The idea of reincarnation or past lives has persisted throughout history. Some people believe, some people don't.
Clinical hypnotherapist Dr. John McGrail though believes there are plenty of signs and feelings that we experience in our daily lives that prove the existence of past lives.
McGrail calls these feelings "persistent 'memories,' or intuitive feelings of being someone else somewhere else at another time." He tells Reader's Digest, "This can be accompanied by a physical manifestation like a birthmark, that when looked at invokes a feeling or 'memory.'"
McGrail says these feelings are:
-Hypnosis and past life regression
"Who was I in my past life?" is a question people tend to ask their local psychic, but there are plenty of psychologists who truly believe in past lives and base their practices on the concept.
-You have persistent memories
Have you ever heard someone say they feel like they were born in the wrong era? When someone feels very strongly about that, some psychologists interpret it as a possible sign of being connected to a former life.
-You have a sense of déjà vu
If you experience déjà vu frequently, your previous life may be trying to tell you something.
-You have unreasonable fears
Do you have any severe fears that just don't make sense, like these weird phobias? Dr. McGrail has had incredible experiences with patients who do, and who have come to revelations about their previous lives. One woman he worked with developed an intense fear of death just because she looked up at the sky one day. "In hypnotherapy, we did a past life regression and she saw that she had been falsely accused of murder and sentenced to hang. Just before they put the hood over her head, she had looked up at the sky and saw the clouds. After that session, her fear was gone and she went back to her formerly happy life."
-You get strange pains
If you've had a physical pain that has bothered you for a decent part of your life—one that doctors don't seem to have an answer for—it could be a result of something that happened to you in another life.
-You identify with another culture
"If someone is drawn to a certain location [or] culture, that may trigger a reason to want to explore a past life experience. They should seek out a professional who has experience guiding someone through it."
-You have inexplicable skills
Child prodigies astound everyone around them. The question is, do they have the innate talent to master the piano at age 6, or is it more than that? What about a kid who knows how to speak another language before they've ever been taught? These are huge indicators for many hypnotherapists that illuminate who they were in their past life.
-You have inexplicable knowledge
Similar to having an inexplicable skill is having inexplicable knowledge. Several years ago, for instance, a story about a child remembering his former life as a World War II pilot made headlines. The boy, James Leininger, had intimate knowledge of not just planes, but of the name of one of his aircraft carriers and one of his copilots.
-You have recurring dreams
Memories and déjà vu occur when a person is awake, but what about when they're asleep? According to Dr. McGrail, "Recurring dreams focused around a given historic period, in which you are the same character interacting with the same cast of other characters" might be trying to show you something that happened in a former life.
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