Have you ever experienced an Nde, or remember your past journey

edited December 2021 in General

In my mid 20’s, I watched a tv series called “I survived, beyond and back”, it was about Nde’s & it changed my perspective on several things, & just recently I saw a YouTube channel about kids who remember their past journeys / remembering who they were (sometimes famous people or on certain major events & remembering details that checkout)… curious if anyone here knows of or has experiences with either.

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  • Try “Surviving Death” on Netflix.

  • We have no way of verifying whether someone’s “past life” was real or not. No one ever “remembers” a past life that was just ordinary. “Oh, I was a peasant in a small village and then I died in childbirth with my eighth child.” “I worked in a coal mine and then died when the mine collapsed.” “I was a seamstress in a coat factory for 50 years.”

    If they were, supposedly, famous people and could “remember” certain famous events . . . Well, duh. Like the woman who lived not far from here got a heart transplant and then started “remembering” something vague about water. Her heart came from a young woman who accidentally drowned in a nearby lake, the story was all over the local newspaper, and she’d been told, when she got the heart, about the young woman. It’s kind of easy to “remember” something you’ve already been told.

    It’s very easy to create false memories.

  • @Babichev In that case I agree, but these stories are coming from kids between the ages of 2 & 5 for the most part - (there’s also a part 2/3/4)

  • [Deleted User]Zundar (deleted user)
    edited December 2021

    Agree with @Babichev and will say that if someone had genuine memories from past lives then it should be reasonably easy for that person to convince others that knew the person they used to be of that fact with information that wouldn't be common knowledge - but also that even if someone were to apparently convince someone that they apparently knew in their past life that doesn't necessarily mean they knew that information because they used to be that person or that the person apparently convinced isn't lying. It would be incredibly easy to fabricate that kind of story.

    There's really no way to know for sure and the closest you could get would be to be the person getting told that private information that only that person would know.

    I've looked into NDE's and claims of past lives a few times previously as seen debates about that pop u from time to time with all kinds of claims about them. Most of the information that the people provide about their past lives seems to either be 1) specific but common knowledge or 2) so vague as to be useless for actually identifying if they were originally talking about the person they end up being linked to/claim to be the reborn version of.

    You see both of those things with con artists claiming to be able to speak to the dead, or read minds, or tell the future, etc. I'm not sure about if the first category has a name but the second is pretty dead on for cold reading, where you have a lack of information and then draw out information by giving vague blanket statements and examining various things about their appearance and actions without prior knowledge about them - for example if you were claiming to be speaking to the dead and you ask the crowd if the relatives of anyone died from a heart issue as you feel the spirit you're talking to had a heart issue, and then go down the alphabet asking if their names began with K oh no K's? maybe it was a C instead, etc until you get someone who responds to your questions that make it seem like you're being specific to them and their case when you were actually just casting a wide net).

    On the note of the past lives as a peasant or working in a coal mine, there was a notable con artist who worked as a pretend psychic for years and years (Sylvia Browne I believe). After getting big in the business she started a scheme where people would call her and she'd tell them their guardian angel and who they were in their past lives and then apparently always told them they were royalty, or nobles, or various famous characters from history or mythology. Will say that I find the people who claim to have just been random people in past lives to be slightly more believable than many that claim to have been famous historical figures (some of whom presumably have overlapping claims?) but they seem to be the minority there.

    It may seem especially impressive or be especially convincing that children specifically are coming out with these kinds of details, but that's also potentially a tactic used by the fakes. A parent can claim that they're completely surprised by their child coming out with all these bits of information when the camera is pointed at them but who is to say they didn't feed them that information for 15 minutes of fame? there have been cases of similar things happening especially with parents lying to get on television by using their children.

    Did say most of the information provided falls into one of the two categories mentioned above, there is some that's specific and also private/not common knowledge.

    I'm not personally going to discount remembering past lives or past lives as a concept as being impossible but have yet to be convinced it's possible or true - and the similarity that the cases seem to have to known tactics of con artists and liars have me leaning more towards believing that it's not true. I'm at the very least convinced that the majority of claims about past lives are fabrications based on the evidence and the similarities there.

  • [Deleted User]WriterGF (deleted user)

    When I was 3 and 4, I used to tell my Mom detailed stories about living in a shack on a mountainside with an aunt and uncle in Portugal. I didn't even know what Portugal was when I was 3 years old, and no one in my family has any connection to the country.

  • I see dead people

  • @Zundar

    Agree with @Babichev and will say that if someone had genuine memories from past lives then it should be reasonably easy for that person to convince others that knew the person they used to be of that fact with information that wouldn't be common knowledge

    That’s what happened in the video (not sure if you saw it) here is part 2 & part 3 as well. (Not saying that this couldn’t have been made up by the parents ect, but your requirements to believe is displayed in the videos.

