Past Lives

[Candy]

I am a believer of past lives. I believe I have experienced one myself.

For the first 4 years of my life, I repeatedly had a dream of me dying in a plane crash. I told everyone about it.

I was in a plane in uniform. I believe I was in a jumpseat, so I must have been a flight attendant.

Something happened to the plane, and I remember dying. I had this dream over and over for the first 4 years of my life. My brothers and sister still make fun of me.

I wonder if this dream has lead me to Chicago and with the wonderful experience I have had thus far with United Airlines.

I was drawn to Chicago at an early age, and being here is just a freaking dream come true.

Am I a lost daughter of a United flight gone down in Michigan (circa 1965)? I don't know. I've tried to get the manifest, but no one wants to help me.

[Candy]

Salt Lake City

Burned out shell of a United Air Lines Boeing 727 that crashed at Salt Lake City after crash landing short of the runway. Forty-three out of 91 aboard were killed. The pilot was blamed for too high a descent rate during the final approach. (November 11, 1965)

Not the one I was on…
Candy's demise!

16 August 1965; United Airlines 727; near Lake Forest, IL: The aircraft had a controlled flight into the waters of Lake Michigan while on approach to Chicago. There was no indication of any unusual problem prior to impact. All six crew members and 24 passengers were killed.

[Candy]

I work closely with one of the guys that would've boarded "me", he is now a tech guy for my department (30+ seniority).

I asked him about the event, and tears came to his eyes. :(

[Lance]

November 11

Hmm...

My birthday...

[Candy]

Don't make fun of me!

I'm not a woowoo. It happened. I remember it.

I had a brown bobbed hair-do, 5'5" or so, and a very neat (pressed uniform).

I remember to this day. I'd love to know who I was, so I could give comfort to the family I once belonged.

[Lance]

Don't make fun of me!

I'm not making fun of you. November 11 really is my brithday. Just not that year.

[Candy]

Okay.

This has haunted me all my life.

I now control all Emergency Programs when a plane gets 'lost'.

Coincidence?

Well, on the Reservation Part, I'm still trying to get to the Flight Operation Part. Give me a year or so to reach that dream. :)

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I'm not sure what to think about reincarnation. On one hand the "information" supposed reincarnated individuals give is rather vague, but on the other hand... there's stuff like this that really make you, "Hmm..."

[umop ap!sdn]

I used to believe in it very strongly... now I think probably not, but who knows. I'd like very much for it to be something real though.

I used to believe that I had lived in the 1960s and '70s, just a normal average life - maybe a little too idyllic. I "remembered" quite a bit about what I looked like, what my name was, places I'd lived, friends and relatives... and was able to confirm some general stuff but nothing too specific - no evidence that this woman actually existed or anything else having to do with any real person.

Then on another board (Straight Dope) I got into debating some skeptical folks who made a really good argument for materialism as opposed to dualism: they said the evidence points to no souls, therefore no afterlife and nothing to reincarnate. They made a persuasive argument and I came to believe them. I came to believe that most likely, my "recollections" were a fantasy that somehow resulted from several psychological and other factors combining to form the desire to live an ordinary life as an ordinary gal in that time period. (One thing you can't say about my upbringing was that it was either normal or idyllic. )

Not too long ago I thought - okay, so the evidence isn't there. At least not for reincarnation to be true by the mechanism I once believed in. But ya know what, that's not good enough for me. Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense, and if I'm ever in the "right" area I should at least look. If this person really existed there'd be an obit and maybe even a short article in the local paper.

[umop ap!sdn]

I had a brown bobbed hair-do, 5'5" or so, and a very neat (pressed uniform).

A couple things that occur to me to mention right now:

Do you know what your name was, or do you remember any other identifying information? If so, write it down now, before you ever see the manifest. If you find any familiar names on that list, you'll want to have some evidence that you had come up with them independently.

Also do you recall any music that would have been familiar to you then, or are there any songs that remind you of that life? I have information about song charts going back to 1962. I'd be willing to throw out a list of songs from around 1965, and we can see if your impressions of them correlate with the August 16 date.

