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CRYPTOAMNESIA AND PAST LIFE MEMORIES

September 12, 2016 by Michelle Belanger

[note: This article is in no way meant to debunk past life memories, so much as
it is meant to address a potential problem with remembering and offer a sane and
rational way of approaching and accepting the real stuff.]

Past life material is tricky stuff to deal with. First and foremost, there is
always the question: is this memory something real, or is it the product of my
imagination? This question is difficult enough to deal with, but there is a
psychological phenomenon known as cryptoamnesia which can make nearly all past
life memories suspect.

In cryptoamnesia, an individual is exposed to certain information, forgets that
this was learned information, and it reappears sometime later as a constructed
memory. With memories created through cryptoamnesia, the individual will have no
idea that the memory is a fabrication of their own mind and that they never
actually experienced the content of the memory.

How does this work exactly? Say, for example, as a child, you saw a special on
ancient Ireland on the Discovery Channel. Your little mind soaked up all of that
information, even if you didn’t understand it all at the time, and stored it
away in the back of your brain. Years later, you have forgotten ever watching
that particular show, but the information you learned from it is still hanging
around in your unconscious mind. When you start thinking back to who you may
have been in a past life, your mind finds the images from the Discovery Channel
special and starts feeding them back to you. However, you’ve forgotten that you
saw all these on a television show. And so, as you remember details of what life
was like in ancient Ireland and you see images of the land, perhaps some
standing stones, or some artifacts, you assume that these memories are coming to
you from the long distant past.

It is nearly impossible to differentiate memories created through cryptoamnesia
from real memories. In the case of created memories just from this lifetime,
such as created memories of ritual abuse or childhood molestation, the
psychological repercussions can be just as severe as if the individual had
actually gone through the imagined trauma. This is one reason why many
psychologists are largely skeptical of “repressed” memories recalled under
hypnosis. It is a generally held belief that most memories dredged up in this
manner are actually imaginative content fabricated by the unconscious from
learned information inspired by unintentional cues from the hypnotherapist.

Where does this leave us for legitimate past life memories? On very shaky
ground, I’m afraid. From my observations and personal experiences, one is often
drawn to read about a particular time period or a particular country when one
has a strong past life connection to it. However, the very act of reading up on
these strangely fascinating times makes the legitimacy of any past life content
very suspect. There is no way to prove or to guarantee that you did not digest
the information from a book or a show, imaginatively fill in a few gaps, and
re-present it to yourself as a past life memory. And since very few past
lifetimes are such that you can actually look up people you knew or go visit the
town you once lived in, there is almost no chance of proving the validity of the
memories – to yourself or to anyone else.

How then, can you ever know that what you’re remembering is real or imagined? In
black and white, real-world terms, you can’t. You will never know, and you will
never be able to prove it. Does this mean that past life memories are a bunch of
poppycock? That is another issue entirely, and it boils down to a matter of
faith.

Once you stop questioning the validity of a particular memory and stop trying to
prove or disprove its legitimacy to yourself, then and only then can you
objectively look at the content of the memory itself. And it’s the content that
matters most anyway.

I look at past life memories like this: my mind is fixating on this image or set
of images for a reason. Whether you take a metaphysical point of view and say
that I’m remembering these things because there are karmic issues I still have
to settle from that past life, or if you take the psychological point of view
and say that my unconscious mind is trying to get me to deal with repressed
personal issues that are coming through in the language of dream and symbol, the
result is the same. I must look carefully over these images and try to see what
they’re telling me about me. And that’s the key to past lives right there. What
can they tell you about your life right now? If there isn’t something you can
learn from them, then they’re just useless curiosities – they might as well be
idle daydreams that you’re using to waste an afternoon.

I’ve seen far too many people get caught up in their past lives and fixate on a
time so long ago that it crippled their ability to interact with the reality of
here and now. They were worse than the kind of elderly folk who are so busy
mourning the loss of the old days that they allow the new age to pass them by.
These people got themselves stuck in a time completely removed from their
current life, and they just could not get past it.

Past lives in that respect are a total waste of time. You have to always
remember: you are living your life here, now. You are in this age for a reason.
There is a great deal for you to do, much to experience, and much to learn. If
you spend all of your time looking backward along the lost corridor of years,
you will not see what’s in front of you, and you are most likely going to run
into something very solid and bang your head — hard.

The use of past life memories is what they can teach you about where you are now
and where you may be going. A lot of us made mistakes in the past. If we lived
in the past at all, we made mistakes. Mistakes are part and parcel of living.
Very often, we recall the circumstances of these past mistakes as a guidepost to
help us avoid those same mistakes in the present and the future. In this
respect, past lives can be very useful. They can reveal to us hidden aspects of
ourselves, and provide insight into dealing with our current problems.

Past life work should therefore always be an exercise in observation. If the
memories come to you, explore them as fully as you can. Analyze them. Pay
attention to details, especially how you feel in those remembered moments and
the circumstances which stand out to you. Later, analyze those feelings and
circumstances in relation to your life as it is now. Look for parallels in your
current situation, in the way you relate to the people around you, in your
choices of dealing with the world at large. Even if the content is some
half-imagined fantasy that your unconscious brain has cooked up for you, it will
still reveal a great deal of your troubles and issues in the symbols and stories
that are chosen.

Above all, do not fixate on the memories. Do not try to recreate yourself as you
see you in the past. Live your life now and for the future. Learn what you can,
but accept that the past is in the past. The memories might linger, but who you
are can always be changed.

Michelle Belanger 23 March 2001

Categories Articles, Migrated Tags memories, otherkin resource center,
otherkin.net migration, past lives
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1 THOUGHT ON “CRYPTOAMNESIA AND PAST LIFE MEMORIES”

 1. Michelle Belanger
    March 4, 2021 at 11:48 pm
    
    Great article. I think the community gets way too fixated on literal
    realism. Myth is always subjective. Ancient history is much like myth. We
    listen to our inner voice,we brush our teeth in the morning. You can’t prove
    it real. You can feel the truth.
    
    Log in to Reply
    


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