  • @WriterGF that's really interesting!! Have your memories about those events faded? (They say that after 6 years old people start forgetting who happen to remember)

  • Here’s the thing: A child may say something and an adult reinforces it and it becomes the beginning of false memories.

    Three year olds have vivid imaginations. One of my friends (not an adult) heard his mom and I telling each other about some dreams we’d had that night and he proceeded to tell us about his “dream.” It was a wild, beautiful story that he made up on the spot, I loved it. Later he elaborated on it and the story grew.

    Let’s think about possible alternative, plausible explanations: Isn’t it possible a child might hear the word “Portugal” somewhere? The TV or radio was on? They happened to be around someone outside the family who happened to say the word? They may have even overheard a story of someone living in the mountains. They aren’t necessarily going to remember that.

    This is the thing: People want to believe and so they reject all other plausible explanations. If they want to believe, perhaps it’s harmless, but what concerns me is the rejection of critical thinking because that leaves us vulnerable to charlatans and can lead us to make bad decisions.

    My old roommate used to do cold readings. He was very good at it, so good that even after he told people exactly what he was doing, some still insisted he was psychic.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

  • @Babichev what about the kid who remembered the person that killed him as well as his full name & authorities went to get him & he confessed?

  • [Deleted User]WriterGF (deleted user)

    @Babichev - There are more things in heaven and earth ... to my way of thinking, if you believe in the soul, it is not that big of a stretch to believe in the possibility of reincarnation. No, there is no scientific proof of that -- there is no scientific proof of the existence of a soul either. Or a Heaven, or God, or a lot of other things people believe in. I am not rejecting critical thinking or anything else, simply acknowledging that the universe may contain things not dreamt of in others' philosophy. Since it is not something we can know the answer to until we die, all I can do is respect your way of thinking and ask you to respect mine.

    @cuddles_ndream - Yes, I believe that typically is the case. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes was correct and that the mind is like a boxroom and can only contain so much. At a certain point, perhaps the current lifetime crowds out memories of the past one. I don't know. No one does.

  • Gotta agree with @Babichev and @Zundar on this. What ifs, maybes, possiblies, and religious constructs are not very compelling arguments for something. And the little tike who spoke of Portugal could have heard it on Blue’s Clues for all we know. Stuff like this brings out the Houdini in me. He scoffed at fortune tellers and people claiming to commune with the dead and went about debunking such things. To me this falls under that but it makes for viewers on cable channels, so there will always be an audience who want to be in on the unexplained as fact.

  • There loads of those kind of TV programs as well as programs about the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, Ghosts, ESP, etc. that are 100% fiction. They are completely made up, with not an ounce of truth to them.

    After my little brother's first job was as a writer for The National Enquirer. He wrote completely made-up stories, under about eight different bylines. We used to go out for coffee, and dream u the most ridiculous stories we could think of. He had a talent for writing them up, and making them sound believable. No matter how ridiculous his stories were, I;m sure that some people would believe them.

    That was in the days when TV consisted of just a few networks. These days, the myriad cable TV stations are a ready market for people who produce programs that are every bit as made up as what my brother was writing back in the '60s.

    Oh, I almost forgot. John F. Kennedy is going to re-appear in Houston next week. Some people will believe anything.

  • [Deleted User]Zundar (deleted user)
    edited December 2021

    @GreatHornedOwl The part about your brother reminds me a little of the Youtuber "Fantastic Daily", it's been a while since I read up about it/saw the specific video about them I'm thinking of so might be misremembering slightly. They started as an ARG (alternate reality game - basically immersive fiction where the creator is presenting some alternate world as if it were real, they're usually to explore some kind of idea) parody of those top ten list channels that are all over the place, specifically one about conspiracy/paranormal topics.

    They completely fabricated the contents of the videos, they were all claims without any kind of factual basis that were based solely on stories and accounts of things from conspiracy theorists and people who believed in those kinds of things.

    At some point Fantastic Daily decided to make something up whole cloth, rather than to just present something based on things some people already believed in. He created a fake paranormal entity for the sake of telling stories about encounters with it/them named "black eyed kids" and just to mention it again for emphasis, they were 100% made up. Yet after posting the first video on them, some people were apparently convinced they existed (the channel had attracted genuine members of the conspiracy/paranormal community rather than just people interested in the ARG, and they couldn't tell that it was meant to be fiction). Not only that, but some people then claimed to have experiences with the black eyed kids and linked up other stories with them to back up the claims of their existence.

    No clue if they had experiences they believe to be the black eyed kids, or if they were just lying to reinforce something, but who knows. But some people really can be convinced of pretty much anything it seems, the most easy comparison to make I'd say would be to flat Earthers.

