Past Life Regression: Did I Just Make the Whole Thing Up?
Recently, I asked people on my Substack chat what they wanted to know about past lives and past life regression.
I didn’t get hundreds of questions flooding in, but the ones I did get were good ones.
And, interestingly, many of them circled around the same themes.
How do I know I didn’t just make it up?
Can something from another lifetime really affect who I am now?
Could unexplained reactions to places, pictures, scents or objects actually be real memories?
And if I uncover a pattern from another life, am I stuck with it?
AND the stranger questions:
Can two people remember the same past life?
Can a past life relationship follow you into this life and feel like a soulmate connection?
Can you remember a future life instead of a past one?
So jokingly, rather than pretending I have access to everyone’s cosmic filing cabinet containing everyone’s complete reincarnation history, I thought I would answer a few of the questions that have come up the most.
What is Past Life Regression?
Past Life Regression (also known as PLR) is a hypnotic process that allows someone to enter a deeply relaxed state and explore impressions, images, emotions, sensations and stories that arise from our subconscious.
Some people experience something almost cinematic.
Others receive fragments of memories.
A face. A room. A landscape. A physical sensation. A sudden knowing that seems to arrive almost out of nowhere.
And some people spend the first several minutes wondering:
Am I just making this up?
Which brings us to probably the most common question of all:
How Do I Know I Didn’t Just Make It Up?
The short answer is that sometimes you don’t.
Although some people have done their research afterwards to confirm certain details and speculations, there is no little bell that rings halfway through or at the end of a past life regression announcing: Congratulations. Historically verified past life!
One of the biggest misconceptions about past life regression is that imagination and meaningful subconscious material are somehow opposites.
They aren’t necessarily.
The subconscious mind communicates through imagery, symbolism, emotion, association, sensation and memory. So something beginning that feels like imagination does not automatically make it meaningless.
During a past life regression, I strongly encourage people not to stop every few seconds to analyze what they are experiencing.
If something comes, follow it… like the rabbit hole in Alice in the Wonderland. Go see where it goes!
Sometimes people later encounter a detail that surprises them or discover information they don’t remember previously knowing.
Others experiences remain completely unverifiable.
Personally, I don’t think you have to prove every lifetime in order for the experience to have some meaning or value to it.
Sometimes the more useful question is: Why did this particular story come up, and what does it show me about my life right now?
Can a Past Life Affect Your Present Life?
This is where past life regression becomes particularly interesting.
People very often uncover themes that feel strangely familiar: such themes as abandonment, betrayal, guilt, fear, difficult relationships, repeated family dynamics, unexplained attractions, unusual aversions or a powerful connection to a specific place.
Does that prove the pattern originated from another lifetime?
Not necessarily.
BUT if the experience gives someone a new way to understand something they have struggled with throughout the years, it can still be very meaningful.
What I don’t believe is that discovering a past-life pattern means you are permanently trapped by it.
What If It’s “Energetically Locked” Into Me?
I don’t see past life regression as a metaphysical diagnosis.
The purpose isn’t:
Well, you were abandoned in 1742, so unfortunately you’re going to have abandonment issues FOREVER. Best of luck!
If anything, new awareness should create more choice.
When we understand a pattern, whether we see its origin as psychological, symbolic, energetic or connected to another lifetime, we still have an opportunity to relate to it differently. Recognition can lead to better understanding. Understanding can then lead to release. And release can then create more room for real change.
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much point exploring any of this in the first place, right?
Could Certain Objects, Scents or Places Trigger a Past-Life Memory?
This was another question that came up in the chat.
Could certain reactions be connected to another lifetime?
Possibly.
Memory isn’t always experienced as a complete story.
Even in our present life, a smell can suddenly transport us somewhere else before we consciously understand why.
A particular perfume. Old wood. Rain on pavement. A certain song. An interior of a house.
And suddenly a feeling arrives before the explanation does.
People who believe in the concept of reincarnation sometimes interpret similarly intense reactions to what you might call an emotional or sensory echo from another life.
That doesn’t mean every unexplained fondness for antique furniture indicates you once owned a Victorian estate.
BUT I do think unusual reactions are worth becoming curious about.
Instead of immediately deciding: THIS MUST BE A PAST LIFE, you might ask:
What happens inside of me when I encounter this?
What emotions arrive?
Does an image, time period or story come with it?
