Conference hydra::dejavu

    I haven't seen the program, but from your description, it reminds
    me very much of something that happened in the early 1950s.
             
    At that time, a book came out called _The Search for Bridey Murphy_.
    It concerned a woman who, under hypnosis, was "regressed" to "an
    earlier life," where she'd been a girl living in Ireland named Bridey
    Murphy.  The woman described things that happened at the time "Bridey"
    had lived, both in terms of events and landmarks, that could be
    verified, and were!  This, despite the fact that it took place in
    Ireland, which the woman had never visited!  It caused a stir, and 
    the book became an overnight sensation, since it "proved" the existence of
    reincarnation.  One youngster even killed himself because he was
    curious to see what his next life would be.
    
    However ....
    
    Follow-up investigation revealed that the whole incident was the
    result of some well-meaning but faulty work of the (amateur) folk
    who hypnotized the woman.  To make a long story short, the investigative
    reporters found the "real" Bridey Murphy, in the person of an old
    woman who had emigrated to the United States and who had reminisced
    about things to the hypnotic subject when the latter was a little
    girl.  The old woman worked around the subject's house in some domestic
    capacity, and she would chatter on to the child (the subject) about
    her old home as she worked.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

RE: .1 (Steve K.)

    Let me emphasize a couple of things about the Bridey Murphey case that
    Steve mentioned:

    First off -- we are not talking about conscious fraud on the part of
    the pseudo-"channel".  She almost certainly had no conscious memory
    of where the Bridey Murphy memories came from.  The subconscious
    stores memories which the conscious has completely forgotten. 
    Sometimes, for "its own" purposes (perhaps stimulated by hypnosis,
    perhaps not) it will use those memories in various ways, including
    adding versimlitude to completely false pseudo-memories.  Hypnosis
    is one way that the subconscious can be inspired to create such
    pseudo-memories.

    Second -- Steve emphasized that the hypnotists involved were "amateurs"
    but there are many professional hypnotists who don't understand this
    fundamental characteristic of hypnosis.  Hypnosis produces fantasy,
    not truth.  The fantasy may be convincing to all concerned.  The
    fantasy may (frequently is) theraputically useful.  But it only
    corresponds to literal truth by accident.  The subconscious is a
    "pathological liar" and hypnosis does nothing to change that.

    No amount of skill on the part of the hypnotist will side-step this.
    Unfortunately, there are a lot of professionals who have never learned
    this.  Treat all memories "brought out" under hypnosis, whoever the
    hypnotist is, exactly as you would treat memories "brought out" under
    massive doses of, say, LSD.

    					Topher

    Didn't hear about the Bridey Murphy-case, however, a couple of years
    ago we had a program on TV in Holland which dealt with the same
    subject, reincarnation. 
    They followed four people back to their 'roots' in an earlier life.
    These people were also hypnotised, with regression-techniques/therapy
    (don't know exactly, or even if it's called different in US). In
    three cases they could trace back those oldold memories, to long
    forgotten happenings. F.i., a woman could speak a little swedish,
    and it turned out that she had remembered from her grandfather
    (who was Swedish), even though she had never spoken swedish herself.
    
    But... there was one, of which they couldn't say it was
    memory/fraud/whatever. So, that gives room for speculation, doesn't
    it. I find it hard to believe that what comes out under hypnoses
    is all fantasy.... Isn't it true that you can -under hypnoses- remember
    things that happened when you were just a child?? So why can't you
    go a little further?
    
    Anyway, it's like with a lot of things that can't be explained.
    You either believe it or not, or maybe you just hope it's true. 
    It would give me some pleasure to think that I would last a little
    longer than just the odd 70/80 years....
    
    Lindy
    

RE: .3 (Lindy)
    
    > Isn't it true that you can -under hypnoses- remember things that
    > happened when you were just a child??
    
