Why Don't Most People Consciously Remember Past Lives?

[fiziwig]

There are a lot of different answers that have been proposed for this riddle. My own theory is that our memory works by association. We see or hear something that reminds us of something else in a continuous and unbroken chain of memories.

However, this process of memory association can be broken in a number of ways. For example, upon waking from a dream there is no continuity between the waking world and the dream world, and lacking that continuity, we find it hard to recall our dreams. But then we might see something later in the day that reminds us of something in the dream and that one associative link allows the whole dream to be recalled.

Traumatic events, physical or emotional, can also cause a break in the chain and cause memory loss. I imagine that death and rebirth are not only traumatic experiences, but also, like waking from a dream, cause the soul to suddenly find itself in an environment very different from the previous environment, and again the continuous chain of associations is broken. Even so, we may see or hear something that stirs a past-life memory, or we may reconnect the links via regression.

Another theory holds that as the soul becomes more advanced it is better prepared to deal constructively with past life memories, and so is granted more access to them.

 

[Kelly]

Book Excerpt

All memories about our past and future lives are stored in the subconscious mind. This subconscious mind functions independently of the conscious mind proper. Since your conscious mind proper died along with the body when your last life ended, you start each new life with a virgin conscious mind proper. This conscisous mind proper cannot recall any of it's past lives simply becasue it has no memory of them.
It is only your subconscious or superconscious mind that can remember your past or future lives. This mechanism is actually quite protective. Because the mind is exposed to more than one million pieces of new information every day of our lives, think of what it would be like to consciously recall all of this information from our present as well as our past and future lives at any one moment.


There are certain clues to our past lives that we do experience consciously. We all have certain natural talents, likes and dislikes. Certain intuitive tendencies are remnants from past lives. When we dream we often see scenes from past lives. Spontaneous regressions occur to many people in their dreams. Even though we do not consciously remember our past or future lives, there are experiences that give us the knowledge that we have lived before and will live again.

*Excerpt from Chapter 26: 'Questions and Answers About Past and Future Lives Hypnotherapy' - Past Lives, Future Lives by Bruce Goldberg.

 

[Forum Staff]

What's the Point of Reincarnating if Most People Can't Remember Their Past Lives


What's the Point of Reincarnating if Most People Can't Remember Their Past Lives?


From Kelly:

Most children begin to “forget” or stop talking so much about their past life memories around the ages of 5+. Mainly, because it is at this age that they are “enrolled” so to say, into society, through school, wider socialising, etc, where they are taught what is right and wrong, etc.

"They haven't had the cultural conditioning, the layering over the experience in this life so the memories can percolate up more easily."
Carol Bowman

They are taught to pay attention more to their left brained activities of logic and reasoning and less with their right brained activities of imagination and creativity (in the most general terms and definitions).

Children are naturally curious and eager to explore the world around them and spend hours playing with toys, making up imaginary friends and pretend games. But as we get older, we begin to lose some of our natural creativity as we learn and use more left-brain thinking skills in school and at work.

That said, even as adults, there are certain clues to our past lives that we do experience consciously. These clues can be found within our natural talents, our likes and dislikes, inherent fears, dream sequences of locations and people we feel a familiar or magnetic attraction too, etc.
A lot of these things can sometimes be attributed to our past lives and unconscious memories, so although we may not consciously be able to recall all of these past lifetimes, on a deeper level, we do have experiences and emotional triggers that hint to us of other lifetimes or possibilities yet uncovered.

From Deborah:

G. de Purucker -- head of the Theosophical Society from 1929-1942 regarded the accumulation of memories in the ether-body a growth of earthly “things.”
In other words, as memories come back into recollection, or back into consciousness, there is a patterning of “human electricity” a wave or vibration which in turn cause the soul to recreate itself from the last life -“consequences karman.”


Karma is a term that continues to surface around reincarnation and implies in New Age circles - “what you sow so shall you reap.” But the original definition, and intention behind karma, Karmic law, or Karman simply means cause and effect, cause and consequences.


Consciousness creates, then consciousness is the cause. Our creations are then, the effect.


It is interesting to note that Edgar Cayce’s interpretations of karma suggests that karma is not destiny; it is only memory.


A memory of consequence. Cayce also suggests that even though we are born with memories, they are usually unconscious. But they do influence our abilities, our faults and even our relationships with others.


Looking at reincarnation from a soul's perspective

 

[fairchilde]

My thoughts and what I’ve learned:


In life, I think that once we reach a certain psychological state, we are then able to consider the possibility that the One Mind (or God) uses all possibilities in order to actualize It’s nature, which is the Creative Principle. And I think that the activity (original desire) and continuum of Souls experiencing many individual lives is what created Time and Space.


Now, if being an individual is a manifested illusion of separation, created by the One Mind, it follows that memory would be challenged with each incarnation. And the degrees of loss of memory is determined by our individual evolution (karma).


The actuality of "forgetting" is vital. It is an intrinsic quality of the "laws" of evolution. But we can all remember. When headed in the direction of “Oneness,” the progression of individual evolution (karma) naturally allows for full recovery of all memories. This is true not only in recalling our personal lives, but also recalling the lives and history of all that exists. And this makes sense as it would be true that as we spend less time (focus) within a fixed identity and more time in our interconnectedness with everything, we would be automatically, even though sporadically perhaps, re-awaking inside the One mind. Here we have more and more unlimited access to all information of any kind.


Love,


Angie

It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the beginning. Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense--a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.
~H. Keller

 

[ChrisR]

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