Past Life Regression Experiences: Drop your chains
People come for past life regression for many reasons. My client yesterday was driven by curiosity. He was over 70 years old and had always wanted to find out if he had past lives.
He went into trance quite easily. I got him to imagine that he was lying in a luxurious chair. I deepened him twice until he has lost contact with his body. When he was well into trance I suggested that he felt like floating.
Then I put him into a boat drifting down the river. As he was floating down the river I told him that he was passing parts of his life.
I told him that he would see a scene from his present life in childhood that had some special significance for him. "The image may or may not be something you remember. But your will see and hear everything that was going on in that place."
Setting up for past lives regression
He described a scene that was outdoors with lots of people having fun on a sunny day. He was watching it from a distance and wanted to be a part of it. This established that he was able and willing to go back into his own memories.
I suggested that the boat was going further down the river. The river narrowed and turned into a tunnel. The boat was going down the tunnel, dark and calm. I then suggested that he saw a light, or a vibration, or something else which was a guide to him. The guide took him to a place outside the tunnel for his first past life regression experience.
First Past Lives Experience
He said he was in some place. I prompted him and he said it was indoors. There were chains. He was cold, there were other people there but he could not see them. He was dressed very poorly. It was very dim and the light might be coming from flames. I asked him why he was there and he said he was there for punishment.
He said he was aged about 20 but did not know what the date was, or what year it was. I asked him how he felt and he said he felt depressed. "Why are you being shown that scene? What lesson does that past life have for you?" He said "Maybe it's because I can move, and I'm not actually chained?"
Second past lives experience
I then told him to take a deep breath and come out of that place. I suggested that the boat was going deeper into the tunnel. The walls were coming in and the water was going faster and there were waves and there was a noise up ahead. Once again, I suggested a guide appeared who took him out of there.
Then I suggested he was going to come to some high place. He told me that in that place there was sunshine, the sky was blue, there was a green valley below. I asked him what was going on there. He said he was just there for the view.
I asked him what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to fly. I asked him what he called the place. He said it had no name. I asked him who he was. He said that he was a child. I asked them if it was a boy or a girl. He never answered. I asked him how he was dressed. He said he had bare feet. He then volunteered that there was bare rock all around. Then he repeated that he really wanted to fly from there. He took a deep breath and came back from that particular life.
Third past lives experience
For his third past life, I told him that he was in the boat. The tunnel was getting narrower and narrower and the boat was shrinking, and he was shrinking until he had shrunk down to a point. I told him that this point was floating in space in the place between lives. I asked him what he could see, what he was experiencing.
He said he was in a void. I pressed for more details but he only could say that there were planets there. He was floating around among the stars. I tried to find out who he was and what he was doing, but the only thing he told me was that he was young.
What past lives regression is about
He wanted to talk about his experiences. We talked about his feeling of wanting to join in with other people playing, and he said that was exactly how he felt growing up. As a child, he was always on the edge of things, he never felt that he belonged with other kids. He said of the PLR experience with the chains, "thinking about it now, it is really how I feel about my life".
He had a successful business but he really wanted to not be chained to it and and wanted to retire. I asked him about the flying past lives experience and he said he had had that dream before. He said it probably represents wanting to get away from everything.
Past Life Regression experiences: The golden temple
This client wanted to do a past life regression simply out of curiosity. She felt that there was more to life than appeared on the surface. I explained the procedure for past lives regression to her and in particular about using Clean Language so as not to lead her.
Like most past lives hypnosis, I started with a progressive muscle relaxation induction and tested several times to make sure that she was in trance. Then I deepened her so that she was relaxing in some safe place. "In that place you can forget about your body, you can forget about who you are, you can forget about everything."
The next stage was to suggest that she was floating in a cloud. I then told her "that cloud is thinning and clearing. As the mist clears you find yourself back in a place before you were born".
Past Lives 1
She said that she was looking through a hole, like in a wall. Everything was purple. There were people on the outside looking in at her. She wasn't sure what was going on. I tried to get her to explore her surroundings, but she couldn't get anything else. She told me afterwards that this was a dream that she had quite often.
Past lives 2
The second regression started with her saying "I feel I am underwater. I can't see anything". Then she found herself at ground level looking at horses. She was aware that there was a war going on, and she was helping one side against the other. But the people they were going to fight were not people.
They actually were monsters, they were very big, like dragons. "I have no idea what I'm doing here. I have no idea how I'm going to help anyone else." And then she said, almost laughing, "I am a blade of grass. I can see it all, but I am a blade of grass".
