Have you ever had a long-forgotten memory from childhood suddenly pop up in your mind out of nowhere? Maybe a new co-worker at your job made you think of your first grade teacher who hadn’t crossed your mind in decades. Or perhaps an old song brought to mind an argument with a loved one you’d forgotten you’d had.
The same type of sudden remembrance can happen with past life memories too. You could be going about your life in a normal manner, when boom! — your mind is flooded with memories that don’t seem to belong to your current life’s circumstances.
You may know that certain fears can be chalked up to past life memories. If you’re afraid of something and there is no logical explanation for the fear, a past life memory could very well be the culprit. For example, an irrational fear of the ocean or a deep aversion to the idea of learning to swim could be the result of having drowned in a previous life.
But fears aren’t the only potential triggers of past life memories. There are other events that can happen in our daily lives that cause us to stop short and question whether something bigger is currently at play. Here are some circumstances that can spark a past life memory to come to the surface.
A scent
One reason aromatherapy is so powerful is because scent triggers emotion. If you grew up in a household where your mother loved to bake, the sweet aroma of a pie in the oven could conjure up feelings related to childhood or your relationship with your mother. Likewise, if you hated spending time with a relative whose house smelled like mothballs, a similar smell could trigger negative feelings and emotions.
The same thing could happen with a past life. A smell could be familiar to you because it was present in a past life rather than the present. If this is the case, it could conjure up memories that don’t make sense to you or that make you feel a certain way that you don’t understand. The key here is that the aroma sparks a mood that you can’t explain. If you have a strong reaction and it simply doesn’t make sense, a past life may be at play.
A traumatic event
For many people, a traumatic event can open the floodgates to a lot of different psychic phenomena. There are all kinds of stories about how people first discovered they had psychic abilities after a near-death experience or the loss of a loved one. Trauma can also give us a jolt of past-life memories, particularly traumatic ones that are similar to what we’ve recently experienced in the present.
A new person
One of the common triggers of past life memories is a new person who enters your life, yet feels familiar. In stories people have shared about past life regressions, a common theme seems to be that the same souls travel with us through time and space in life after life. In fact, members of our soul group will often share meaningful life experiences with us in multiple lifetimes.
A reference to a historical event
A friend once had a strong emotional reaction after watching a documentary on the Salem Witch Trials. Not only was she repulsed by how the women — and men — who had been hanged or burned at the stake had been treated, but she felt like the experience was personal. She had a strong belief that she had also been burned at the stake, and a subsequent past life regression told her that she had, in fact, lived in Salem during the late 1600s.
If you find yourself triggered by a past life memory — or you believe you’ve been triggered but aren’t sure — you can learn more by getting a past life regression yourself. You can read about my first past life regression here. You might also try meditation to relax your mind, and then ask your Higher Self for more information about the memories. You may be surprised by what you learn.