On the HypnoMasterMind yahoogroup of late there has been a bit of discussion on pastlife regressions – not unlike the Hypnosis Technique Exchange (such discussions often come in cycles). Along with the usual caveats, there was an intriguing question posed by someone curious about his “past lives” asking whether or not pastlife regression can be done by means of audio CD and then recorded via camcorder.
You could do this but I’m not really sure it would give you any more information than just listening to a CD. Most CDs are passive in nature, that is you just lie there and listen and experience the imagery imaginatively. By their nature, it is unlikely anyone’s going to put out an interactive past life CD . . . just more of the lie there and be still and imagine what I guide you to imagine stuff.
So, putting a camcorder on yourself would just be videotaping yourself laying there. No speaking, no moving, just a hunk of flesh deeply relaxed . . . other than the headphones it would likely be indistinguishable from a video of yourself sleeping.
Personally, I would suggest limiting CD based material when it comes to past lives to the positive times guided imagery type of material. I would not recommend doing full immersive regression work and certainly would suggest that recorded material always avoid death bed or trauma type issues – past life or otherwise.
Even CDs that do positive imagery need to use positive rider suggestions to ensure that folks stay focused and within the positive energy of the imaginative event. Abreactions are okay for face-to-face, we’re trained to deal with them (or should be) but they’re not all that fun for some inexperienced person alone in a room listening to a CD that suddenly has them overwhelmed with deeply troubling and disturbing emotions.
Also keep in mind that even though you may experience a pastlife memory very deeply and extremely vividly during a full hypnotic regression, that only means the experience is perhaps important to you, it does NOT mean the pastlife is genuine or if the life is genuine it doesn’t mean it was your life. There are a lot of mechanisms at play with pastlife work and it is very important to keep the language and the conclusions clean, without intent or assumption. Pastlife regressions only prove that we can imagine vividly a pastlife which may or may not be a real event. Some sessions get inadvertently colored with leading suggestions and others are examples of the unconscious creating metaphors to work with. Bryan’s remark about people finding what they are seeking is very true so it is important to keep sessions clean when dealing with therapy. Even listening to a CD or doing a pastlife regression for "personal insight" will color the process in that when one expects or is looking for such an experience then they usually find them. Some folks don’t have past lives, they are new souls so to speak . . . but most folks seem to find one or more pastlives when undergoing pastlife regressions. Confabulation and phantasy, both at the conscious and unconscious levels can also be a factor.
However, even with those caveats, the experience can be very valid . . . when appropriately approached.
Taking the caveats in mind, I do have a couple short free pastlife type MP3s on my site if you want to give it a whirl though. They are short. Others have longer pieces available for purchase.
I run courses and workshops every once in awhile on practical approaches to this sort of stuff and we hit the clean language, clean processes, clean expectations, clean conclusions aspects hard . . . pretty much the "skeptic’s approach to doing metaphysical work" and while I have a bias in favor of the "belief" in reincarnation and the like, I also hold a critical bias of examining evidence and not jumping to conclusions ("only when the probable has been eliminated" do we then begin seriously considering the "improbable" or the "impossible" so to speak).
I hope this has been helpful.
All the best,
Brian
Note: The image is of Quanah Parker, my ancestor rather than my past life.
Practical Approaches to Metaphysical Hypnosis – Feb. 6-10, 2006
Romance and Sensuality Hypnosis – Feb. 13-17, 2006
See "training" at http://www.briandavidphillips.com for details!
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
