Examining the Nature of Past Life Memories

One of the tendencies I developed early in life was studying my experiences. Rather than just being in them, having what seemed like a purely subjective experience, I would take on a dissociated perspective and examine them as if I was someone else watching my experiences from a neutral and detached perspective. This allowed me to see things that I couldn’t see otherwise. I maintained and continued to develop this tendency as I went along in life, where I always felt like I was two people at once, both the parent and the child in the same situation. When I was really young I related this to having a very distinct relationship with what I thought of as my guardian angel, and as I grew older, came to call my higher self, where I would move back and forth from being in the experience of my life as an intrinsic part of it, while simultaneously being outside of it looking in, watching and guiding myself on what to do and how to utilize what was happening to foster my own growth.

When I became involved in doing past life regression as a hypnotic process (I’m a hypnosis practitioner), I realized the same thing about my own memories. While I was in the experience of what was clearly a memory, there was another part of me that was “watching the experience” from outside of it at a distance. The part of me that was watching what was happening was experiencing it in a different, yet similar way. It’s hard to explain in practical terms, because this outer, detached, non-personal part of us, which participates in the experiences while also regulating it, is purely spiritual and mental (invisible) in nature. You never see a body or relate to it as having a physical or even astral form, but you feel it as a distinct presence that’s always with you, around you, and watching over and guiding you. It comes as your own inner voice commanded by what seems like a higher authority that’s detached and all-knowing. It’ a part of you that’s never emotionally involved or attached to what’s happening and is not based on your physical senses or material circumstances. It’s completely rational and seems to hover out in the periphery of your mental sphere, looking in and watching the experience as a “whole pattern”, rather than from one perspective located within the greater whole.

This non-personal part of me was the governing aspect of the other part of me that was directly in the experience, feeling it in a very personal and emotional manner. Naturally, I immediately related this to what I had experienced my whole life as being a higher, more mature, and parental part of me. When I was young, I thought it was my guardian angel, always helping, protecting, and looking out for me, and as I grew older and more mature, I came to think of it as an intimate part of me that I embodied and used to grow and transform myself through the most difficult and traumatizing times of my life. At certain points, when I was really struggling and felt abandoned and completely alone in life, I felt disconnected from it, but as soon as I began asking for help in not knowing what to do, it immediately came to my rescue and began comforting and talking me through things in a very mater-of-fact way.

I was both in a body, having the experience in a very direct and personal manner, feeling it as something that was happening to me beyond my ability to control or stop it, and outside of it without a body or being a part of it, observing and feeling it in a more reflective manner. From the outer perspective it was more about the meaning of what was happening, and it was as if I was directing my own thoughts and reactions in an indirect and somewhat subtle manner, which played out like an emotional drama. Even though a part of me was in a different body and life situation, it was still “me” having the experience, feeling the way it made me feel, and making the decisions in response to what was happening. At no point in the entire life experience did I feel as if I was a different person in terms of my nature and character, I was simply a different person in terms of my physical body and life circumstances.

I don’t recall my experiences of “myself” being significantly different whether I was male or female, it simply meant I played a different role in whatever my situation was, or that I was in significantly different life circumstances, because internally, I felt the same way and had the same type of personality. The only thing that was truly different was my identity and what role I played in a greater life drama, where I was the central character and main star of my own movie. Internally, in terms of my nature and how I felt, I was the same, it was only my outer appearance and reality that was different each time. The outer circumstances of each life only served to develop different parts of my character based on how I went through what was happening, shaping my identity in relation to what was happening.

This is why reincarnation is represented as an 8-spoked wheel (with 8 representing the principle of periodic renewal of reoccurring cycles), where the outer part of the wheel moves as a repeating cycle of ever changing conditions and terrain, while the central hub that holds the spokes together appears to barely move and remains somewhat stationary while spinning on its central axis. In each lifetime, it’s the same axis and central core holding it all together in a consistent manner. Each lifetime, with all its varying aspects, simply provides us with the means for experiencing ourselves (Self) in new ways, and through the different conditions and circumstances of each life, we develop different parts of our character to a new level of expression, growing and evolving ourselves as a result. I never encountered anything about my life experiences that were shocking or indifferent, because it was still me living, doing, and feeling it.

