Question: How do you know a memory of a past life is real? That it's not just a figment of your imagination?

Written by Dianna Hardy
4th August, 2020
​See my page on Past Lives here.

Photo: Dreamcatcher © Dianna Hardy

Hmmm ... well, the short answer is, you don't. Or rather, you either know, or you don't.

In some ways, everything's a figment of your imagination since everything that exists is just a perception and can only be viewed by you and you alone. Even if two people see the same thing, they see it differently. How do you know that your childhood memories are real? Since most of them are probably quite fuzzy? You can only know if another person was there at the time and can confirm the thing you remember happened. Or ... you just know. When I say "know", I am referring to inner-knowing. No one can give you that, I'm afraid - it come from within.

For me, my fuzzy past life memories are ones I take with a grain of salt. I'm sure they happened to some extent, but as they are fuzzy, I have probably interjected my own impressions and beliefs into what I do remember. But the memories that are sharp and clear, I take those more at face value. They're the ones I tend to talk about on this website and blog.

Perhaps this is helped by the fact that some of the sharp, clear memories I had of my childhood (from the age of one year old) have been confirmed by my mother, so I have a sense of what a correct sharp and clear memory feels like, therefore it creates the certainty that those past life memories are also real.

I am also aware that it's possible to mix memories. For example, I'm certain I've had at least two Native American past lives, and one Inca past life, and one African one, and they were all in indigenous tribes. I am aware that sometimes the first three (Native American and Inca), and especially the two Native American ones, get mixed up. The two Native American ones were close together in time that spanned the end of the 1600s and the 1700s, so they get mixed up a lot. I was a man in the first one and a woman in the second. You'd think that would make it easier to separate events between the two, but not always. What does make it easier, is that I was a person of importance in the first one - a Chief or Elder - and a woman in the second one, whereby even though I had much herbal and tree knowledge, and also some prophetic vision, I was still not listened to above others of higher importance (e.g. the Chief and the shaman who in this instance was also the medicine man) of the tribe. The imposition of hierarchy was one I felt strongly in that past life, perhaps because I had just come from a previous incarnation as a Chief.

Yet, still, a small portion of those memories get mixed up. However, if I put in proper work through meditation and regression, the lives do become much, much clearer and stay that way. But I don't often do that. You might think why not? Because it does not pay to attach to past lives. I would only regress if I felt something in that life was of high importance to my current situation, but most of the time, I (and all of us) can figure this life out without needing input from previous lives. I believe we remember all we need to in order to progress.

I certainly don't expect other people to think my past lives are real - I just talk about them because I can; because it feels freeing to do so, sometimes because talking about them brings even more memories back as if a flood gate opens, and finally because I love to inspire people to truly explore the "what ifs" of life and let their imaginations fly free.