Excuse another of my clunky thread titles; I’m trying to make it clear that this question is for anyone, even if you don’t necessarily believe in reincarnation.
Many years ago I read a few books about “discovering your past lives”. One of the exercises was to answer a series of questions about things you are strongly attracted to, such as style of architecture, furniture, clothing, etc. There was more but I don’t recall at the moment. At any rate, what got me to thinking about this is the overwhelming attraction I have to Mad Men. I love it for many reasons that I won’t belabor here - we have plenty of threads about the show - but what always stands out to me is my fascination with the era in which it takes place. It’s very hard for me to describe, but it’s almost a longing, like there’s a very vague sense of having been there. It could just be simply that it’s a well done show, but that’s not the point. I’m wondering what other people find themselves so enamored of they could almost believe they lived in its time of origin.
When I was a teenager I was into new age stuff including reincarnation. I was always surprised by how many people claimed to have had past lives where they were in the same time/place as Jesus. Considering of the 108 billion humans who have ever lived only about 3 million lived in Judea at Jesus time you’d expect less than 1/30000 but nope. And that was just to live somewhat near him, lots of people said they actually knew the guy or saw the crucifixion.
That is neither here nor there, however people have a very euro centric view of reincarnation. No one remembers being Chinese or Aztec. Or being a kid who died in childhood (half of those 108 billion humans died as children, mostly from disease).
Anyway, I’d wager half my past lives were me dying as a kid. The other half, no idea. If anything I belong in the future, I identify with Sci fi far more than the past.
This is clearly my first go as a human, too. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I may have been a cat on an earlier go around, though. Maybe even more than once.
However, I refuse to believe that this is my last try at humanity. I’ve pretty much bollixed this try, but I’ve learned a lot along the way. There’s simply no justice if I don’t get a second go, and a chance to put my experience to use. And the universe can’t be that unfair.
I may have to work my way back up again from dust mite, though. I guess we’ll see.
I really didn’t mean for this to turn into a debate about reincarnation - it’s just supposed to be a silly hypothetical question. That being said, I’ve met plenty of people who claim memories of having lived in different cultures. I personally don’t have any memory of living in the late fifties / early sixties (I was born in '66)I just have an oddly strong pull toward it and I was wondering if anyone else has things that spark something in them.
What would the benefits be of having another turn being human compared to being one of your pets? I mean I see cats playing video games all the time now.
I believe I had 3, ending in abortion, abortion/death, and I believe infanticide probably at or shortly after the time of birth - all modern times and I have met my mothers. The middle (abortion/death) one was the time I actually died for love, the other times I chose life over death and did not suffer death at the end but was taken out.
In the beginning we were asked a series of questions and told to write down our first thought, no thinking about it.
When asked the question ‘what is the worst way to die?’, I wrote being ripped apart and eaten by a polar bear.
I have no idea where that came from.
I guess I was an Eskimo in a past life.
What was weird was another person in the class wrote the same thing.
If I had previous lives, they would all have been as peasants, working until I died at 23 or something. No royalty, no Jesus, nothing special at all. And if I had done it right, I wouldn’t be here now, so obviously I was as stubborn then as I am now.
A submariner during WWII. I was utterly terrified to go aboard the USS Drum on the Cleveland seashore when I was a preschooler, FWIW, and have always been fascinated by submarines.
I’m a little obsessed with the 1920s and '30s, so maybe in a past life I was born around 1900. It’s not any particular aspect of that time period that interests me, either – it’s just…daily life experience. What people wore, did for a living, their transportation, medicine, household goods, recipes, leisure activities – like, send me back in a time machine and let me experience the full life of someone in 1920-1939.
E: But I was probably a peasant. I’ve done some genealogy work and as far as I can tell, I come from peasant farmers on all branches of the family tree. Doesn’t really jibe with my fear of horses, unless a horse kicked me to death in some life cycle or other.
As a child, I picked up the French language with so much ease that it makes me mildly wonder if I might have ever known it before. You could put it down to facility with languages, but I didn’t take to Latin or Italian or German nearly so easily as French.
Why don’t people ever remember a previous life as a subsistence farmer, who never left his village and died of some loathsome disease at the age of thirty? It’s always princes and warriors.
I was just going to answer that my family probably was subsistence farmers. My great-uncle was until the day he died. My grandpa was a doctor, but before that, I’m sure they were all dirt poor and grubbing in the dirt.
My dad’s family was better off, but you know, I might be a manual laborer instead of a farmer. :rolleyes:
I was just going to answer that my family probably was subsistence farmers. My great-uncle was until the day he died. My grandpa was a doctor, but before that, I’m sure they were all dirt poor and grubbing in the dirt.