Signs of Past Life / Lives | Clues of our Previous Births |

Have you lived before? Here are 9 clues you might find in your present life

THE IDEA THAT our souls or spirits reincarnate reaches back at least 3,000 years. Discussions of the subject can be found in the ancient traditions of India, Greece, and the Celtic Druids. It’s a tantalizing belief – that our spirits are not confined to the seven, eight, or nine decades of life on Earth, but that we have lived before and that we might live again.

What do you believe? Do you believe that you have had a past life or lives, growing up, working, loving, and suffering in roles very different from the one you are now playing out? Perhaps you were a different race, socio-economic class, or gender. Some even believe you could have been another living species entirely – a dog, gazelle, or fish perhaps.

Those who believe in past lives suggest that there might be clues to what our past lives were in the various complex aspects that make up our current physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychological personalities.

The following is a list of many of the situations people report that may be glimpses of their own past lives. This is by no means a total list, but it will give you some food for thought.

• DÉJÀ VU

Most of us have experienced the eerie feeling of déjà vu – the sudden, surprising feeling that an event we are going through at the moment has happened exactly this way before. Psychologist Arthur Funkhouser has broken down this phenomenon into sub-categories: déjà vécu – an event already experienced or lived through; déjà senti – already felt, perhaps triggered by a voice or music; and déjà visité – a place so familiar we feel we’ve been there before.

While scientists and psychiatrists insist there are neurological explanations for these phenomena, others wonder if these strange feelings could be vague, fleeting memories of past lives. You enter a house or building, for example, in a town you’ve never visited before. Yet every detail of that place is familiar.

• WEIRD MEMORIES

One of my client’s daughter has “memories” of childhood events that we know never really happened. Is she just remembering a child’s fantasy, misunderstanding, or even a dream that she now interprets as reality? Or is she remembering something that happened to her before she was born into this lifetime?

Human memory is a fraught with error and incongruities, and I’m sure many of us have memories of things that family and friends can attest never occurred. So the question is: Is it faulty memory or a remembrance of lives past?

• DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

Dreams of being in another time and place. If you find yourself dressed in clothing from another era, or using some type of tools or implements which do not fit our time period, it may be a flashback dream from a previous lifetime. Also notice whether “others” in the dream are also dressed in a similar time period. Often these past life dreams have subject matter that is highly emotional and is quite vivid in detail. They may be triggered by an issue, or event in your life which relates to that past life time. These are dreams which you don’t easily forget. Recurring dreams and nightmares also have been suggested as being memories or at least clues of past lives. I have experienced this type of recurring dream. There are two locations with specific details that crop up in my dreams several times a year, yet they are places I have never been to.

The first is a large city and I am walking down the street… there is a candy/magazine store on the corner, and I go in any buy something… then I go farther down the street to another building, and in the lower level is a small restaurant where I meet some friends and make the acquaintance of some girls… and later I think that I must go back to that place to see if the girls are there again.

The second is a smaller city – I get the distinct feeling of a “college town” – and I can see the specific view of a specific corner, how it looks, what’s there, how the street slopes down, etc.

These are not memories of places or events that have happened in this life, yet they recur in my dreams often. Are they memories of something important that happened in a past life?

Likewise, can nightmares be reflections of past life traumas that have clung to our spirits and haunt our sleep?

• FEARS AND PHOBIAS

Where do your fears and phobias come from? Fear of such things as spiders, snakes, and heights seem to be built into the human psyche as part of our evolved survival instinct.

Many people suffer from phobias that are completely irrational, however. Fear of water, of birds, of numbers, of mirrors, of plants, of specific colors… the list goes on and on. People suffer from all kinds of bizarre phobias.

While several years on a psychologist’s couch might get to the root of those odd fears, those who believe in past lives wonder if they are carried over from a previous lifetime. Does a fear of water indicate a previous death by drowning? Could a fear of the color red suggest, for example, that a person was struck or killed by a red streetcar?

• AFFINITY FOR FOREIGN CULTURE

Strong feelings for a certain country, period of time, music or culture. Often my clients will tell me that they “feel so at home” in a particular country or culture. For them it feels like going home, or that they’ve been there before. It can also manifest as feelings of anxiousness or uneasiness about a certain country or culture. Take a look at the furniture and art pieces in your home. Is there a predominant theme from a certain time period or culture that you enjoy or feel comfortable with? And are there ones you really hate and would never consider placing in your home? Is there period music, such as Bagpipe or Native American Indian Flute music, which moves you to tears or that you feel very uncomfortable with for no apparent reason? Pay attention, because these past life hints are all around you.

