Most of us are curious about reincarnation and whether we have come to this planet “before.”
“Who was I in my past life?” is a common question asked these days and there’s no shortage of answers available. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find a handful of fun pop quizzes that narrow down what gender you were, what country you came from, what you did, and how you died.
While these are fun ways to explore the topic, they are limited and shallow in their ability to really help us understand who we were in our past lives, and how we can use this knowledge to become more healed and whole people.
If you’re not that serious about answering the question, “Who was I in my past life?” I recommend taking the Past Life Regression Test I created instead of reading this article. But if you’re serious about becoming a happier and more balanced person, keep reading.
First we’ll explore what reincarnation really is.
Reincarnation Is Not What You Think It Is … Here’s Why
A few years ago I came to conclude that we are all divine fragments of God, Divinity, the Tao, Consciousness, or whatever you would like to call it. I came to this life-changing realization via the 6 questions described in this article. This is what Jesus, Buddha, Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, Adyashanti, Gangaji, Ramana Maharshi, and every wise “enlightened” man and woman through the ages has pointed to and spoken about: The mind is limited. The self is an illusion. We are all One and the same at our very core.
Therefore, if our identity is an illusion, how is it possible to reincarnate? As Sol wrote in a previous article, “Reincarnation of an ‘individual self’ is only as possible to the extent of believing that your sense of ‘self’ – your ego – is real.”
If you believe that you are your personality and are separate from everything and everyone else, you will believe what people traditionally say about reincarnation: that your identity will be reborn into a new body and circumstance.
Personally I don’t at all believe that this is the case. How is it possible for “you” to reincarnate, if there is no you (other than in your mind) in the first place? This is yet another illusion perpetuated by an ego that is obsessed with its survival. After all, why is reincarnation so appealing to many of us? Because it reassures us that our egos will live on after we die. But if you’ve come to realize that the self is a dreamlike fantasy, you will realize that this isn’t the case.
So what exactly is reincarnation?
In my understanding, reincarnation is the process of recycling energy. The Buddhist’s represented this in the Wheel of Dharma which reflected the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (called “Samsara”). From what I have learned, the conscious essence that animates us leaves the physical body after death and is “reborn” or remade into a new creation. All of the memories, experiences, lessons and wounds we develop during our lives are then left in a non-physical layer which Carl Jung referred to as the “Collective Unconscious” and others refer to as the “Akashic Records.”
Although this new being starts off with a “fresh slate” when it is born, as it matures its job is to heal the inherited core wounds of its predecessors.
Who Was I in My Past Life?
I’ve asked and searched for the answers to this question before too, but somehow always intuitively felt that I wasn’t asking the “right” question or looking in the right place. Have you felt this before?
While I don’t believe that our identities reincarnate, I do believe that we can discover who we were in past lives (because we are all One and share the same underlying consciousness). More precisely, we have been every person that has ever existed, but for practical reasons we each carry a unique imprint of inherited strengths and weaknesses.
Similar to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (big words that describe the process of inheriting physical, mental and emotional information from your ancestors that doesn’t influence your DNA), it is also possible for us to inherit spiritual maladies of many kinds. As life itself is about evolving, advancing and maturing, it can also be said that our emotional and spiritual lives are maturing as well.
Collectively, we are all evolving, and discovering what inherited core wounds we have is vital in order to become happier and more fulfilled people. In discovering our transgenerational wounds, we also work to “raise the vibrations” of the world for this generation and the future generations.
What is it that your ancestors suffered from in the past that you can heal in the present? You may find that in the process of discovering who you were in your past life, you are linked to one specific person in a single era. On the other hand, you may have many flashbacks from many lives that all possess the same theme. Finally, you may not have any flashbacks at all, but instead have an overwhelming sensation that you must learn to “resolve” a certain issue.
Here are some recommendations that will help you to discover who you were in your past life:
1. Examine what attracts, interests, or creates a sense of nostalgia in you.
For example, you may carry a long-time interest in South American shamanism, you may be intensely attracted to ancient Asian culture, or you may feel a deep sense of longing and inexplicable nostalgia towards the English countryside.
