Past Life - Panic and Hallucination

Synopsis

One of the most personal and intense experiences we can have of the metaphysical or spiritual side of life is that of a past life. It brings with it the awareness of the continuation of the consciousness, and the possibility of rebirth into yet another life after this one, as well as the certainty that the consciousness must exist somewhere between each life. Yet are these memories true past life recollections? As a scientist Dr Catherine Wilkins was aware that there are many other explanations when she was intensely awoken to the possibility of such experiences. Yet she realised that wherever these experiences come from one thing is certain, that they bring with them the possibility of resolving conflict and difficulty in this life, such as panic attacks, and can open the door to peace.

Dr Catherine Wilkins is a veterinarian, medical intuitive, and chiropractor. Author of Manual of the Mind: 5 Keys to Psychic Ability, her unique healing style and understanding has given new hope and meaning to the lives of thousands.

Past-Life, Panic and Hallucination

Have you ever innocently agreed to allow a friend to show you something? And then wondered what you’d let yourself in for? That is what I did when I let a friend take me through a past-life recall meditation. I did not believe in past lives. At the time I was only beginning my reluctant exploration of the metaphysical side of life. I was, and am, a scientist and it was years before I would begin work as a medical intuitive. Being willing to research the existence of energy and its uses for healing was one thing, but believing in past lives was quite another. Or so I thought. Yet I allowed my friend his opportunity to convince me. I sat down, closed my eyes and was thrown hard against the back of the couch as a heavy spear ran me through. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but something had. Hallucination or past life? I couldn’t say.
The experience was intense and I needed some personal resolution around it. There had not been a lot of pain, just the force of the impact and the shock that came with it. That, and the knowledge that I was swiftly dying.
I found out later that the first such experience is a past death. Perhaps because it is, obviously, the last thing experienced in that life time, or perhaps it is because we need to know that we did, indeed, die in order to realise that we are born again. Or perhaps it is that death can be very intense and so, like other intense experiences, it remains closer to the surface of our mind.
On further meditation I began to remember other details. I remembered it was my brother who thrust home the spear and that, strangely, it was an act of kindness on his part. I had betrayed my family’s honour by running off with my friend and in order to restore it I was to be put to death in a horrible way once I was tracked down. A quick death was my brother’s way of caring for both me and the family. It was a strangely compelling and complete memory. Further, it resolved for me the conflict I had had with my brother in this lifetime. From that moment on I was at peace with the situation.

Someone once said that living more than once is no greater miracle than living at all. It would certainly make sense that, if we did live more than once, remembering those lifetimes may assist us to deal with events of our present, just as resolving events in our early childhood often can. Perhaps this is why metaphysically and spiritually no proof for the reality or validity of a past-life experience is required. The experience is enough, for the experience alone can create deep healing. For a scientist, of course, that is not sufficient.
On speaking to another scientist (my father – university professor and mathematician), he pointed out to me that it is impossible to prove your current life is as you remember it. You cannot absolutely prove anything you remember right before this moment actually happened. It could be the result of a massive brainwashing exercise. Hence, there is no more proof, and no less proof, for this life as there is for any past life. Yet the problem remains. There is no proof that we lived before, and a past life is not the only explanation for what happened.

Explanations

There are a number of explanations for past-life memories. That they are real is only one explanation. There are many others.
It may be that past-lives are a result of race memory. That is, the memories may come to you through your DNA, your genes, much the same way as instructions on how to combat a particular germ are carried around by your white blood cells. That is, it may be that past-lives are actually you remembering the lives of your ancestors. Many cultures honour their ancestors as part of their spiritual ritual. It may be that such practises assist to resolve any memories of conflict carried in the genes, as would any form of genetic healing. This type of healing is often referred to under the name of family karma. A person can be affected by the memory of an ancestor’s life, carried in the body’s DNA. These memories can be far more fragmentary, as a general rule, than the memories of your own past-lives.
The accepted scientific view today is that the recall of your ancestors’ lives through your own DNA is not possible. Science says genes encode for physical functions only, not memory. However, there is a small, radical group of scientists that propose acquired characteristics may be passed on. In other words, if your body changes in your life, such as you becoming really fit, then your children will be born with those changes. They will be born fitter than you were. If they prove their claim it would be a step towards science accepting the possibility of inheriting memory along with eye colour.