(Oddly enough, that was 40 years and 2 days ago - go figure! :P )

Anyway like I said there may be nothing to all this but it's a good idea to approach the subject as scientifically as possible...

[Lance]

...they said the evidence points to no souls, therefore no afterlife and nothing to reincarnate.

I like to think I have become as skeptical and critical thinking as the next guy, but sometimes I think some of the skeptics are as bad in their thinking as the woo woos. Exactly what evidence is there of no soul?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Yeah, we all know that. I this case, I believe, no one will even agree which side of the argument is the extraordinary claim. No evidence of a soul is not evidence of no soul.

</rant>

I hope that made sense.

[Bill EE]

You know Cl1mh4224rd - the best part of that link you gave was:

Her husband, Bruce, remains skeptical. "He started researching to disprove what James was telling us, and ended up proving it all," he said. "I think he believes that James Huston's spirit has manifested itself in our son somehow."

Look at that - did research and it went against his original hypothesis. Some woo-woo could learn from that.

Candy - have you read the original accident report? http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR67-AA.pdf

Did it bring up any memories?

Well I have had some strange experiences that so I don't automatically dismiss past lives or ghosts. When I was a kid, we moved into a new house. It was our first with two bathrooms (a great advance for civilization). The main bathroom always spooked me and I told my mom that I thought someone had died in the bathtub. We found out later that a kid had drown in that tub.

When I was working as an elevator operator in New Orleans (did I say I had a lot of strange experiences?) - the 8th floor was always cold to me but one night I heard a scream. I got the master key and entered the room to find no-one was in there. Found out that someone was murdered in that room.

I have a few others but it has been enough to keep me open minded.

[Eroica]

It happened. I remember it.

I had a brown bobbed hair-do, 5'5" or so, and a very neat (pressed uniform).

I remember to this day. I'd love to know who I was, so I could give comfort to the family I once belonged.

There are such things as false memories. Just because you have a vivid memory of something happening to you does not mean it actually happened to you.

The problem I have with reincarnation is that I don't believe there is anything to reincarnate. Memories are flesh and blood: they're made of neurons, ions, etc. If they're in your head, they must have got there by some physical process. So there is no need to start seeking supernatural processes to account for them until we have exhausted the physical theories (and let's face it, where this sort of stuff is concerned, serious science has hardly even begun to scratch the surface!).

The only working theory I have involves some sort of psychic transference of memories from a dying person to someone else - perhaps to a gestating foetus. The memories you have are real memories, Candy - they're just not your memories.

[umop ap!sdn]

Exactly what evidence is there of no soul?

The evidence given to me was that studies of the brain always came up with new areas that were responsible for various functions previously attributed to the soul - emotions, memory, critical thinking, and so on. They cited the Chinese Room as an analogy to the human psyche, and pointed out that as more and more of the "walls" were being taken down, more and more of the contents were found to conform to materialism.

I tried to tell them that their approach assumes that the universe is entirely deterministic, and brought up quantum entanglement as an example of why that doesn't seem to be the case: what, I asked, determines which state a particle will be in when it is observed and detangled; they told me the one who finds the answer to that would win a Nobel Prize and that my argument trying to support the idea of a soul was a variation of the God of the Gaps fallacy.

I this case, I believe, no one will even agree which side of the argument is the extraordinary claim. No evidence of a soul is not evidence of no soul.

I hope that made sense.

I wish you had been there to participate in the debates - that's a good point that should have been raised. :)

[Eroica]

... sometimes I think some of the skeptics are as bad in their thinking as the woo woos. Exactly what evidence is there of no soul?

Skeptics don't disbelieve in the soul because its existence has been disproved: rather, they don't believe in it because its existence has not yet been proved. It's Occam's Razor.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Yeah, we all know that.

I don't. Extraordinary claims require just the same degree of evidence as trivial claims - or, at least, they should. It may be that some people refuse to believe something extraordinary until they have been shown extraordinary evidence, but that's another matter entirely.

I this case, I believe, no one will even agree which side of the argument is the extraordinary claim.

True, but it is clear which side of the argument is multiplying entities without necessity.

No evidence of a soul is not evidence of no soul.