2. Pay attention to repetition in your dreams.
Also, learn to distinguish between dreams that feel dreamlike, and dreams that feel distinctly life-like – these dreams may present doorways into the collective unconscious. Repetitive dreams in particular carry important messages for they reveal what our minds on a subconscious level are fixated with. For instance, if you frequently dream about being abandoned for no particular reason (i.e. no childhood abandonment issues), you may be carrying the inherited core wound of betrayal or the fear of aloneness.
3. Set an intention. Repeat.
You may like to set an intention before attempting to revisit your past life. You can do this either before going to sleep, meditating, or practicing self-hypnosis. For instance, your intention may be “Who was I in my past life? Please be revealed” or simply, “I want to know who I was.” If you would like to learn self-hypnosis, take a look at this article. Finally, it helps to repeat your intention several times before you settle into a sleep, meditation or hypnosis state.
4. Reflect on the people you have attracted into your life.
What harsh, but powerful lessons have your friends, family members and/or partner/s taught you? Can you sense any particular theme running through your life that has seemed to be there from the very start? It is said that we all enter this life with a soul group which is a group of beings that collectively work to resolve accumulated karma.
5. Stare into a mirror or body of water.
Use your reflection as a focal point to enter into an altered state of consciousness. Get into a comfortable position, and if possible, dim the lights. Keep your intention in mind, relax your eyes and gaze at your reflection. Hold gentle but solid eye contact. You can do this for up to ten minutes to half an hour or more. As the minutes pass by, you will find that your face begins to morph and subtly change its appearance. What can you see?
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6. Connect the dots.
Use a combination of all the practices above to explore your past life and inherited core wounds. Please keep in mind that there are many other techniques out there, but these five are basic and easy for anyone to try out.
This Is What I Discovered …
As a result of putting into practice the above recommendations, I discovered that I have memories from Medieval Ireland, Persia/Middle East, Rome and Greece. My most vivid and recurring memories appear to be of a great gothic castle, a home near the cliffs and ocean, grassy paddocks and a ragged tent in a desert. The main core wound I seem to struggle with involves a loss of control which has helped me to resolve an immense number of issues in my life.
What about you? Have you discovered what your transgenerational wound is? Finally, what are your thoughts on reincarnation?
As others have noted, the test is not available when viewing the page. It does not come up when accessed through facebook and also when I go directly to your website. I really enjoy your site and would be sad if I can no longer access it. Also, even more odd, as I am typing this message, depending on which key I hit it will sometimes direct me to the bottom of the page and away from this message box!?! I do not experience this through any other websites.
Thanks for letting us know. We’re currently redeveloping our test software which might explain why some are having issues. I’m not sure about why the key stroke is making the page jump, I’ll keep an eye out for any other similar complaints to see if it’s an isolated issue or something more.
If we are all one and there is no ‘you’, no individuality, then there’s no point to individual experiences.
My spiritual belief is in God, who made each if us unique and individual, and so is our journey. To say our experiences is one of many others (kind of like the Collective Borg) is to negate our own responsibility for ourselves. My experiences, and the responsibility for them are mine.
Thanks Katie for your thoughtful comment. Although it is true at an objective level that if all is one, then there is no division of memories of past lives or experiences.
But we are not objective beings, we are subjective. What gets in the way of us experiencing our divinity? Or even, simply experiencing inner peace? Freedom from our individuality, our memories and traumas. That is truly taking responsibility for yourself in this lifetime, overcoming any wounds you perceive to that and making yourself fully capable of response (responsible).
I don’t believe in a purely spiritual approach, we are physical-psycho-spiritual beings and needs to take that into account in our journey.