    Maybe -- but although this has been claimed often it has never really
    been demonstrated.  What *has* been demonstrated is that people under
    hypnosis will have detailed hypnotic "dreams" (for lack of a more neutral
    term) which they find to be highly plausible as "real" memories and
    which they may thereafter experience as "real" memories.  However,
    if the details are checked they are sometimes found to be grossly in
    conflict with reality (e.g., a detailed memory of the person's third
    birthday party, when they had no third birthday party).  Generally
    the accuracy of these "memories" seem to be roughly the same as if
    the person is simply asked to make up plausible details -- the
    difference is that under hypnosis the person is unaware that they are
    making up the plausible details.
    
    Such pseudomemories seem quite useful in therapy.  They may create
    metaphors for real psychological conflicts which can form the basis of
    healing and/or growth.  Many hypnotherapists find themselves convinced
    by their patients obvious sencerity and sense of conviction, by the
    wealth of minute detail which appears, and by the theraputic
    usefullness of the memories (which classical Freudian psychology claims
    could only come from "real" memories).  They are simply undervaluing
    the power of the human imagination.
    
    > Anyway, it's like with a lot of things that can't be explained...
    
    Why?  What have we spoken of which can't be explained in any
    fundamental sense?  (Those who know me, know that I don't reject the
    existence of the unexplained -- but I ask that the phenomenon have at
    least some unexplained aspect before I get excited.  There have been
    very, very few adult reincarnation/regression cases which contain any
    thing even vaguly annomalous, and those seem adequately "explained"
    by subconscious clairvoyance).
    
    					Topher
    

For more information on reincarnation and several other fascinating
subjects read "The After Death Experience - The Physics of the Non-Physical"
by Ian Wilson.  In the early chapters the book details several cases where
small children had memories of previous lives and were able to describe 
people and places they had never seen before.  While many of these cases
turned out to be frauds (parents often claimed that their child seemed to
be the reincarnation of the child of a wealthy family)  some others seemed
to be genuine.    In these cases the child "remembered" things that were 
known only to the family and in some cases were not known at all until the
child told people where to look.   In one case, a child revealed who had 
murdered him in a previous life and was able to prove it.
In general, a very thought provoking book.
John...

RE: .5
    
    ... Or go to the source and read the books and monographs by Dr. Ian
    Stevenson where he describes his research uncovering these cases. 
    These books are described elsewhere in this conference.
    
    My previous comments are only about memories of past lives in adults.
    Past life memories in small children appear to be quite a different
    set of phenomena, some of which are much more difficult to explain
    than apparent past lives memories in adults.
    
    					Topher

RE -1 (Topher)

>    My previous comments are only about memories of past lives in adults.
>    Past life memories in small children appear to be quite a different
>    set of phenomena, some of which are much more difficult to explain
>    than apparent past lives memories in adults.

What a REMARKABLE observation. Could you elaborate a bit more?

Arie

This reminds me of a dream my daughter had when she was about four.  It was 
during a nap and I happened to be with her when she awoke.  The told me she 
"saw" things when she was asleep, then described herself as covered in white
clothing with something covering (but something she could see through) 
her face.  She said she was with a man on a hill doing something with
"Bee houses".  I asked her when it was (meaning time of day) and she replied,
"When I used to be older." 

Terry

RE: .7 (Arie)
    
    > What a REMARKABLE observation.  Could you elaborate a bit more?
    
    Now why do I feel that part of what makes the observation "REMARKABLE"
    in your opinion, Arie, is that I made it? :-)
    
    In any case, I'd be glad to elaborate "a bit more."
    
    Basically, there are many fine points in which the character of adult
    "onset" apparent past life memories and childhood "onset" apparent past
    life memories differ.  (Lets call them AOPLM and CHOPLM for
    convenience -- acronyms which I just made up).  You can find details
    in Dr. Stevenson's writings (in particular, he has recently published
    a book which, according to the reviews, concentrates on the overall
    character of the evidence and his evaluation of its significance,
    rather than on the details of individual cases.  I can get the title,
    and can tentativly recommend it on the basis of my knowledge of Dr.
    Stevenson's other writing and on the basis of the reviews I have seen;
    though I have not yet read it).
    