Irrefutable. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Of course, this argument can be applied to a lot of other things, from Father Christmas to the chocolate covered rock in the asteroid belt that hasn't yet been found (but we're still looking :D ).

I hope that made sense.

You always make sense, Lance. :wink:

[Cl1mh4224rd]

You know Cl1mh4224rd - the best part of that link you gave was:

Her husband, Bruce, remains skeptical. "He started researching to disprove what James was telling us, and ended up proving it all," he said. "I think he believes that James Huston's spirit has manifested itself in our son somehow."

Look at that - did research and it went against his original hypothesis. Some woo-woo could learn from that.

True, but I wouldn't use this particular situation as an example for woo-woos; it would only reaffirm their belief that they're always right. ;)

[I Am He]

Well Lance, could your B'Day happen to be 11-11-? Because if it is, it just happens to be the same as mine.
Reincarnation does not hold water. Where would all the souls come from? Don't forget there was that many people around to start with. Another thing is that all the Woo Woo's will just be coming back, over and over again.

[Lance]

57?

[Lance]

If I see a light in the sky that I can not identify and then claim "that is a Vegan Type II explorer saucer here to scout out a good invasion starting point," then I better have some extraordinary evidence to back it up!

And this is why it's important. I saw that light too and I am certain that it was a Vegan Type III explorer saucer.

[umop ap!sdn]

Reincarnation does not hold water. Where would all the souls come from? Don't forget there was that many people around to start with.

Where would they come from? I don't have a definite answer for that. But what does seem to be happening from my POV is a large fraction of those who believe they had past lives believe one of them ended shortly before their current life began. So either A.) there are a great many souls in the universe, and as more and more people are being born, souls are spending less and less time away from human existence, or B.) there is some mechanism or property of the mind that results in people wanting so badly to have lived in the decade or 2 that immediately preceded the start of their actual existence.

So that does not prevent it from holding water in any way that I know of... :D

However, another factor that is involved is that these "immediate" past lives seem to always be relatively short and culminate in a sudden, maybe traumatic, death. That's true for mine as well as the OP's. So, it may just be that those who leave the world unexpectedly tend to return quickly, or this may just reflect a tendency for similar minded individuals to run across the same online and real life hangouts.

[Candy]

However, another factor that is involved is that these "immediate" past lives seem to always be relatively short and culminate in a sudden, maybe traumatic, death. That's true for mine as well as the OP's. So, it may just be that those who leave the world unexpectedly tend to return quickly, or this may just reflect a tendency for similar minded individuals to run across the same online and real life hangouts.

Hey, I like this thought. Actually, for the last decade or so, I've always thought I was supposed to come back and tell the 'family' that I was okay. I've yet to identify 'me', so I have no idea of how to identify and contact the 'family'. Does this make sense? :?

[Мастер]

If I see a light in the sky that I can not identify and then claim "that is a Vegan Type II explorer saucer here to scout out a good invasion starting point," then I better have some extraordinary evidence to back it up!

And this is why it's important. I saw that light too and I am certain that it was a Vegan Type III explorer saucer.

A Vegan Type III explorer saucer, preparing for invasion? Would they by any chance be preparing to invade the local organic vegetarian grocery store?

[Lance]

Reincarnation does not hold water. Where would all the souls come from? Don't forget there was that many people around to start with.

Where would they come from? I don't have a definite answer for that.

Nor do I, but I know there is the concept of "Old Soul" and "Young Soul". Perhaps "young souls" come into existence by what ever means souls come into existence, as needed.

[MM_Dandy]

So, does one get a used soul at conception or at birth?

Or maybe they get it later?

Does everyone get a soul?

If I commit a crime, can I blame it on my soul if it previously possessed a criminal?

Does the soul get to choose what person to inhabit next? If so, when does it get to make the choice?

[Мастер]

If I commit a crime, can I blame it on my soul if it previously possessed a criminal?

I am sure it has been tried as a defence somewhere :D I am not sure it will go over very well, though. I do believe there was a case once in Illinois where the claim that God had commanded the defendant to kill someone was not accepted as a valid defence...