Past lives 3
The third regression took to her to a place in Dakota. She was a man. She was some sort of shaman or medicine man. I asked her how she was dressed. She said "I am all dressed up in ceremonial gear. I'm wearing feathers over my usual clothes. A full Indian headdress."
"And what is going on in that place?" "I am leading my people in a ceremony. We are begging for rain. The land is dying."
I asked her "And how does that make you feel?". She said "lonely". Then she said, "I know that everyone else is going to die. I am the only one who will survive. And that makes me sad".
Past lives 4
The fourth past lives regression took her to a place that she described as "beautiful, beautiful, beautiful". She seemed filled with wonder at being in this place. She sat in the chair and her head was moving with her eyes closed, as if she was looking around someplace that she was in.
I asked her to describe it. "It is a temple filled with gold. I am dancing in the temple. I am sad because there is a man going away. A man I love. I cannot love him. I am not allowed to love him".
And she said, "I am too old to do magic. I cannot prevent this. I want to be with him but I have to stay in the temple." She went on to describe the temple "it's a beautiful place, a wonderful place. And I will be forever dancing in the temple. Because I am trapped here now".
Past lives are Fascinating.
Past Life Regression Experiences: The Empty Bridge
What if you have no past lives to explore?
I had a client yesterday who wanted to explore his past lives. He said it was purely out of curiosity. He was of East Asian origin, and has a long history of mental awareness training. Each day he chants for an hour and a half. Despite the chanting, and having studied meditation, he told me that he has never succeeded in getting into trance.
I discussed past life regression with him, what I was going to do, and what to expect. He seemed quite happy with my proposed approach. I was a little worried about the fact that he had never experienced trance.
Leading him into trance
So I set out to teach him self hypnosis. I used a Progressive Muscle Relaxation induction. He went quite quickly into trance. Then I deepened him with a countdown deepener. Then, to be totally sure, I did an eye catalepsy test.
In trance, I got him to try to open his eyes to prove to himself that he was in trance. He could not open his eyes, his mind had taken control of his body.
I then brought him out of trance and talked to him about the experience. He was delighted with the trance experience. He reported that his body felt numb from the neck down. We discussed self hypnosis and depth of trance.
He asked how he could go back into trance again. To show him how easy it was, I got him to close his eyes, relax his body, and then I put him back into trance with a countdown induction. I explained how he could now do this himself.
Testing his subconscious recall ability
I then use this as the lead in to PLR. I deepened him again using the vanishing numbers induction and led him to a river. He was walking along a riverbank when he came to a boat tied up at the side. He got into the boat which was filled with luxurious fabrics. I told him to sink down into the fabrics, and I deepened him again on those.
Then I set the boat drifting down the river and suggested to him that he was seeing memories of his own life as he went down the river. He told me that he saw his parents, teachers, and recalled some incidents from his childhood. I was satisfied that he could visualize, and he could find memories from his own subconscious mind.
Searching for his past lives
Then I told him that the boat was drifting into a long tunnel which was completely dark. Then his boat drifted out into light on the other side. In that place everything was mist. I suggested he could see things but he could not describe anything.
I tried several other ways of getting him to experience a past lives but he did not get a connection. He said there was something holding him back from going into the mist.
I brought him out of trance and we talked about why he could not access his past lives. He suggested that he was perhaps not ready for it. I told him that he should practice more on his own, so that he could go into trance easily, quickly, and certainly.
He agreed that he now knew how to do that. He was looking forward to testing out his own mind in trance. We ended the session on that note. Even though we didn't find any past lives, he seemed quite pleased with the session overall.
How you can have no past lives?
I have an open mind on the whole Past Lives concept. But if it is true, then for it to work, there must exist a soul that was in somebody else before you. However, there are more people alive right now than have ever lived in the whole of history.
Ancient populations were tiny compared to the vast global population today. So, if there are more bodies than there ever have been in the past, then logically there must be people being born today who cannot have had a previous life. Perhaps this man was one of those?
Past Life Regression Experiences: Medical Use
I recently had a client who booked me for a past lives regression session. I am always happy to do these
because I am fascinated by what the mind brings up. A lot of my clients are totally convinced that they lived one or more past lives and want to know about them.
I have done many past lives but it never occurred to me that it could be used for medical reasons. This client asked me to listen to an online radio broadcast that he thought I should hear in order to be able to do the type of Past Lives regression he wanted. The broadcast covered all the normal stuff. It all seemed fairly run-of-the-mill and not particularly noteworthy.
However, the speaker is an MD, a qualified surgeon specialising in cancer. He described many past lives cases. He said that he has had great success working with patients who are terminally ill. He works with those patients, hypnotizes them, and takes them back through their past lives.
