Posted on 04/06/2007 7:52:24 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study.
The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to implausible reincarnation claims in the first place.
Researchers recruited people who, after undergoing hypnotic therapy, had come to believe that they had past lives.
Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of names: non-famous names they had already seen (from the earlier list), famous names, and names of non-famous people that they had not previously seen. Their task was to identify which names were famous.
The researchers found that, compared to control subjects who dismissed the idea of reincarnation, past-life believers were almost twice as likely to misidentify names. In particular, their tendency was to wrongly identify as famous the non-famous names they had seen in the first task. This kind of error, called a source-monitoring error, indicates that a person has difficulty recognizing where a memory came from.
Power of suggestion
People who are likely to make these kinds of errors might end up convincing themselves of things that aren’t true, said lead researcher Maarten Peters of Maastricht University in The Netherlands. When people who are prone to making these mistakes undergo hypnosis and are repeatedly asked to talk about a potential idea—like a past life—they might, as they grow more familiar with it, eventually convert the idea into a full-blown false memory.
This is because they can’t distinguish between things that have really happened and things that have been suggested to them, Peters told LiveScience.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
From what I’ve observed it’s directly tied to wishful thinking.
Years ago a psychic told me I was Henry VIII. Odd, I cant seem to remember her name......
I don’t know about this article, I’m pretty damn sure that my next door neighbor’s kid is the reincarnation of that ‘Time to make the Donuts’ guy.
She was the widow next door,
who had been married seven times before, Henry.
I always think it’s funny that people seem to remember being cool and famous people. AND excatly how many people could actually have been Cleopatra anyway???
susie
I look like him too...except I don’t make em. I just eat em.
Defective minds. Doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve argued the same thing for centuries.
Ann Boleyn.
I;ve always thought that at least some past life memories are legitimate, but not evidence of reincarnation, but glimpses into something akin to race memory.
That is, the memories are real, but not the memories of the person who is remembering them.
“Does this explanation apply to all life after death claims?”
It explains half of them.
The other half are either crazy or liars.
collective memory?
Something like that, yes.
I can dig it. But is there a Cliff Notes version I can find somewhere?? :-)
So will a few glasses of Madeira.
It’s not a huge book - worth the read! ;)
What if you don’t believe in reincarnation but have memory problems?
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