Sometimes the interesting part isn’t proving where the feeling comes from, but in noticing that something inside of you recognizes it.
Why Do Certain Places or Photographs Affect Me So Strongly?
This question is closely related but let’s still ponder it for a minute.
Someone sees a photograph of a place they’ve never visited and begins crying.
They walk into an old building and feel grief that makes absolutely no sense.
They see a particular landscape and feel homesickness for a place they have never consciously called home.
Or an ordinary historical photography affects them far more deeply than it seemingly should.
Could that be a past life memory?
Again, perhaps. Anything is possible.
But here are a few possible explanations.
A photograph can activate something symbolic.
It may remind the subconscious of an experience from this lifetime that isn’t immediately obvious.
It may touch on an archetypal theme like loss, belonging, war, family, or a sense of home.
And, if you do believe that consciousness extends beyond a single lifetime, it may feel familiar to you because somewhere within you it is familiar.
I tend to pay attention when an emotional reaction feels disproportionate to what is actually happening in front of us. Not because disproportionate necessarily means paranormal, but because it usually means something deeper has been touched.
The conscious mind may not know the story yet. Emotions sometimes just arrive first.
How Many Past Lives Have I Had?
I love this question because people often already suspect the answer is: A LOT!
Especially, if they identify as an “old soul.”
But the truth is, I don’t think anyone can reliably hand you an exact reincarnation body count, so to speak.
And I’m not convinced the number would tell us much anyway. If you have lived 10 lives instead of 100, does that automatically make you less evolved? Probably not.
I tend to think the lifetimes that matter are the ones that have something truly relevant to show us now.
Do you Have to Believe in Reincarnation?
No. You can have a past life regression believing completely in reincarnation, being mildly curious about it, or coming in semi-skeptical.
I’ve always preferred curiosity rather to forcing any beliefs myself.
If you experience something powerful, you can decide for yourself what you think it was. A literal past life? A subconscious story? An archetypal experience? Something somewhere in between?
You don’t have to solve the mysteries of consciousness before you’ve actually explored them.
What If I Don’t See Anything?
Another misconception is that everyone has to “see” a past life clearly.
They don’t.
Some people are highly visual. Others feel. Others hear words or thoughts. Others simply just know things. And sometimes the first impressions are incredibly subtle.
Trying too hard can actually get in the way because the conscious mind starts waiting for something dramatic enough to qualify.
Usually, subtle is where it often begins. My best advice is just to stay open-minded and be open to all your different senses.
Why Does a Particular Lifetime Come Forward?
This is one of the questions (and answers!) I find the most fascinating.
Why that life? Why that person? Why that particular story out of all the other possibilities?
In my own view is that the material that arises the most often has some relationship to what is happening in the person’s present day life.
Perhaps there is a relationship pattern repeating. A fear. A loss. An unresolved emotion. Or something the person is finally ready to look at differently.
I will joke and say I don’t think past life regression is necessarily about collecting past lives as “spiritual souvenirs.” The interesting part is what the experience reveals in this one you are actually living today.
Can Two People Remember the Same Past Life?
Possibly, but this is where things get complicated.
There are accounts of people describing remarkably similar experiences, scenes, relationships, places or events during separate regressions. If both people believe they are remembering the same lifetime, there are several ways you could interpret it.
Maybe they were both present in that lifetime, but experienced the same events from different perspectives.
Maybe one person’s subconscious is picking up on imagery or emotional material connected to that other person.
Some spiritual traditions would even go as far to suggest that consciousness isn’t as individually contained as we tend to think it is, and that what we call a “memory” may occasionally overlap.
And then there is the simpler possibility: two people may independently create similar symbolic stories.
This is why I hesitate to treat past life regression like historical evidence, even though some of the stories I have heard facilitating these regressions has been mind-blowing.
What interests me the most is where the memories overlap and where they don’t.
If two people independently describe the same unusual details without having discussed them beforehand, that’s when thing become much more intriguing to say the least.
I wouldn’t immediately call it proof, but I certainly wouldn’t ignore it either.
One of the best known examples of this comes from Dr. Brian Weiss’s Only Love Is Real book, in which two patients reportedly described overlapping past life experiences while undergoing past life regressions separately. Neither knew what the other had recalled, which made the similarities especially notable.
Can a Past Life Relationship Follow You Into This Life and Feel Like a Soulmate Connection?