This is what forms one of the greatest and most prevalent illusions we have regarding our own nature. We don’t realize, I mean truly realize, that we are in fact multidimensional beings, not only residing on 3 parallel levels of our “mind, soul, and self” simultaneously, but also living multiple lives simultaneously. This defies logic and so it’s hard to truly wrap our head around, because it doesn’t seem to make sense. We are both our body and personality, our guardian angel and higher self, and our own spirit guide . . . all at the same time. They’re simply played out on different levels and scales. It’s more about moving between different perspectives in the same overall experience. We imagine that these different aspects of ourselves are separate from us, and being up there, or out there, where we have to summon or connect with them in spirit or mentally through prayer, when in reality they’re different aspects of our mind and soul that reside on the periphery of our mental sphere looking in (self-reflecting), rather than being in the center looking out, perceiving ourselves as an entire reality of our own making. This can be difficult to truly understand, because from the internal perspective, we’re an intrinsic part of the experience, and from the outer perspective, we’re examining the experience in terms of being a part of the bigger picture playing out.  

Every time a hypnosis practitioner acted to regress me into memories of the past (which are actually concurrent), they would start by instructing me to “connect with my spirit guides”, plural, to “protect me” through the process, because traversing the astral plane of elementaries can be a bit ghoulish and unnerving at times. This would disrupt my process because it was completely a belief on their part that they were attempting to imprint on me, usually because that’s what they were taught to do. I had to tell them before we began to not say this or even think about it (the thoughts of the hypnotist are impressed on the mental sphere of the person being hypnotized), because I didn’t need protection. I am my own protector, experiencer, and guide. Our higher self seems to be “out there” because it resides on the outer rim of our mental sphere, viewing our life experiences as whole events, rather than steps in a linear process, where we’re only conscious and aware of what step or stage of the greater process we’re in at the moment.

Here’s what I want to point out about the true and powerful importance that comes from reliving key memories of a past or different lifetime. The same patterns and tendencies play out in all lifetimes, they simply play out within different types of circumstances, with a different cast of characters (although sometimes they’re the same cast of characters), and in a modified or somewhat unique manner. When you view a past life, you can see these patterns, or the main pattern, from a detached perspective that brings immediate insights into the same feelings and tendencies you’re continuing to play out in your current life, albeit through a different set of circumstances. This is because the primary perspective from which you review a past life, is from your higher self, which resides outside viewing it from a distance, watching and feeling the experience while self-reflecting on what it means. This is the part of you that’s eternal and transcends the death of your body, and the life circumstances of your physical existence, while fully retaining and integrating the memory of it. Your body and personal consciousness formed from within the body, as the body, is temporary and mortal. The identity you form out of your physical body and life circumstances ceases to exist once your body dies and your higher mind and Soul separate from it, causing it to begin disintegrating. The only use the body has in the ultimate (spiritual) sense, is it allows you – the eternal, spiritual you – to experience yourself through a dynamic set of self-imposed limitations, as being a certain type of person.

The reason we have a hard time realizing our tendencies and the patterns we’re actively playing out in our life, is because we’re attached to them mentally and emotionally, while being basically unconscious and unaware of what we’re doing in the direct sense. While we reside in a physical body, we’re predominately unconscious and unaware of our true, divine and eternal self. Our conscious mind, which is an “aspect” of our higher conscious mind, forms what we experience as “self-awareness”, but its only aware of itself as its physical existence and is unaware of itself outside of or apart from its physical existence.