    Differences in the two groups are not unexpected even if the phenomena
    involved were purely psychological: after all, children just are not
    like adults.  But the character of many of the differences is such that
    it would seem that AOPLM cases are not a very rich source of real
    anomalies but that CHOPLM cases are.  AOPLM cases, in almost all
    instances, are explainable strictly in terms of the experiants'
    beliefs about the life or period involved plus various consciously
    forgotten sources of information.  Only in a very few cases is there
    any unambigously anomalous information (usually among a mash of
    misinformation) and that seems rather easy to "explain" via ESP.
    
    Many of the CHOPLM cases, of course, also break down under
    investigation or are too ambiguous to be considered evidential.  But when
    the same intensive methods of investigation are applied to CHOPLM cases
    which tend to break down the AOPLM cases, a rather large percentage
    seem to survive.  At first blush, one would expect on the basis of
    purely psychological theories, the opposite to be true.  One would not
    expect children to be so much more successful than adults at
    subconsciously covering up their sources of information.  Of course,
    there are other factors to consider which partially compensates for
    this: the difficulty of communication with children, possible tendencies
    of researchers to give children "the benefit of the doubt", the different
    character of the reports themselves, and adult conspiracies to support
    the child's word.
    
    I don't consider that these cases are unambiguously paranormal (i.e.,
    unexplainable in conventional terms) -- it is very difficult for any
    field phenomena to be so unambiguous, there is too much uncontrolled
    and the real world is just to complex to be sure about such things. 
    They do, however, provide very interesting data which one has to really
    work at to "explain" in conventional terms.  To put it in other terms:
    they are just about as good evidence for the existence of this kind
    of phenomena as one could reasonable expect to actually exist.
    
    I am uncomfortable with reasoning which says that these cases must
    be produced by reincarnation because they are inconsistent with how
    ESP is supposed to operate.  Such arguments rest on the false
    assumption that we have some basis to say how ESP is supposed to operate.
    Nevertheless, the CHOPLM cases are quite at variance with how 
    parapsychologists generally view ESP as operating, and so, one way or
    another, provide a challenge to the completeness of that view.
    
    Some characteristics I consider interesting which differs between AOPLM
    and CHPLM:
    
    - AOPLM are generally explicitly invoked, frequently deliberately. 
    CHPLM are either entirely spontaneous or are stimulated rather
    casually: for example by the appearance in a crowd of someone known
    only in the previous life.
    
    - AOPLMs become more elaborate and clearer as time goes on.  CHPLMs
    fade and disappear.
    
    - AOPLMs generally involve many past lives.  CHOPLMs generally involve
    a single apparent past life.
    
    - AOPLMs generally involve distant times and places; not uncommonly
    times and places which are partially or wholly mythical.  CHPLMs
    generally involve a lifetime nearby in place (within a few hundred
    miles or less), time (generally the previous life ended at most a
    few years before the birth of the child -- if that much), and culture
    (perhaps this is confounded with nearness in place).
    
    I have to admit, however, that as significant as I find all this, I
    have never spent the time necessary to systematically study it -- I
    have simply read this and that about it over the years.  I believe,
    however, that the above statements are all substantially correct.
    
    						Topher

>    Now why do I feel that part of what makes the observation "REMARKABLE"
>    in your opinion, Arie, is that I made it? :-)

Hm. Why indeed?
:-):-)

>    ....... I can get the title,
>    and can tentativly recommend it on the basis of my knowledge of Dr.
>    Stevenson's other writing and on the basis of the reviews I have seen;

If you get the title, please let me know.

It's all highly intriguing for me, what you wrote in there. Has there been found
any relationship with the age of the children? Or is it just that the
CHOPLMs appear less and less when the child grows up?
Somehow I relate this to the discussion we had a long time ago about eidetic
memory: it usually disappears after a certain age (six? eight?). Have there been
found any relationships with that? Or with other physiological/psychological
states?

I am familiar with theories about "state-dependent learning". What you describe
could best be described as "state-dependent UNlearning"..... It strikes me
that access to it becomes so difficult at a more advanced age....

Arie

    I read Stevenson's case histories "suggestive of reincarnation" many
    years ago, and I as recall several of the children presented were
    from India.  I wonder to what extent the beliefs of the Indian culture
    might have influenced the reports of the children and the interpreta-
    tion of their reports.  It seems to me that interpretations are often
    made within the context of belief systems.  For example, several of
    the great Christian mystics end up experiencing a state which can be
    described as "undifferentiated unity," but which they seem to assume
    is a union with God.
    
