My Birth

I recommend doubters read a book called "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" by Dr. Ian Stevenson. Anyone who reads this book will then be equipped to intelligently discuss the matter.

childpastlives.org...

At the site above, you will find a link to an excellent article written by Tom Shroder which appeared in the Washington Post Magazine in 1999. Mr Shroder accompanied Dr. Stevenson on one of his many trips in researching children who recalled their past life. Here is a quote from that article:

The evidence he is referring to does not come from fashionable New Age sources, past-life readings or hypnotic regressions. It is homely and specific: A boy remembers being a 25-year-old mechanic, thrown to his death from a speeding car on a beach road. He recalls the name of the driver, the exact location of the crash, the names of the mechanic's sisters and parents and cousins, and the people he hunted with.

A girl remembers being a teenager named Sheila who was killed while crossing the road. She names the town Sheila lived in, plus Sheila's parents and siblings. When Sheila's family hears of the little girl's stories, they visit with her -- in front of witnesses who say the girl recognized them by name and relationship without prompting.

From the time he learns to talk, a boy in Virginia named Joseph calls his mother by her name and calls his grandmother Mom. As he grows, Joseph begins recalling obscure events from the life of his Uncle David, who died in an accident 20 years before Joseph was born -- and who has been rarely mentioned because of the family's abiding grief.

It's sad how quickly people dismiss their dreams as just entertainment or some jumble of unrelated imagery.

If you want to believe you know it all, your mind will not argue with you.

As an agnostic, I don't discount spirituality altogether. Reincarnation stories seem to me to be the best, albeit weak evidence for life after death. However the issue of reincarnation itself scares me to no end. If reincarnation is indeed real, then that means that I might have lived several lives only to not remember a single bit of them. Which IMO, makes the whole thing pointless. Its like a repeating hell of sorts. If everybody remembered past lives, then this fear of mine would not exist. Since at least you would have some continuity and maybe a sense of purpose for reincarnation experiences.

Due to how sketchy any actual evidence is concerning spirituality, stuff like this is the thing of nightmares to me. Reincarnation being what it is now, I'd rather not exist at all after death.

[edit on 14-6-2005 by heelstone]

Ksnazdnzon,

I agree that we should not put to much faith in our dreams being an actual experience, but I wanted to share a few points of interest with everyone.

Also, you wouldn't be able to dream before your born, mabye a 2-3 years later?

They may not be able to tell us about their dreams, but they do dream.

The amount of dreaming varies over our lifetime. We dream in the womb, by the way. They've measured fetuses eye movement, which appear to be similar to what they have after birth. Whether they have images that accompany the experience we don't really know because we can't talk with the infant or with the fetus.
The earliest documented dream where there are images accompanying it is an 18-month old child whom [a researcher] heard speaking in their sleep. After the child woke up they told the researcher about the dream. At that age a child can talk about the dream. With newborns there's a tremendous amount of the physical component of dreaming. About 80 percent of the sleep time of the neonatal infant and the newborn infant is in the REM state.

health.discovery.com...
see also:
www.drgreene.com...
Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine in the Child, WB Saunders, 1995

Studies show memory function in utero and in newborn. Without any way of communication with newborns, we don't know how developed their memory skills might be, but they are there.

As for remembering your birth, I don't think you did, you could have imagined it. As a newborn baby, you really don't have the mind capacity to even understand or be self-aware of your existance, let alone remember anything.

The following review draws on recent experimental evidence to consider two questions: does the fetus have a memory? And if so, what functions(s) does it serve? Evidence from fetal learning paradigms of classical conditioning, habituation and exposure learning reveal that the fetus does have a memory.

www.cirp.org...