Thread: Seeing who you were in previous lives...through mirrors?

hmm sounds interesting. im really into meditation and even tried an open eye meditation once that was really crazy, the room i was in began to change colors stuff started shifting around and my walls looked like they were melting, then again i also have whats called HPPD "Hallucinogenic Persisting Perception Disorder" i got it from doing mushrooms, when i stare at anything for too long, whatever im looking at starts morphing and moving around. this doesnt cause me any problems in my everyday life cause the only way it happens if i space out and look at something for too long, and sometimes i just do it for fun, its kinda like a free trip.

im going to give this a try, although i do not believe the persons you are seeing yourself turn into are people from your past life, only cause i do not believe in reincarnation.

ill come back here to share my results.

I have done this, and its a variation to an Eastern technique known as tratak

What is strange, is not the so much the past lives theory of some practitioners (that may/may not be true), but the fact that the face before you is not, in reality, a fixed event.

I use a light candle, to sit in front of the mirror - and before bed so I can intend to dream that night of looking in the mirror. In lucid dreams be prepared to be even more surprised.

The sensation I get is a feeling of who really is observing you.

Also notice the connection between thoughts and blinking. It helps to stare at the reflected image without blinking (too much)

what a vivid experience

but what if I dont have a full length mirror? is a mirror that is torso up okay?

Yeah I have. What a cool experience, man. I made a thread about it in Deep Dreaming, actually, sharing very similar results.

Originally Posted by apocalypse

Also notice the connection between thoughts and blinking. It helps to stare at the reflected image without blinking (too much)

Actually, it is best if there are no thoughts and no blinking. It is possible to stare for a long period of time without blinking, just as long as you keep your awareness stable.

Anyway, I love this meditation.

This sounds so intriguing! One day, if I remember, I really want to try this. It definitely sounds like something I would love to experience. Have you done any research at all on these people?

sounder interesting!

I like the past lives idea... but could it be a spirit guide, or someone looking down over you?

Sounds pretty amazing! I've got to try this.

Actually, I have come across this kind of meditation before. On some blog, which is in Polish, and it's name is 'Development and Conscousness'. The author of the blog gathers a lot of philosophic, spiritual and esoteric materials, usually puts longer excerpts from books on her blog.

There is an topic there 'Funny and unusual mediation techniques'. It's an excerpt from the Osho's book 'Buudha dreams in Zorba' (my translation from Polish, I'm too lazy to find the original title in English, forgive me that )One of these was called there simply 'Mirror look', or 'Mirror gaze'.

I will translate the description from this blog for you:

Close the door of your room and put a big mirror in front of you. The room must be dark. Light a small candle and place it between you and the mirror, so that its' light doesn't reflect directly in the mirror. In the mirror you should see only your face and not the flame of the candle. Start to look at the reflection of your eyes, try not to blink.

The experiments lasts for 40 minutes and after two - three days you will learn to look without blinking. Even if tears appear, let them flow, but don't blink your eyelids. After few days of looking into your eyes, you'll become aware of a strange phenomenon. Your face will change it's shape, assume new forms. It may even scare you. Sometimes the face in the mirror will be completely different than the one you considered yours. In reality, however, all these faces belong to you. Now your subconscious mind starts to explode. All these faces, all these masks, are yours.

After a week of daily, 40-minute looking at the mirror our face will be like a stream, a stream of appearing and disappearing faces. In three weeks you won't be able to remember which of these faces is yours. Then, some day, the most strange thing will happen - suddenly there will be no face in the mirror. This is the moment - close your eyes and meet your subconscious.

You will be naked, completely naked - you will be like you really are. All lies will fall apart.

And that's it. Osho is a well-know, but highly controversial Easter leader, a founder of a sect. Anyway, this description sounds creepy.

Thanks for the topic. I will try this techique.

This sounds like an interesting type of meditation,I'm gonna try it this afternoon

Mirrors are always amazing in my Lucids,they almost never show me to be my waking reality self.Instead, I appear to be someone completely different,or I appear distorted like a funhouse mirror's reflection[very disorientating] Other times they have shown a young me,13 or so.

I've read that some people use them in LDs to change scenery to another "location". I tried this once ,but part way in I got an unpleasant sort of shock and aborted... lol

If I experience anything interesting I'll report back here...

Originally Posted by SaMaster14

sounder interesting!

I like the past lives idea... but could it be a spirit guide, or someone looking down over you?