I have always been fascinated with past lives. I have the most unique dreams seeing myself mostly in the twenties. There was always a man in those dreams, who always seemed familiar, and until last year, I had never seen before. I have issues with my throat, and teeth that have no explanation, and doctors act like I am crazy when I mention it. I’ve always been afraid to talk to anyone about anything I have dealt with. Weird flashbacks of things I don’t remember happening, but seem so real…
This terrible sadness you’re feeling is the ego mourning, and because you’re so identified with it, you assume that it is you feeling this terrible sadness. It is normal to go through a mourning period when we truly and genuinely come to see how illusory the sense of “me” is. Really, there could be nothing more joyful or liberating than discovering that there IS no real death because what we are has always and forever been here and now, and forever will be. This is something you really must experience to understand fully, otherwise it seems terribly depressing.
I’ve always wondered what my past lives where because reincarnation is a very interesting subject. But it’s a strange things to talk about with others when they don’t believe in such things. Thanks for the methods i will try them!
I can’t explain it but for some reason I find these sorts of questions and thoughts to be deeply troubling. Even disturbing. I agree if our sense of self is an illusion then we cannot reincarnate in the sense that the same soul is moving from body to body. I do think we can occasionally inherit (or pass on) memories from our ancestors physically through the flesh, (some people receive memories through organ transplants!) but what really upsets me is that if our identity unravels upon death and our soul energy returns to the oneness, or the great divine, then in a sense isn’t there no real life after death? The oneness would go on as it has and does and always will, but me? I’m just… gone. This fills me with a terrible sadness.
Houses are my recurring dream theme…new, old, moving in moving out, revisiting houses from the past, exploring a house ,finding new rooms, etc.
I just came across your article and I really enjoyed it. I’ve been wanting to look into my past lives. I am very, very interested in the 60’s. The hippie movement and Woodstock to be exact. I feel like that’s home. I’m also very interested in the holocaust and ww11. Something about them intrigues me and I can’t pinpoint why.
I’ve been trying to do everything from watch the video on youtube, searching on google I try all the method but whenever I try my mind always confused and it make me dizzy. I hope that one day meet someone that can teach me or show me who am I in the past live.
When I stared into a mirror, I couldn’t see my face. It disappeared gradually until my body (the mirror is quite big) looked like a shadow. The more I looked , the more I disappeared, I could see the wall behind me. But at the same time I felt serene, peaceful. Did I do it wrong?
The mirror technique usually needs to be practiced (don’t expect to get it right the first go). This is only one of many possibly techniques out there, and it might not be suited to everyone. Self-hypnosis is another option as well.
There is an easy way to discover your past lives in detail. The book “Beyond Reincarnation” by Joe Slate is a practical guide to self-hypnosis and a method to awaken your past life memories. I went back four lives, in the last one I was the brother of the man I am married to now. We were German soldiers, both killed in WWII. All the things that interest me, repel me, and all my special skills come from these past lives: I was also a navigator on a three-masted schooner, an innkeeper in Scotland, and a harem wife to a brutal Bedouin. In this life I was a navigator on a sailboat, owned a B&B, and cannot stand to be in deserts or dry, sandy terrain. These kinds of ah-ha connections help you make sense of the circumstances of your current life and find great compassion for yourself, for what you have endured as a human being on a very difficult duality planet. Overall, my past lives were hard and unpleasant, so I only went back four lives and then stopped because it became very unpleasant to revisit them. Past Life Regression is very tactile: you get to relive all the sights, smells, both the pains and the joys in excruciating detail. Even so, I learned much that helped me live a more authentic life this time around; authentic meaning acknowledging how your past lives drive the choices you make in this life.
It would always end the same, even when it started so unrelated it would turn sour and end the same. Not all dreams were like this, just one repeating scenario that would happen once a month or two. I think this may be one those clues you mention, especially when i consider what my soul is drawn to. Ive always felt connected to very early times in human history, when tribes were starting to use primitive swords and discover new technology’s and explore the world. When i walk into a damp forest or somewhere far away from modern society i feel connected and at peace. But only during the day.
