathan.) love, but nearly broken. white shirt. brown vest. long hair. brown. she has dirty blonde/brown hair. white shirt. brown dress. house is small. in a crowded port city. stone. wood. paper and books around. arguing or just hostile. sad. i feel sad.
later. back at sea. under the water. coat gone. drowning. something wrapped around my legs. i am looking up. not fighting much. i think above the water it is evening. there is light above me but not a lot.
throughout the experience i can feel my body tightening. i can feel waves of pressure through my head.
The emotional experience was unexpected. I felt the sadness. I felt the emptiness. I felt the marital stress. I felt the relief and panic as this person drowned (a note: I, as in 2020 me, love the water, but am deathly afraid of drowning).
It is easy to draw conclusions or make connections to your current life here, much like newspaper horoscopes. Yes, I love water, who doesn't? Yes, I'm afraid of drowning, who isn't?
There are a couple of other personal connections I can make, but again, if I am imagining it, of course those connections would be there.
I sat on this experience for a while. I can still see and feel it six months later. Even if I imagined it, my brain put it there for me to experience, and I wonder if there is a lesson in it.
Today, I decided to go again.
Here are my notes from this morning:
January 13, 2020
11:17 am
Scenario 1:
It is early day. Maybe 10 am. I am in a field. I am a male. My hands are older, and I am wearing dark clothes. I am walking through a rolling field, with a tree line to my left, A small mountain to the north east. Wooden log fence on either side. I am walking in tire ruts. I feel as though I'm not the one who worked this field but it is mine. Maybe I haven't worked it in a long time. I know my house is behind me and I feel very safe in this sanctuary area. It's going to be a nice day.
Scenario 2:
It is earlier, ten years earlier maybe? I get the impression that I am in my late forties, maybe early fifties. It is night. I am at a garden party. There are lights above us strung across the top of a structure. People are happy. I get the impression that it is a wedding. It might be my wedding. I am old though and I feel like those days are behind me. I am dancing with a beautiful woman. Her hair is a dark blonde or brown and thick and her smile is big. She is so happy. She is happy because of me. I can feel myself smiling. Her face is bright and I can't get over how happy I feel at that moment.
Scenario 3:
It is the end. I am only a few years older than I was in scenario one. Maybe five or ten years. I am in my bed. A grey blanket and a wool knit blanket on me. My bedroom is dark. A window to the right of me. Evening. My bedroom. Someone stands in the doorway. The room is dark I cannot see them. It feels like my son. The happy girl from scenario 2 is sitting on my bed. She is still smiling but she is not happy. She holds my hand. My brother is not here and even though I will not see him before I go I know that he is happy and I look at my son and my wife (it is my wife) and around my dark and safe bedroom and I think about the war and I am okay to go. I know I lived well.
I get the impression that this took place in the 60's/70's (maybe early 80's) in a rural area. Could be new england. I felt tired from life but fulfilled. I felt like I was alone most of it, and then became happy late in life. I felt like I worked hard, but was not happy until the people in my life came to me. I had a thought about the war (WW2? Korea?) but I don't know if I fought or served at all, or if it just had an impact in some other way.
A message in my head popped in just before coming out: The next one will be wonderful. Could mean next experience, but I took the meaning as my next LIFE.
Waking up I felt a thick sort of joyful sadness.
This one was also interesting for a handful of reasons. While the first one was at least a century (or two or three) back, this one seemed like it may have been my life directly before my current life, as I was born in 1983.
Interesting notes to make: The wife in both, while to me now is the same woman, is at the least described both now and six months ago as similar looking. Both lives featured a mystery man that I loved, "Nathan" in the first, and my missing brother in the second. Both lives centered around a place of solitude, the sea in the first, the field in the second.
The emotional toll was definitely present in the second one, to the point where when I came out I felt as though I might start crying, even though I felt proud and satisfied.
The message at the end though, was a surprise. I don't know where it came from. It just popped in.
So, imagination? Most likely. But even so, I found both to be powerful experiences that have left me with fresh perspectives. I will most likely explore these more, and if you have the time, I see no reason to not try one yourself. Worst case scenario you get a good 45 minute nap in.