I don't think there's any need to put the majority of people off a good topic like this by attaching the words, seeing who you were in previous lives. I've read before, on this forum incidentally, about the effects staring into your eyes in a mirror for long periods of time can produce, vivid hallucinations, and distortions.
This is a normal, observable thing that has been embellished so it can be put in the paranormal section of the board, no?
The chances are you are not seeing your previous lives, neither are you seeing a spirit guide looking down on you; you will observe this when sometimes your person doesn't change completely but instead just becomes distorted. I assume there's a number of people interested in this thread who won't come in just because of the title and the placement of the thread.

I tried this earlier today and it was a very interesting experience.I know from the fact that I sat very still,that the incoming light stimuli on my retinas did not vary from one moment to the next.However,my subjective experience was that of multiple color and facial feature shifts.

I would guess that we wittness our brain's visual cortex modules and "facial recognition units" at work processing/trying to make sense out of the data stream of a static self image . This is not a usual activity for our brains to do,staring at ourselves for a prolonged period. The sense of movement could also be because of micromovements of the eye muscles. Just a thought.

I don't want to take any fun from this though,I am open to spiritual type explainations.
Besides,you can come up w/ a theory about how the brain does this and that but who is watching it and where? And how do electrochemical reactions produce any experience for that matter?

I've just tried this, I've meditated in front of the mirror for about 25 mins.

There were no spectacular results, however, it could partly due to my blinking and being unable to keep a completely stable gaze for such a long time. I need to practise it.

Anyway, what's this, when my vision darkens? There were moments when I could see literally nothing in the mirror. Empty space. Then contours of my face, eyes, ears, etc. would emerge, only contours...

The vision darkens, darkens, for a moment I see no face, then this 'ghost' of a face appears, but then I always, kind of 'lose focus', I mean, I get distracted (in my mind), a thought pops up, and the vision is once again normal (bright). What's this darkening of a vision? Just a trick of my eyes, or in this way I'm 'sinking' into the spiritual world, spiritual vision?

I've done this a lot. Ancient technique. I have also done it with a candle flame instead of a mirror and a symbol instead. Always the same things you describe happens. But I don't pay attention to the distortions, just keep focusing through my pupil like a laser. Everything disappears. Someone quoted OSHO above. I read a lot of OSHO, he says that these are all subconscious projections. It could be subconscious memories from a past life if you believe in that kind of thing. But it happens if you focus on anything, so for me I don't let myself become distracted by the distortions and/or hallucinations. The concentration is the important thing to me. It is a great way to concetrate and get beyond the monkey mind. It really alters the consciousness. It is an ancient technique known throughout the world. In India it is called Tratak, in Tibet it is called Zhine (Zheenay). Withces, sorcerors and shamans all did this as well. Kind of like Snow White's evil stepmother gazing into her magick mirror. As I look through my pupils I ask myself "who am I?" and look for the depth in my eyes that is looking through that feels like the me that is the answer to who I am. All these lifetimes (if they exist) are as real or unreal as this lifetime and aren't really who I am. They are all subconscious projections.

The Tibetans had an interesting practice doing this. It helped them to shapeshift into deities in lucid dreams. Basically when the distortions and color darkening started happening they would project faces of the deity they wanted to embody onto their own face. They would project the body of the deity onto their body. This helped them to change into the deity during lucid dreaming.

It is interesting that people from all over the world and time have discovered this. I doscovered this practice before I have ever heard of it and I guess you have to. It seems instinctual. Try it on another person. That is real neat also. Like having a staring contest. Both of you gaze intently into each other's eyes and see each other's faces changing.

I've heard of this effect occurring between two people who sit down before each other to meditate while staring into the other's eyes, from more than one source. On one account, and I can't remember where I heard or read this, a lady said that the man she was doing this with began to look scaly, and the pupils of his eyes had grown into long slits. I ought to try this with a mirror, sounds like fun.

This is a very well-documented cognitive phenomenon. If you stare at the exact same things (which means no eye movement) for enough time, your vision will begin to blur.

Also, staring at an object whose features you recognize (aka a face) for a somehow long period may make you hallucinate and interpret the same features differently.

Finally, being presented a same stimulus repeatedly (aka a word) may produce a feeling of not knowing the stimulus anymore.

Interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_cinema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations_in_the_sane

To simplify, this is probably nothing but a hallucination. Interpret it as you wish.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_cinema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations_in_the_sane

The Ganzfeld effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals. The noise is interpreted in the higher visual cortex, and gives rise to hallucinations.

This is all very fascinating..

Neuronal noise is the term that describes random activity of neurons that presumably is not associated with encoding of behaviorally relevant variables. Many neuroscientists consider neuronal noise a factor that limits the capacity of information processing by the brain. Thus, Patrick Wilken and colleagues have suggested that neuronal noise is the principal factor that limits the capacity of visual short-term memory. Investigators of neural ensembles, and especially those who support the theory of distributed processing, propose that large neuronal populations effectively decrease noise by averaging out the noise in individual neurons.