The dream scenario is this, i am chased (at night) by some creature or thing and when it gets close enough to attack i close my eyes and wake up. Very recently i managed to turn to face the thing, which I’ve often tried to do but just couldn’t muster the courage. But this time i did, which filled me with so much terror i yelled for help, which to my surprise wasn’t needed. As i turned around the dream froze, it felt strained and paralyzed, it felt as if the dream didn’t know what to do next. I had stumped my own imagination by putting it on the spot.
I think this may be because i never turned around for real, if it is indeed a past memory i think what was chasing me may have ended my life. This is a dark interpretation though i believe to be most enlightening.
well, so in one of my past lives, I was a small girl around 7. I had dreams of this from when I was around four and I would often wake up out of breath. I clearly remember that someone pushed me down a well. it broke my leg but I didn’t die. a few days later, the person sealed up the well and I kind of suffocated – that’s when I wake up. I do remember other ones but I’m too lazy to write.
This is an awesome site and an awesome post.
Just the other day we were talking about reincarnation at a family gathering. When I was between the ages of 3 to 6, I told my parents about my previous past lives. Thank goodness, they were open to it. I even brought them to a place I once lived that was not close to where we lived. I described the place I lived and sure enough, there it was. My mother questioned all of our family members if they ever brought me to that area. They asked her why would they do that for? That was not a place to really bring a child.
Again, really interesting.
I was avoiding commenting in these deep articles lately, but, well, here I go. In
my case since young I started to revive some past lives but quickly they become
very intense and was to much for me, so I block them and never wanted to know
more or revive or anything about the past. But like you say, the overwhelming
sensation always is there. I always tried to focus in my present and don’t
dwell too much in the future (difficult one) and my main theme is abandonment
and betrayal.
Nevertheless there are always these things like deep longing of
being in the forest and mountains, deep fixation with medieval times and Celtic
culture and relationships with people that feel the same, like my former
partner, a redhead witch. So until now I manage to be oriented with that kind
of signs without the trauma of revive anything.
You made me remember with the step five, that in adolescence I always saw my face blurry in the mirror and without light even more and really became another
face. I had to focus a lot to really see my face or I had to see me in a
picture.
I had forgotten about it. Pretty weird things are the mirrors.
I have always been fascinated by England and during a trip several years ago I seemed to know my way around London and its environs very well. As it happened, a few months ago I unexpectedly came into contact with a mystic seer who also happened to the owner of an antique shop. After convincing me of his ability, I come to find that two of my past lives came to the forefront. One past life, as a man, I was Lord of a castle in the late 13th century and was instrumental in creating British Parliament (took a second to digest that one). Apparently my spirit guides also gave him a great physical description of me in action which was interesting….and rather shocking! My second past life revealed me as a woman in charge of a manor house in the 1890s. I apparently died of cholera a short while later. He was also quite shocked that I was an extremely old soul with numerous lifetimes. Apparently these two lives stood out. In any case, knowing this information has been a blessing for me as I have begun to put the puzzle pieces together in THIS lifetime. I have helped many to achieve success in this lifetime without any honors of my own. Talk about Karma……
Most of what you are saying, I agree with, but in a bit of a different way. What I feel is not what you describe. And I feel it very deeply on a soul level, not an ego level. But that doesn’t mean anything. Just that two people can feel different things. They are not always mutually exclusive.
There was one dream I had that was very vivid in a strange sort of way in that every single thing in it was true to the time period. The cast of the whole dream/scene was yellow like an old picture. It was in the depression, everything was in drought, the house was small and rough, I was wearing a blouse with big polka dots and a black skirt, and very pregnant with a suitcase by someone that I wasn’t suppose to be pregnant by. I was young. A man, my husband, came in a car true to the time period. I got into the back seat and down on the floor appeared a mystical animal with big gold eyes like a Tarsier and it talked to me. I didn’t know what it said except that it was a warning and to keep to myself. I woke up.