    Also, as you mentioned Bigfoot - I find it very telling that a show like "Finding Bigfoot" had 9 seasons, over 6 years, and almost 100 episodes, and includes a whole bunch of people claiming to have seen Bigfoot and "tracks" yet strangely enough has done nothing to actually demonstrate the existence of Bigfoot. It's all recreation footage of encounters, or fake tracks, or "DNA samples" that are unidentified and that don't seem to actually get analysed or lead anywhere.

  • [Deleted User]WriterGF (deleted user)

    I'm not really sure what the concept of reincarnation has to do with Bigfoot or the Earth being flat. There are scientific means to prove the Earth is round. And as Zundar points out, the odds are fairly good that a land-dwelling species would have a hard time avoiding discovery all this time. It's apples and oranges. Some things can be scientifically disproven, some can't.

  • Oh, I almost forgot. John F. Kennedy is going to re-appear in Houston next week. Some people will believe anything.

    Well Houston is only 250 miles down I-45 from Dallas where he received his double tap.

  • So much to read & catchup …. & I’m barely on my lunch break lol, but what I would say is that only because something isn’t proven doesn’t mean it isn’t real … its almost like saying we’re alone in this universe simply because we haven’t proven there are other living things or intelligent life out there , & when we think about it there are sooo many solar systems in our galaxy 🌌 alone , (the Milky Way) … there are sooo many earth like planets as well in this galaxy & there are billions of galaxies with billions of solar systems & billions of earth like planets in the visible universe …. Imagine what we haven’t seen …

    I honestly believe there is life out there (both animal & intelligent life) as well as organisms & plants 🌱 …. I think there are worlds that resemble ours / as well as significantly more advanced than ours / & significantly more primitive to ours …. I don’t think the conditions of earth have to be met for life to thrive out there, but for matter of comparison we have identified many planets that meet the conditions …

    With that I say that I believe we all have experienced many journeys & will continue to do so… I don’t think that is being born was the beginning & our demise in this journey will be the end … earth alone is billions of years old, & earth is less than dust in comparison to this galaxy , let alone the universe , millions of fractions of a cell …

    Growing up i was Catholic (non-practicing , We never went to church ) … around junior high I decided I was atheist …. Somewhere in my 20’s I thought about it & decided I wasn’t atheist , but that I was agnostic (being atheist I’m discounting it, being agnostic I’m saying I genuinely don’t know) … mid - 20’s up to now I say I’m spiritual & agnostic (I don’t know if you can put those 2 together) but what I’m saying is that I have strong intuition & belief in purpose , but I don’t know what ultimately happens… but if I were to be asked if I believe in NDE’s / reincarnation/ multiple journeys / spirit life - I would say absolutely. I think we remember / gain universal knowledge when our current journey ends … I guess we all will find out (or we have but forgotten)

  • edited December 2021

    I’d love to see Cosmos as popular as TV shows about Bigfoot.

    I avoid belief. I had lots of beliefs and gave them up. I don’t feel at all deprived. This does not mean I lack imagination. I have a rich interior life. I’m an artist and a dancer and have been a musician. I love fairy tales, myths, science fiction, etc., I’m just clear about what is myth and what is reality. I don’t feel a need to believe in anything not able to be demonstrated to be true. Nature is mind-blowing enough. Neil DeGrasse Tyson expressed it well in this address he gave which someone dubbed, “The Greatest Sermon Ever.”

    James Randi offered for decades a $1,000,000.00 prize to anyone who could prove, under controlled conditions, any paranormal/psychic/etc. abilities. The prize was never claimed.

    Everyone has got their special cases. “But what about . . . ?”

    Children especially are very easy to manipulate. I know a guy who, when he was 5 or 6 years old, was told he was psychic. It supposedly ran in his family. Every time there was the least bit of a coincidence around him adults would reinforce the idea and so he came to sincerely believe it himself. He would become angry if someone doubted him. Over time, as a young adult, he started feeling uneasy about the whole thing. Eventually he realized it was hogwash, that he had simply gotten very good at cold reading and there was too much emphasis being put on coincidence. Some of his “followers” became angry with him, said he was turning his back on his powers, but his powers mainly were his ability to delude himself and fool other people.

    One of my guiding principles in life was expressed by Richard Feynman: “The first principle is to not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

    Many beliefs are, in and of themselves, harmless but what concerns me is people’s willingness to substitute belief for critical thinking. People have been bilked out of their life savings by charlatans willing to exploit their ignorance and gullibility. Some people have died because they chose to believe charlatans over, say, medical doctors who could have treated their conditions. I have had two friends who died prematurely because they believed quacks instead of doctors and refused to be treated for very treatable illnesses until it was too late.

    People have freedom of choice to believe what they wish but we don’t have any obligation to accept or respect others’ beliefs.

  • edited December 2021

    Tim Minchin wrote a 9 minute beat poem about this very subject.