Palliative past lives regression
This has had an amazing effect on a lot of patients who have only a few weeks or months to live. It puts their own imminent death into context. Knowing that they have had past lives allows them to reframe their impending death as simply a one step in an endless cycle. They cease to fear death and just accept it as an inevitable part of a much larger process.
I think this is a wonderful use of hypnosis. Whether you believe in past lives or not, giving comfort to the dying in a very direct and vivid way has to be worthwhile.
Past Life Regression Experiences: Why I can't find my past lives
My reason for wanting to visit you is that I am interested in my past life regression (if any) and a stronger connection/understanding of Higher Power and Spiritual awareness.
This client seemed quite bubbly and outgoing. She was very well dressed. Actually dressed very young. I was much surprised later when she said that she was 50 years old. I got the impression later that it was all a façade.
She put out this image of being up, and alert, and outgoing but in fact she felt quite differently inside. She feels disconnected from everything and everybody. That longing for connection is why she thought it might be good to find her past lives.
Hypnosis Childhood Regression
I was not at all sure that she was a candidate for past lives regression. Nothing in what she told me about herself and her feelings seem to have anything to do with the standard past lives regression requests.
I decided to do the regression with her anyway. I took her into trance using a walk along a river. "You will find something significant from your younger life that has a bearing on what you are feeling today." After a long time, she told me that she was seeing a horse.
I questioned her about the horse. It was a horse that her parents had given her. I asked her how she felt about the horse, did she love the horse? "No, I just feel confused". She had no idea what to do with the horse. She could not ride it, she knew nothing about horses.
When she had been given this horse all she felt was confusion. Her parents had taken down to this place in the country and just said to her "this is your horse". No preparation, no training, no nothing. Apparently, this was quite typical of her upbringing. Her parents really were quite clueless about children. Her parents were very cold and distant people.
Regression to her past lives
I tried to take her back to a time before this present life. She told me she was getting nothing, feeling nothing. I pressed on with finding a life. Still nothing. Then I asked her what she was feeling. "Small and lonely."
I used that feeling to start an Inner Child therapy. But part way through she said "I am not seeing any child." So I stopped that, and deepened her hypnotic trance again.
Parts therapy
Since she was already in trance, I decided to try to work on her feeling of loss of connection. I took her to a place where she was floating in a void. In that place a Presence told her that it was the part of her that controlled all the other parts. The Presence showed her the part of her that was causing the connection problems.
She visualized getting other parts of her to repair the damaged part that could not connect. She was able to repair the part of her that was causing the connection problems. I then brought her out of trance we talked about her experience for a while.
Resisting hypnosis
She described how as she was going into trance, she felt herself constantly fighting against what I was saying. This matched what I observed as I was inducing her. I led her into trace with my standard induction of Breathing, Favorite place, Stairs. She seemed very susceptible, except that she was one of those people who keep moving around.
After the stairs induction I always test with an eye catalepsy. I suggested that she could not open her eyes, and then suggested that she test it. She was unable to open her eyes. But about 10 seconds later she did briefly open her eyes then close them again. Still unwilling to give up control.
So, I decided to make absolutely sure she was in trance. I did a beach induction. I said "imagine lying on a beach somewhere comfortable, relaxed, nothing to do. Now, focus on the waves rolling up the beach, and back down again."
I suggested "As each wave pulls away, you feel yourself being pulled with it. And every wave is taking you deeper and deeper." She told me later that she could feel herself being pulled down by the waves, but was frantically clawing back up again all the time I was talking to her.
She clearly did not like giving up control. I then did a vanishing numbers induction. Finally, she surrendered and went into trance.
The real reason for lack of connection
Then I started asking about her own feelings. "Would you say your mind is always busy?" She said, "oh yes". I showed her the anxiety grid and she agreed that she was all over it.
So I suggested to her that her feeling of disconnection was much more likely due to a mild form of depression, rather than having anything to do with a past lives connection. Then I asked her "Would your mother be on that list of symptoms?" At that point she told me "I was adopted".
We then talked about her relationships with her brother and the couple who brought them up. She said that she always felt quite distant as a child. I explained that this was a symptom of dysthymia. We then spent 30 minutes talking about how depression might be affecting her.
Why people can't find past lives
I think that the unrecognized depression completely explains her feelings of not belonging anywhere. It also explains her need to never give up control.
I have done quite a few past lives regressions recently. Comparing my notes on each of them, I have come to an idea about people who find no past lives.
Either they are not willing to allow themselves to submit to the power of past lives, or they are actually are frightened of losing control of their own consciousness. Their desire to stay in control is incompatible with letting go enough to experience their past lives.