So, why is it then that some neurons fire off at random? Better yet, is the behavior truly random? This reminds me of the concept of junk DNA, and whether or not it has beneficial uses for survival ("exists for a reason" is what I'm trying to say).

Originally Posted by Invader

This is all very fascinating..



So, why is it then that some neurons fire off at random? Better yet, is the behavior truly random? This reminds me of the concept of junk DNA, and whether or not it has beneficial uses for survival ("exists for a reason" is what I'm trying to say).

Well, you know what "random" is to science. Casualty.

But you know, after two single weeks of study at med school, I refuse to believe that anything that happens in the human body isn't for a naturally-selected reason. Seriously, you're more full of resources to ensure survival than you can ever imagine.

As a final note, "junk" DNA isn't so, and very arrogant were the researches to call it that. Seriously, if something is in your body, it's there for a reason. Introns in DNA have so many functions it's not even funny. I know because I have to study these little fuckers for my next Cellular Biology test.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Well, you know what "random" is to science. Casualty.

Of course. I meant "no reason in particular", vs having a function that did something useful for us. But you know that.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

But you know, after two single weeks of study at med school, I refuse to believe that anything that happens in the human body isn't for a naturally-selected reason. Seriously, you're more full of resources to ensure survival than you can ever imagine.

Yes. At the same time though, is it possible to retain qualities that aren't beneficial for survival if they also aren't detrimental for survival?
Otherwise I think we're on the same page.

Originally Posted by Invader

Of course. I meant "no reason in particular", vs having a function that did something useful for us. But you know that.



Yes. At the same time though, is it possible to retain qualities that aren't beneficial for survival if they also aren't detrimental for survival?
Otherwise I think we're on the same page.

Wisdom time:

Every new trait is mildly detrimental to the individual, seeing as the cell spends more energy and requires more substrate and organization to metabolize its functioning. If, however, the benefit provided by the trait is larger than the detriment (aka final balance being above zero), the species is likely to retain it. The higher the benefit, the more likely the species is to keep the trait. The scale goes from -1 (certain death) to +1 (crucial for survival), with 0 being indifferent. The higher the modulus of that number, the faster that trait will be incorporated in or excluded from the community.

If a trait can only provide as much benefit as to cancel the detriment caused to produce it, then the trait is likely to keep its prevalence in the community (aka if 30% of the individuals possess the trait, that percentage is likely to remain the same). This is, of course, unless the trait is statistically correlated with another (positive or negative) trait, in which case the trait will be selected favorably or infavorably according to what other traits it is statistically associated with, and how significant the correlation is (remembering statistical correlation also goes from -1 to +1).


It's funny to think you can use mathematics to such an extent. But this is all probability calculation. It ignores casualty.

Being then that neurons have to expend energy to fire these "random" signals suggests that there has to be some useful function that we are as of yet unaware of. I wonder if it has something to do with keeping neural pathways from deteriorating from temporary lack of use? Deteriorating might not be the appropriate word.. And then, what of the hallucinations? Same idea?

You know, neurons work contrary to what someone would think. They work as a bear trap. They are armed, by accumulating positive charges on the outside of the cell, and upon receiving the neurotransmitter, the system "disarms", letting positive charges in and creating an electric current (carried through the membrane).

It might be that this insulation between the inside and the outside of the cell isn't perfect, and it isn't worth it for the species to develop a whole system to prevent it. In this case, this "random" activation could not be intended. Perhaps after staying armed for a long time, the cell disarms on its own, activating other cells on a chain reaction, and starting, say, a dream.

This is all a hypothesis though, to show the real thing could be different from what you're concluding. You could very well be right.

When I first tried this, I didn't know what was going to happen, but I saw past lives.

I've done this with a friend before. All the different "me"s told me he had seen were facets of myself, such as "damaged" features on the right side of my body(which is my "bad side", I've always leaned on my right side, my right eye is short sightened, my right side is way harder to stretch and I have some pains on my right leg.) There was also the "serious looking old man who had taken the weight of the whole village on his shoulders", as he said(he had his whole right side heavier and lower than the right). I've always had it in me that I had to take the hardest path for the sake of others, which made me end up having less fun and more worries, leading to an "troubling self-maturity sense".

I also tried specific things: while letting my inner rebelling emotions express themselves, he saw a lion-man, and when I tried to blank my mind and focus on my spiritual guide he saw angelical signs such as feathered wings on my face and later, golden bells on my eyes.

How's that for empiric data folks?

How do you know its you from a previous life?