Another explanation for these memories comes from Charles Gustav Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology. It was Jung who first proposed the existence of the collective unconscious, a level of mind in which we are all connected. Think of it as a level of your mind, below your subconscious, which is connected to everyone else’s subconscious. A bit like the ocean below every wave. Perhaps for this reason the work of many counselors can resolve issues from other lifetimes as well as from this one. For it may be the past-life conflicts you recall are your soul’s way of assisting the evolution of humanity as a whole. It may be that you are healing the collective consciousness as you heal your own past lives.
Scientifically, a more acceptable explanation is that past-life memories are not memories at all, but simply a figment of your imagination, at best, or a hallucination, at worst. In order to deal with stress, trauma and other issues it is well known that the mind can create false memories. This is something that therapists and counselors are familiar with. It may be that past-lives are also a version of false memories, created, like such other memories, as a way to deal with the emotional content of past hurts or trauma without having to face the pain of what actually happened. This could explain why the emotional content of a past-life can closely match the emotional content of the present-life situation.
As science and metaphysics move closer together in our time, however, it is interesting to note that there is a scientific hypothesis explaining many psychic phenomena, including past life recall. It has yet to gain full acceptance but Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenetic field has the potential to answer many questions. Essentially, he says that your brain creates a field around it which has no energy but carries information. This field persists through time and space. This means all your memories are a mix of the personal and transpersonal. Past-life recall maybe the result of someone tuning into this field as it was left by someone else. This would explain, for example, why a number of people claim to have been Cleopatra in a past life.
Such a field as Rupert Sheldrake’s is also suggested by the view that the Universe is one big hologram. Simply stated, this hypothesis says life is nothing more than a field of energy and information which our consciousness and brain interprets. Much of my own work is based on this, for it explains how it is that all time is Now and all places are Here. And if that is the case then our consciousness can tap into experiences in other times and places. For such experiences can bring tremendous benefits.

Benefits

There are many benefits from remembering our past lives. Remembering our past interactions with those near and dear to us can help us understand and resolve conflicts. They can give us a deeper insight into our own reactions and why we sometimes respond differently. This understanding brings with it the possibility of making better choices and creating a different, better future.
This last is particularly important when our life is stuck in negative patterns. Sometimes, life patterns, like habits, can become so ingrained in a soul they continue, lifetime after lifetime. By understanding and releasing past life patterns it is possible to change your soul path.
One of the most dramatic examples of this is in the treatment of panic attacks. These are often triggered by a specific event. Sometimes the trigger seems curiously innocent and safe to the rest of us. However, for the sufferer a trigger begins an intense period of sweating, palpitations, breathlessness and faintness accompanied by severe feelings of anxiety.
Modern psychology or psychiatry deals with panic attacks or disorders by the prescription of sedatives, tranquilizers and anti-depressants. By dulling the nervous system the anxious reaction is decreased. This approach has mixed results, which are considerably improved by the addition of counseling or therapy. For panic attacks are often the result of a subconscious memory of a past-life death that was extremely unpleasant and painful, with the pain usually, but not always, being more physical than emotional.
I remember one young man who suffered from this problem. He was not a client of mine and was very skeptical of what I did. In explaining my work to him I used panic attacks as an example. He gave me an odd look and said he suffered from them. When you work as a medical intuitive there is usually a very good reason for the examples you use.
I explained to him that panic attacks usually had a specific trigger. He said that he had been told that but could not think of one. On closer questioning he realised it usually happened when he was in a queue. I told him whether or not he remembered, queues were connected with a past-life death of his. His subconscious remembered, and so he was panicked by queues, thinking he was about to die yet again.