I believe this is one of the most interesting possibilities within past life work.
People sometimes describe meeting someone and feeling an immediate recognition that seems completely disproportionate to how long they’ve actually known each other.
There can be an almost unnerving recognition.
I know you.
Not logically. Not because you remind them of somebody else. Just a feeling that the relationship somehow began before the introduction.
Past life regression can occasionally bring forward imagery of knowing that same person in another role: a spouse, sibling parent, child, friend, enemy, or even something more complicated.
But here’s the part I think is important: Recognition does not necessarily mean destiny.
Feeling that you’ve known someone before doesn’t automatically mean you’re supposed to spend this lifetime with them.
Sometimes a relationship may just feel incredibly significant because there is unfinished emotional material attached to it: love, grief, betrayal, abandonment, a promise, a goodbye that never really happened.
That intensity can easily be interpreted as a soulmate, when perhaps what you’re actually experiencing is familiarity. And familiarity isn’t always an indication that you should stay.
Sometimes the purpose of meeting someone again may be to experience the relationship differently this time.
Can You Remember a Future Life Instead of a Past One?
This one gets delightfully strange.
Traditional past life regression assumes that we are moving backward along a fairly straightforward timeline.
However, consciousness doesn’t always seem particularly interested in respecting our spiritual filing system.
People in hypnosis sometimes report experiences that don’t feel historical (or even worldly) at all!
They may find themselves in an unfamiliar future environment, in a different body (or species) or living through circumstances that seem to belong to a time that just hasn’t happened yet.
So what is happening here?
A future incarnation? Imagination? Symbolism? A possible timeline? The subconscious constructing a story about where someone’s current choices might lead?
I don’t think we can know with utmost certainty.
There are spiritual models in which time is not truly linear and past, present and future exist more simultaneously than we experience them in ordinary consciousness. Within this strange framework, accessing something that feels like a “future life” isn’t necessarily more impossible than accessing a past one.
But I would approach it the same way I approach past life material.
I wouldn’t rush to declare: This is definitely my life in 2246.
I would get curious.
What am I being shown? How do I feel there? What seems to be important? And why might this particular experience be appearing now?
Because whether you’re looking backward, forward, or somewhere consciousness doesn’t have a convenient name for, the most potent question is usually the same:
What does this experience have to say about the life I’m living today?
My Own First Past Life Regression
Years ago, I made a YouTube video sharing my first experience with a private past life regression I had and how unexpectedly meaningful it became for me. Stepping into the shoes of another person, even when that person may have been another version of you, can offer an entirely diverse perspective on your current life. The experience helped me understand more about myself, while also contributing to a deeper appreciation for certain parts of my life I might have casually overlooked otherwise. I found it fascinating to discover what wisdom a former (past life) self may have carried forward, and what guidance that life might still have for the person who I am today. I also talk about how my life ended, what I experienced as I left my body, and the life review that followed, where I felt connected with my Higher Self and spirit guides to look back on the life I had just lived and what guidance I have gathered from it.
Can You Explore a Past Life on Your Own?
Yes!
Most people prefer working privately with a hypnotherapist like myself, particularly when they want someone to help guide the experience, respond to what arises and help them explore deeper emotional material, but not everyone is always ready or has the opportunity to have a private session.
Some people are simply curious and they want to try out a past life regression experience quietly, at home, without an appointment or an audience.
That is one reason I created my DIY Past Life Regression Journey, which allows you to explore the process privately and at your own pace.
So… Was it REALLY a Past Life?
Maybe. I realize that isn’t the dramatic answer people expect from someone who works with past life regression.
But I actually think there is value in leaving a little room for mystery.
There are experiences I’ve encountered in this work that are difficult to explain. There are coincidences that become very strange. There are emotional reactions that seem to come from somewhere deeper than conscious storytelling. And there are experiences that could potentially be understood through psychology, symbolism or imagination.
I don’t think those possibilities always have to compete with one another.
Perhaps you experienced a past life.
Perhaps your subconscious created exactly what you needed in order to understand something important.
And perhaps those two possibilities aren’t as far apart as we think.
My questions to you now are:
Has a place, photograph, scent or object ever affected you so strongly and you couldn’t explain why?
Or, if you have had a past life regression, what is the strangest thing you remember from it?
Tell me in the comments. I would love to hear your stories!
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