You probably know a person who was born and raised in the United States but is an ardent anglophile – a person who is interested to the point of obsession with British culture. You might also know someone who can think of little else but getting dressed up and acting the part for the next Renaissance Fair or Civil War reenactment.

There are “philes” for virtually every culture on the planet, both modern and ancient, affecting people who seem to have no rationale for their obsessions. Why? Are they merely trying to find familiarity in a culture in which they lived 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago?

• PASSIONS

Here is a related subject. It’s good to have things that we are passionate about, as long as they do not become obsessive and debilitating.

But from where do passions arise for books, art, antiques, fashion, gardening, theatre, cars, trains, aircraft, the paranormal – or any number of other subjects?

Intense interest in a specific subject might be totally natural, of course, but might there be a past life connection in some cases?

• UNCONTROLLED HABITS

The dark side of passions are those uncontrolled habits and obsessions that take over people’s lives and can even marginalize them in society. Obsessive-compulsives and hoarders fit into this category. A man who has to turn the light switch off and on ten times before he leaves a room; a woman who collects newspapers into six-foot-high stacks throughout her house because she cannot bear to get rid of them.

Each of us has at least one bad habit, from fingernail biting to gossiping to procrastination. The extreme forms include addictions to everything from television to Facebook to drugs. Again, psychological explanations can be found for these uncontrolled habits, yet those who believe in reincarnation say they might have roots in past lives.

• INEXPLICABLE PAINS

Do you have aches and pains that the doctors cannot quite pinpoint or find a medical explanation for? You might be labeled a hypochondriac – a person who imagines his or her ailments. Or, as past life proponents suggest, those mysterious pains, sores, cramps, and more could be reflections of suffering you endured in a previous existence.

• BIRTHMARKS

Birthmarks have been touted as evidence for reincarnation. In one fascinating case, an Indian boy claimed to remember the life of a man named Maha Ram, who was killed with a shotgun fired at close range. This boy had an array of birthmarks in the center of his chest that looked like they could possibly correspond to a shotgun blast. So the story was checked out. Indeed, there was a man named Maha Ram who was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest. An autopsy report recorded the man’s chest wounds — which corresponded directly with the boy’s birthmarks. Common birthmarks, deformities or physical handicaps are often a result of a traumatic or powerful emotional experience in a past life. Birthmarks are often found through regressive hypnosis to be a type of emotional or psychic imprint from a cause of death or trauma in a previous lifetime. It is like an emotional wound or memory that was so strong, it carried through to this lifetime as a sort physically imprint at the site of the cause of death. However, its purpose can also be serving as a spiritual or emotional lesson to balance out past life actions. See my article entitled: The Compelling Evidence….You Have Lived Before!

In a similar way, various other physical traits – even deformities – have been suggested as having their precedent in a person’s former life.

• Talents and abilities at an early age. Example: gift of music, art, natural proclivities. We have all heard amazing stories of children who display uncanny talents and abilities at a very early age, yet had no training for it in this lifetime. These are most likely carry through talents or abilities from a past life. Take a look at your talents, abilities or strong points. Often it can be something as mundane as your ability to be diplomatic in difficult situations, or your ability to keep everyone calm during a stressful situation. Many of these are learned traits and strengths from previous lifetimes. What have you always seemed to be good at or came naturally or easily?
• Strong feelings (good or bad) for a significant person in your life. Strong emotional feelings or reactions to a particular individual are often a sign you’ve crossed paths before, and that your emotion is directly related to those past life experiences. Your Relationships May Be Rooted In Your Past Lives.
• Relationship problems or issues with a certain person. Example: Feels like husband is more like a brother than a husband.

• Conscious flashbacks of things which don’t fit here and now. Example: lifting a long skirt that isn’t there, when going upstairs. Stroking a beard or mustache that isn’t there, particularly if you’re a female. If you pay attention, you may periodically find yourself performing certain gestures or actions that do not fit this current lifetime. Unless you’re aware, they may go unnoticed. They can take place during quiet meditative states when you are rather oblivious to your actions, or when in a hurry and not aware of what you’re physically doing.

CONCLUSIONS

As I’ve noted, there certainly are or could be medical, psychological, or societal explanations for each of the phenomena above, and your experience with any of them does not necessarily mean that they can be attributed to a past life. After all, although there is some compelling case evidence for reincarnation and past lives, it is not a proved fact. Yet, this site is about alternate possibilities, and the notion that we have lived before and will live again is one that holds a great deal of fascination.