What's Your Opinion on Past Lives Influencing You, if At All?

[Lorileah]

That idea is complete nonsense. There is no Bigfoot, ghosts, or psychics who talk to our dear departed. This kind of nonsense just kills me

Are you certain? You know we didn't believe in sound through the air or that you could call someone on a hand held phone. But it brings up a point, your opinion may hold about as much weight as anyone else's. Can you be so sure?

Like Jennifer, I don't believe in "past lives." Our imagination can play tricks on us. We all dream, and sometimes we remember fragments of those dreams. Psychologists have also studied the phenomenon of "deja vu"--the sense of having had certain experiences before. There's a rational explanation for it. But past lives? No.

so what is the rational explanation? I have seen many opinions about why but nothing conclusive.

So explain why, one day as a writer I "knew" everything about the local and landmarks of a place I had never been? Now it could be dismissed that the story and the characters were made up. That will never be known for sure, however. I knew the exact address, the exact location of a building and the exact vision of said building. I looked it up after I wrote the story. A story I "knew" I lived.

Personally I never say never. Why couldn't past lives exist? I mean is it all just random primordial oooze that somehow grew into intelligence? Seems sort of elitist or the biggest lotto in the history of the universe.

I believe I have had past lives. Two I am very cognizant about with dates and locations and in one case an event that can be corroborated (this event is documented but not common history). So maybe I heard it one day on the radio? The past lives I "Know" I was female. Some say you get to try some lives...so maybe I thought being a guy would be easier or better? In that case...I was wrong.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet. If we knew everything, then science would be a dead study...right?

However, if there is such a thing, then you'd expect that everyone would have been both men and women in various past lives, and everyone would be transgendered to some degree, and the whole world would be a whole lot more tolerant of it.

faulty logic. You stated yourself that you didn't believe you had past lives. So by extension, you if you did and don't remember, then you would not remember what it was like being that gender. Yet others have those vivid memories. I can't agree that you remember everything about a past life. That would be awesome! You would know the day you were born not to stick your hand in a fire or play with a rattlesnake. But often people know things they have not experienced in their current lives. Some say fear of water may be a past experience of drowning. Why not? And just because you were something doesn't mean you liked it or thus would be "tolerant" now. That would be like saying "so many had past lives as soldiers, and they died in battle. So shouldn't we be less likely to fight?" Geez we can't even learn that lesson in consecutive generations....and we KNOW we experienced that.

What I cannot believe though is the number of people who were "famous" before. How many Napoleons could there be? But what about shared concision?

This is something we will never know.