Past Life Regression Experiences: My bucket list
There are many questions in therapy designed to make you examine your own life, your own values, and even your own place in the universe.
There is the Dare question: "what would you do if you knew you could not fail?"
Then there is the Funeral question: "imagine that you are lying in your coffin, and friends and family are gathered round to farewell you. What would they say about you, to sum up your life?"
And then there is the Focus question: "what would you do if you knew that you had only one year left to live?"
Life coaches and therapists use these questions to focus your mind what is really important in life. The question is a measure of where you are, as opposed to where you want to be. These questions can be very powerful in concentrating your mind.
Do you really want the people at your funeral to be saying "she was really good at watching television"? Sadly, for too many people that is the reality.
Past Lives Case: the man who will know for sure
I mention these because recently I had a client come to me who is interested in his Past Lives. He told me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had approximately eight months left to live. His visit was because he wanted to find out if there was anything to this past life business. After all, he would be finding out the actual answer quite soon.
I was totally taken aback by his matter-of-fact approach to his own impending death. He didn't look unwell. He seemed quite calm about the whole business. "I have come to terms with it", he said. I thought it was an amazingly healthy attitude to the worst thing that could happen to you.
He said that he gets quite mixed reactions when he tells people that he has less than a year left to live. The most common reaction apparently, is "So why don't you go travelling around the world? Go and dine in all the world's finest restaurants? Do all the things you always wanted to do?"
He surprised me with his answer. He said "If I had wanted to do any of those things, I would have done them by now. Just because you know that you are going to die doesn't make you into a different person. You like what you always liked. And your instinct is to keep doing what you've always done."
So I guess I now have a better insight into the answer to the question "what would you do if you knew you had just a year left to live?"
Makes you think, doesn't it?
What would your reaction be on learning you had only a short time to live?
He asked me not to share his past lives experience.
Past Life Regression Experiences: Reincarnation
This client was an Indian woman. Her culture believes in reincarnation. She wanted to do a Past Lives Regression to explain why she felt the way she did. Given her cultural beliefs it was natural to suspect that it might be due to some bad Karma in a previous life.
Symptoms
She was worried about not having many childhood memories. Her husband can remember lots of details from his early childhood, but she can't. She remembers being afraid as a child. She has the same dreams over and over.
I asked about her life, and personality. She has few friends, does not feel close to anyone, and has high expectations of herself and others. When people don't live up to her expectations, she gets irritated easily. Her father was angry all the time, and her mother was withdrawn.
This list of symptoms suggested to me that she might have depression. I got her to take a questionnaire, and she does have depression. She was very reluctant to admit it. She insisted her problems were because of something from her past lives.
Past Life Regression
I have no problems with accepting that her past lives might be the actual cause. The past lives might be the origin of the depression in her family. So I started to hypnotize her. She resisted going into trance. I had to use several inductions before I got one that worked.
When she was in trance, I deepened her, and got her to visualize a room full of friends, people she felt comfortable with, in a happy situation. This was as a precaution, a safe place that I could put her into if she had some unpleasant experiences while in her past lives.
The regression started with her drifting down a river in a boat. I suggested that the boat was taking her back into an earlier part of her life. I wanted to test several points in her current life, to make certain that she could actually visualize.
Visualizing her past lives
In trance, I let her float down a river in a boat. I told her to think of some significant event from her teenage years, something that was significant to her current emotions. I wanted to let her experience real memories from her current life, as a sort of starter.
The boat stopped at a significant point in her teens, but she could not see anything. No matter what age I stopped the boat at, she was not seeing anything at all.
I therefore decided to get her even more deeply relaxed. I often have to do this in Past Lives cases. I deepened her again, and this time I got her to imagine she was floating in a warm bath. The warm bath visualization allowed me to use a self esteem metaphor about the water melting off the layers of things wrapped around her.
These things were preventing her letting out her emotions. When the layers melted she was able to imagine being reborn, shedding all the restraints of this current life.
After that, I tried to get her to go back again, down the ages to some point between lives. All she got was "Cold and Dark and Empty". She clearly was getting no messages from any past lives.
No past lives?
I brought her out of trance and we talked about what she experienced, and what she did not experience. I told her that her in my opinion, the "dark empty place" she found was significant. It was telling her she was new soul, and there were no past lives in her past.
She was still not convinced, she wanted to believe that all her problems were from from a past lives. She would not accept that depression was a better explanation for her symptoms.
But she was happy enough to find out that she was a new life, and was not being influenced by any bad past lives.
I hope that at some point, she will come back and sort out her childhood issues. No one should have to carry around pain from any source, whether childhood or their own past lives.