    Virginia
        

RE: .18 (Arie)

    The book is:

        Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of
        Reincarnation. By Ian Stevenson.  Charlottesville: University
        Press of Virginia, 1987. $35.00 cloth; $14.95, paper.  ISBN
        0-8139-1140-0

    I thought I would quote a few paragraphs from the review which appears
    in the current issue of the Journal of the American Society for
    Psychical Research (Jan. 1990, Vol 84, #1. pp88-93):

        In this excellent and very readable book, Ian Stevenson
        presents the general reader with a careful account of his
        research on cases "suggestive" of reincarnation.  In so doing,
        he offers us a fascinating and compelling book with the
        distinct potential for profoundly changing our way of
        understanding the nature of human existence and death.  As a
        matter of fact, describing this book in terms such as
        "excellent" or "important" is something of an understatement. 
        After all, if Stevenson is correct about what he has been
        arguing these past 25 years in various books and articles, his
        work constitutes nothing less than a Copernican breakthrough
        in our understanding of human nature.  This reviewer believes
        that Stevenson is demonstrably correct in what he has been
        arguing, namely, that belief in reincarnation is simply the
        best available *empirical* (rather than philosophical or
        theological) explanation for an important body of data we can
        no longer ignore or disregard for whatever reasons we have
        done so.

        Even so, in this book Stevenson does not offer what he takes
        to be detailed evidence for reincarnation.  That evidence he
        has offered elsewhere in other books and detailed case
        studies.  Rather, his primary concern is to give a general
        account of his research on cases "suggestive" of
        reincarnation.  As such, the book describes the nature of his
        research methodology, the more important results obtained, and
        his present conclusions.  Modestly [a term I would never think
        to apply to Dr. Stevenson. :-) TC] enough, Stevenson claims
        that he will be content simply to succeed in showing the
        general plausibility of belief in reincarnation and in
        inspiring a certain open-mindedness to the discussion.  He
        would very much disapprove of anybody coming to believe in
        reincarnation solely as a result of reading this book.  Along
        the way, he seeks to clear up some pervasive confusions,
        objections, and questions about what belief in reincarnation
        does and does not imply.  He has a secondary interest in both
        eliciting reports of new cases in the West (such cases he
        believes are very much under-reported), and in exposing a
        shamefully exploited enthusiasm for hypnosis and regression as
        a way of recovering past-life memories.

    The review is by Robert M. Almeder of the Georgia State University
    Department of Philosophy.  I do not know him either personally or by
    reputation.

					Topher

    
    	Does anyone know if Dr. Stevenson (or anyone else) has done
    on-going research with hypnosis on these children who seem to 
    remember past lives. Specifically have any of them been regressed
    several years after these memories have faded to find out if the
    same memories are recalled under hypnosis. Just thought it might
    be an interesting study.

    
    The Unsolved Mysteries program with this woman is on again tomorrow night
    (Wed 7/11/90).

    Linda
    
    

    Another 'Unsolved Mysteries" program was on (9/22/93)dealing with a
    regression session with a man who claimed to have a phobia  about water
    and found it difficult to take a tub bath.Under regression by a 
    hypnotherapist he suddenly started writhing in anxiety on the couch,
    when asked what was the problem , he said he was on a  submarine in
    WWII off New Guinea which was being depth charged by the Japanese and
    he was drowning.He gave the therapist his name and the  submarine's
    name as well as a friend trapped with him in the compartment.
    A check of the archives revealed his sub called "Shark" was sunk in
    1943 in that area and the name  given was revealed to have  been on
    board.
    "Unsolved Mysteries" arranged to have him reunited with people who
    knew the person on the submarine in his hometown, where he felt
    "dejavue" of his surroundings and was able to answer questions that
    was peculiar to the person he claimed to be on the submarine.
    A suggestion of reincarnation is one possibility? It certainly would
    solve the fear of water and drowning he was experiencing.
    Any other thoughts on this?