When I ran into him again he was free of the panic attacks. He told me how, after our conversation, he had had a strange experience and since then no panic attacks. He often worked late and two days after our conversation he was lying on his bed during the day and had what he called a ‘waking dream’. He felt neither asleep nor awake, but he saw himself in a queue. He was dressed in rags and was very thin, like everyone else in the queue. They were all shuffling slowly towards a large brick building with a smokestack. There was dark and greasy smoke coming out the top of it. We both knew he had envisioned a concentration camp. This was the death that led him to panic. From the day the memory became conscious he did not suffer the attacks any more. With consciousness, his subconscious no longer needed to constantly warn him. He received healing through his past lives, yet is still not convinced they are real. It could have been, he suggested, some kind of hallucination produced by my suggestion. Perhaps, but hallucination or past-life recall, he was healed.
The healing of this life produced through releasing the trauma of other lifetimes can be immense. Yet that is not the only benefit of past lives. We have all learnt many things in our lifetimes. Through recalling them we can bring that knowledge into our current life.
For example, many of us have what I call a ‘personal spiritual tradition’. Many people’s first metaphysical or spiritual learning was in another lifetime. Each culture approaches the spiritual from a slightly different foundation or method. When we first learn metaphysics it has a profound effect on our consciousness, laying the foundation for much of what follows. By learning what method we used in the beginning we can greatly facilitate our future learning and metaphysical skill.
We can gain other skills also. Many child prodigies are a result of people who have spent lifetimes learning one particular skill. They have immersed their consciousness so deeply into that skill they are able to bring the knowledge consciously into this lifetime at an early age. By working to remember those lifetimes in which we were skilled at a particular craft or calling we can greatly enhance our abilities. Remembering your other lifetimes can be a great asset. It is something many professionals can assist you to do. It is also something that, with practise, you can learn to do yourself.

Remembering for yourself

Remembering your past-lives is actually no different to remembering anything. It is no different to remembering what you did last Monday. The only reason we have difficulty remembering our past lives is that we think it is somehow different, but it is not. It is all in the same ‘field’ of information. However, like any skill you need training; that is, you need certain information and then lots of practise.
The information you need is to know how you remember. Think back to what you did last Monday and observe yourself remembering. How did you do that?
First of all you focused on the time and you asked yourself, ‘Where was I last Monday?’. When you remembered that, you were able to remember all sorts of other details.
Your memory works with this kind of ‘coordinate’ association system. Given the two coordinates of time and place, your subconscious is able to access the correct memory file and give you the events and details of that day. Sometimes you might get the time first, as in the example above, or sometimes you get the place first, like when you need to remember something associated with a particular place or event. Then you ask yourself ‘When was I there?’ and then once again your mind will begin to fill in the details.
Remembering your past lives is the same. Pick a time period to explore and ask yourself ‘Where was I?’ and then go with what you get. Or if there is a region of the planet or a particular culture you would like to remember ask yourself ‘When was I there?’ and once again go with what you get.
If you find you are having difficulties remembering anything then it may be that your memory needs to be strengthened or trained. If you cannot remember what you did last Monday it is no surprise you cannot remember what you did last lifetime. There is a simple exercise you can do at the end of each day to begin your memory training.
At bedtime, stop for a minute and remember five things you did that day, in reverse order. Remember the last thing first and the first thing last. Pick things you don’t do every day. There is not much point in remembering you brushed your teeth or ate dinner. Instead remember the phone call you made or the paragraph you read or the shirt you bought or the particular look of the sunset. Do this every day and the strength of your memory will increase. Your powers of observation will also increase as this assists to focus your mind as well.
Of course, initially, many people ask me, ‘How do I know that what I am remembering is real?’ And naturally to begin with you won’t. This is the same with any intuitive training. To begin with it is impossible to tell the difference between your intuition and your imagination. That comes with time. With practise you will be able to feel the difference. Alternatively, from the scientific perspective none of it is likely to be real, so why concern yourself with such a question? In the end, remembering your past lives has the potential to be of tremendous benefit and to bring you tremendous gifts. If a ‘past-life or ‘hallucination’ supplies the gifts does it matter? Perhaps, then, it is time to remember not to look the gift horse in the mouth.

©Catherine Wilkins 2005

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