But once you become aware of the patterns you’re playing out in another lifetime, you immediately form an awareness of how you’re playing out the same patterns and tendencies in your current life. And that awareness, formed from a detached and non-personal perspective, is what allows you to recognize and change your own tendencies by breaking habitual patterns, freeing the mental energy used to maintain them to form new patterns in their place. You get to “view yourself” from a detached and dissociated perspective, where instead of being in the experience as a part of it, you see it as though you’re a different person, and instead of only relating to it from one perspective or role, you see yourself as only one actor in a cast of actors, all of whom are playing different roles in acting out the same story as a life theme.

This not only helps you see your own tendencies in a very clear manner but also helps you to understand how everyone who participates with you in acting out the same drama as a thematic pattern, are actually aspects of “yourself” that you perceive as being different people. This is where things become very elusive and paradoxical, if not downright strange, because we think of ourselves as a single aspect (person), playing a particular role within a greater dynamic, when, from a higher, outer, or greater perspective, we’re actually the entire pattern being played out as a life theme. We’re every character in our own story, each influencing the other, bringing out the traits and behaviors necessary to cooperatively participate in playing out the same idea as a “type of experience”.

All humans are comprised of the same formula of characteristics, and each act on everyone else to bring out the same character traits they possess, and together form a greater idea-pattern played out as a life drama that brings each person the same type of feeling-experience. This is why we always end up incarnating into different lifetimes with the same, or similar group of souls, all of whom have been conditioned to the same type of life drama. Where each person plays a complementary role in reenacting the same type of life experience where they possess the same idiosyncrasies, personality traits, and behaviors. While we tend to think that we’re only conditioned to one role and perspective in a greater dynamic, we’re actually conditioned to the whole dynamic, and play every role in acting it out, some from an unconscious state, where we’re provoking the pattern through natural behaviors, and others from a conscious state, where we act intentionally and with a sense of purpose.

One of the things that surprised me was that in asking for more information regarding a certain part of my life (you set an intention as an inquiry, which determines what life memory you access), the life I accessed and answers I realized explained all areas of my life, some of which originally seemed unrelated to each other, yet they played out as a coherent part of an even greater pattern, which exists as a life-theme. This is because, while we have a tendency to see our life as a bunch of unrelated patterns, where we compartmentalize them, imagining that our personal relationships have nothing to do with our career or job, our financial status, health, and so on, in a higher, more fundamental sense, our life and all its contents and events are parts of a bigger pattern played out as an overall theme, where every part, down to the smallest and most insignificant, plays a vital role in the entire pattern.

This idea is represented in integrative practices by what’s called a “life wheel”, which is formed as a circle divided into eight sections. Each section represents an area of our life – health, relationships, family, financial, career, spirituality, etc. – all stemming from a central core, which forms and holds all areas of our life in balance forming a greater idea that provides us with a consistent type of experience. Out of our personality (basic nature) and identity (shaped by the roles we play), we systematically create all areas of our life out of the same basic character and life-theme. Where one area of our life is an extension of all others.

Once we fully understand that there’s always two fundamental aspects of ourselves which work together in forming our experience of reality, one from within it as a part of it, and one outside watching and directing it, we can learn how to move between these correlating perspectives in being able to self-reflect and come to know the deeper, hidden aspects of our own mind and psyche. We can learn how to recognize our own unconscious tendencies which play out habitually in an automated fashion forming the basis for our overall life experiences, and as a result, begin correcting ourselves through an awareness of who we really are in the eternal sense. We can begin seeing our life as the expression of our whole being, rather than a bunch of disjointed chaotic events that leave us feeling distraught and helpless in our own life creation. Once we become aware of what previously eluded us about ourselves and why our life is the way it is, we position ourselves to be able to change our own habits in a fully conscious and meaningful manner. The premise of our soul’s journey through life is to become whole again, create our life with a sense of meaning and purpose, and reside in the blissful feeling it creates within us.

Dr. Linda Gadbois  

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher