hypnosis & past experiences

Before I hit the sack I wanted to discuss the idea of Past Life Regression. I was watching Oprah today (I LOVE her show esp when they discuss weird and interesting topics) and she had Dr Oz and a Psychiatrist on the show to discuss Past Life Regression. The psychiatrist was a leader in this field of hypnosis (it's a type of hypnosis btw) and before the show he tried it on the audience. Some experiences from the audiences was pretty cool.

But let me back up a bit and explain a little about what Past Life Regression is. Well its like I mentioned a type of hypnosis that is used as a technique to recover previous life experiences or memories, so like repressed memories of past lives. In order for this to be true, reincarnation should be possible. Being a Catholic I'm not supposed to believe in reincarnation, but i can't help but be intrigued about such a possibility. I think in a way it makes life seem more of a never ending journey. Like the mistakes you make in this life can be redeemed in your next etc. A love lost in your past life you find in this life. They might not play the same role as before but the connection remains the same, so they could be a brother, sister or other loved one. In a way I think it's comforting to think that we can be given a second chance to write the wrongs of the past.

Anyway an audience member from the show talked about what she experienced in the 30 or so minutes she was under hypnosis and revealed that in her past life she was an african woman with many children and that in every scene she saw she died but her children lived. Now this had a link to her life now in some way. She's single but doesn't have any children but loves them nevertheless. The underlying reason, she believes, that she's not able to have any is because she has a fear of losing them because of what happened in her past life.

All this got me thinking about who I might have been in my past life. I thought back on reoccurring dreams or unusual feelings i'd have about certain things or experiences and even de ja vu. Or even a certain emotion or understanding of a person or culture different from your own, it could possibly mean you appreciate it more because you lived it in your past life.

A dream that has stuck with me, one that i think i've had a couple of times, involves me running away from something, always running and knocking on doors but no one is answering. Now this could have no link at  all to my past life and just means I have to face problems head on etc. But let's say it did, could this be experiences of the past? about how I might have died? woaah okay kind of freaky right.

Now I could go on forever contemplating and aimlessly thinking of other reasons but there could be hundreds of possibilities and reasons for such feelings or memories. I mean all of this could be some sort of play on our imaginations or something. But its a topic i'm pretty interested in and with further research i'd like to give it a go.