    “And if, perchance, I have offended, think on this and all is mended . . . “

    Warning: bad language and no holds barred criticism of anti-science beliefs. Not for the easily offended.

  • Many beliefs are, in and of themselves, harmless but what concerns me is people’s willingness to substitute belief for critical thinking.

    Very well put as this is the crux of most of our problems in the world. Possibilities are easier to believe in than facts and realities because we can change the narrative or perspective of a possibility because a possibility is always unique to each individual and in how they present it,

  • @Babichev I’ve noticed you’re an admirer of Neil DeGrasse Tyson , you have cited him several times on the forum , I myself feel that he is very intelligent / very un-bias / very fact driven … & the list goes on. I feel both you & FunCartel are atheist & if something isn’t scientifically proven, you both dismiss it… I think you would be surprised to learn that Neil Degrasse Tyson isn’t an Atheist, he is Agnostic … while he himself states that he hasn’t been convinced of a higher power, he doesn’t dismiss the notion, he just hasn’t been convinced, & as an agnostic person, he is simply saying (I don’t know), but he isn’t atheist. I believe he’s both spiritual & agnostic, he’s just very careful how he defines spirituality due to his work & message.

  • @cuddles_ndream This thread isn’t about Tyson. And you ascribe things to me that you think you know when you don’t. I think your post fits right in with why I agree with @Babichev—it lacks critical thinking. You perused his Wikipedia page and regurgitated it as a form of argument instead of producing any logic or facts why we should believe in NDE. That’s why I said “possibilities” in my post which if you must have labels, is a very agnostic way of putting things. Possibility is not absolute and allows for proof. I have seen nothing produced to support the existence of NDE other than anecdotes and faith, which are not proofs or arguments. I do not blindly believe in something based on anecdotes and faith—that is something charlatans, con men and televangelists like to peddle because if you accept anecdotes and faith as evidence it makes their jobs easier.

  • @FunCartel there was no argument, & yes I looked at his Wikipedia page, seems like you did as well & you took words directly from there such as charlatans, (In the bottom of the Wikipedia page you can find the actual links to the sources if you’re not a fan of “Wikipedia”, but I know this isn’t the case lol) also, I was never trying to persuade or convince anyone to believe in Nde’s nor asked if you do as you are alluding to, the title of the post - word for word is, “ Have you ever experienced an Nde, or remember your past journey” … it isn’t , “do you believe in Nde’s and or believe in different journeys”, you took it upon yourself to give your opinion & make an argument about your stance which wasn’t the question. If I lack critical thinking , you’re lacking critical common sense. & still, even now, there’s no argument, just clarification.

  • edited December 2021

    @cuddles_ndream Charlatans did not come from him, it is a word mentioned earlier in this thread and is appropriate for things that are peddled by someone without basis. The only reason for the response is you decided to say I am an atheist and then follow it up with and Tyson is not, he is an agnostic. Furthermore you claimed that if something is not scientifically proven we do not believe in it. So I do have common sense because your post was about what @Babichev snd I might believe followed by what Tyson believes as if you are making an argument against what you think we believe because Tyson believes this. Read you post. You mentioned nothing about Ndes in your post. So I have no idea what you were trying to accomplish because I don’t give two bowel movements what Tyson believes in. Furthermore, I know what the thread title is, I was responding to what @zundar and @Babichev said when talking about Ndes, then you had your post full of suppositions about what you think we are. This is based on your post and writing—it is not based on who I think you are. I do not lack critical common sense when I read your words in one post and responded then you switch your assertion to what the Ndes thread is about in your following post—I just think the person doing this doesn’t know what they mean. You go from assumptions about me and reciting quotes from Tyson in one post to talking about the thread title in another. I have to ask then, if the thread title is so sacred, then why did you write a post dedicated to what you think we believe and not mention anything about your thread title’s content?

  • [Deleted User]WriterGF (deleted user)

    I have no opinion on the validity of NDE. As far as reincarnation goes, it is one of the major tenets of some of the world's major religions. If faith/belief are not your thing, great ... that's a perfectly legit way to live life. But it's not the only way to live life. And the key to me is your way of thinking deserves to be respected ... so do other views.

  • edited December 2021

    @WriterGF We weren’t discussing reincarnation. I do not know where you got that from.

    Edit: I see you and @Babichev were discussing it.

  • I personally stopped believing in heaven(or hell) or any form of afterlife. Once you die, your body returns to the Earth and it will be exactly like before you were born. If you are born again in another body, recalling of past memories aren't possible because your memories are just connections in the brain which is gone once you die.

    I see stories of kids who remembered their past life, but I believe it's just a scam to sell their books or profit in some way.

  • @FunCartel - I’m just going to say ok, hopefully this settles you down lol

  • @cuddles_ndream Again, I am calm. But now you aren’t going to address anything you said. Typical.

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