Every time I get sleepy I dream of people I don’t know having conversations or doing things with other people I don’t know. None of them look familiar, none of them repeat. I surround myself with Liberal thinkers. I have certainly had plenty of people that think they are tough in my life. So I stay away from them. Domineering people trigger my own defenses which isn’t good because I’m not fearful, but I don’t like conflict either. I relate to water and especially the ocean, and the rugged mountains come to mind because they symbolize God’s quiet strength which soothes me – imperfect yet perfect. The holocaust, the prairie. There is nothing I relate to in previous centuries, nor any particular place that I feel a connection to. I really don’t feel a huge connection to earth as we know it at all. The memories that I drift back to, lets say during intimate moments, are mountains and clear lakes and snow before civilization was largely settled.. More like clan of the cave bear times. I really don’t believe I go back that far! But I feel a connection to that. Probably because I related to that book very much.
I have always wondered who I was in past lives. It’s only been 8 months since I began my spiritual quest but I’ve always intuitively known that reincarnation is real. Like you I don’t delve into the question so much because it feels wrong to ask that, almost like I don’t want to find out who I was. There is one memory that I dreamed from my past life.
I was running through an Alpine German or Austrian village (lots of white houses with visible beams). It was morning and the sun was just rising. I was running through narrow streets and over a small bridge shadowing an Alpine creek, past the bridge I ran around a corner to the left. There I stopped instantly, there was a woman (25 – 30 years old, Caucasian and brown hair) who held a pistol (M1911) right to my head. She shot and I woke up, bathing in my sweat and still hearing the shot ringing in the bedroom. Everything in the dream was realistic and appeared normal, it felt more like a memory than a dream.
Next to that I most certainly have an interest in medieval, Roman and Greek architecture and clothing, I’m interested in warfare for some reason, I still am if I’m brutally honest and especially interested in the 2nd World War. As a child I drew a lot of pictures of 16th and 17th century ships, some were sinking or riding out a heavy storm, others were in good weather. I also drew world maps and continents. I’ve always had an interest in archeology and mythology – I know the two to be intertwined.
So I already have some basic idea of who I might have been but nothing which can really help me find my core wounds and heal them.
Wow … this is very vivid. It remind me of the recurring dreams I’ve had about the castle I mentioned.
Keep in mind that core wounds can be created in this lifetime as well. I’d start with your childhood first (and then eventually try past life regression which is more complex). I actually wrote an article on different ways of finding your core wound in this lifetime: http://lonerwolf.com/how-to-find-your-core-wounds/ I hope that can guide you in the right direction.
Thanks! I’m confident that it will ;) There is one dream that may have something to do with a past life or it may not, it is quite mystical. And it was more like a nightmare which left a permanent but subtle scar in my mentality.
I was 8 years old and for the first – and only – time in my life, I was ailing. In the nightmare I stood in front of a giant pyramid but the pyramid began to rise and expand above me, I got really scared of it and was trying to fight it off but couldn’t, that’s when my dad woke me. Now, at least once a day, I can see a thought or object capturing my view and it then becomes bigger and bigger and I get that same scary feeling and have to break out of it. It usually happens right before I go to sleep.
It may have something to do with the ancient pyramids of the forgotten civilizations before ours or some other mystical thing, or it could be a lot more mundane.
I had no idea these kinds of core wounds were a thing.
I began discovering past lives a long time ago, one in particular. I avoided it until I was older because I discovered it so young (5? 6?) and it was so confusing to me. I remember sitting on the swingset in my backyard thinking that I couldn’t possibly be my parent’s child if I was also this other person, and what had happened to their real child? I just couldn’t make sense of it.
I used to see parts of it awake and then wonder how I ever didn’t know. Like it had been right in front of my eyes all along and just for a second some veil of obscurity was lifted. Sometimes there were years I didn’t remember anything.
Eventually I tried to leave it behind a second time, wanting to “start over” (I was not a good person in that life) and stop struggling with resolving my various beliefs about science and spirituality. If core wounds can be inherited from the past I guess that’s not going to happen.
Thanks for sharing Leigh. It must be very painful to carry these on-and-off memories, and I wonder if many of the issues you experience in this lifetime are a result of not exploring and fully accepting this past life? That is the scary but powerful value of shadow work, it plunges you to the depth of your identity and exposes many hidden unresolved wounds.