Before this Life
INSIDE THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF PAST LIFE REGRESSION
here is a moment in some hypnosis sessions when the familiar world seems to fall away.
The body is still in the room. The person can hear the practitioner’s voice. Somewhere, perhaps, there is the distant hum of air conditioning, the weight of the chair beneath them, the awareness that they could open their eyes if they wished.
And yet their attention has gone somewhere else. The breath has slowed. The analytical mind has become quieter. Images begin to form. Then comes a deceptively simple invitation: Look down at your feet. What do you see?
Shoes? Sandals? Bare skin against earth? What are you wearing? Where are you? Are you alone?
Sometimes there is nothing.
Sometimes there are fragments, a color, a landscape, the impression of a building, an emotion with no obvious source. And sometimes an entire world seems to arrive. A person who entered the room as a 21st century woman may describe herself as a man standing beside a field. Someone who has never visited a particular country may suddenly report architecture, clothing or a landscape that feels strangely specific. Another may feel overwhelming grief for a person they cannot identify.
To the person experiencing it, the scene can feel less like invention than recognition. And this is where one of the strangest territories in modern consciousness exploration begins.
“What if the deepest memory you carry doesn’t belong to this lifetime?”
PAST LIFE REGRESSION
Is the person remembering another existence? Constructing a symbolic story? Accessing forgotten information? Responding to suggestions? Entering an archetypical landscape created by unconsciousness?
Or entering something about consciousness we do not yet know how to measure?
For SANCTOUM, the most interesting place to begin is not with an answer. It is with a mystery.
Before discussing past lives, we first have to understand hypnosis.
THE STATE BETWEEN ATTENTION AND IMAGINATION
Popular culture has done hypnosis a few favors. For decades, it has been represented as a swinging watch, a mysterious command and a subject who suddenly loses control of their mind.
Clinical hypnosis is considerably less theatrical.
A hypnotised person is not necessarily asleep or unconscious. Hypnosis is generally understood as a condition involving highly focused attention and an increased capacity to respond to suggestions. Experiences can feel unusually vivid and sometimes surprisingly involuntary: an image seems to appear rather than being deliberately constructed; a sensation seems to change without conscious effort.
People can usually hear what is happening. They may remember the session. They retain agency. The hypnotist does not simply enter another person’s mind and take control of it. Instead, attention is directed inward.
In ordinary waking life, attention constantly moves between the external environment, internal dialogue, memory, anticipation and sensory information. Under hypnosis, that field of attention can become narrower and more absorbed.
We already know versions of this experience.
You drive a familiar road and suddenly realise you barely remember the last ten minutes. You become immersed in a film that your body reacts emotionally to events you consciously know are fictional. You read a novel and cease seeing words on a page; instead, an entire world appears inside your mind. None of these states is identical to hypnosis, but they illustrate something important: Human consciousness is capable of extraordinary absorption.
Hypnosis deliberately works with that capacity.
And once attention turns deeply inward, the border between memory, emotion and imagination can become remarkably interesting.
“The hypnotic mind does not necessarily reveal history, but it may reveal meaning”
WHEN REGRESSION GOES BACKWARD
Regression simply means moving backward. Within hypnotherapy, a practitioner may invite someone to revisit early experiences associated with a present emotion or behavioral pattern.
A client might arrive saying, “I know my fear is irrational, but I cannot stop it.”
Or:
“Every time someone becomes emotionally distant, I panic.”
Rather than only analyzing the present reaction, regression-based approaches may explore earlier experiences associated with the same emotional state. Perhaps the person remembers being five years old and feeling abandoned. Perhaps they recall humiliation at school. Perhaps they encounter something less explicit: a bedroom, a voice, the sensation of waiting for someone who never came.
But past life regression makes a much larger leap. Instead of stopping within the known biography of this lifetime, the practitioner invites the person to move beyond it. What happens next is where science, spirituality and imagination begin to collide.
People may report scenes apparently belonging to another century. They may describe different names, bodies, families, occupations or cultures. Some experience dramatic events. Others encounter remarkably ordinary lives.
A cottage. A farm. Children. A marriage. Work. Illness. Aging. Death.
And frequently, the person reports not merely seeing the scene but feeling emotionally embedded within it. That intensity is one reason past life regression can be so persuasive. But vividness and historical accuracy are not the same thing.
And that distinction is essential.
PAST LIFE – OR THE POWER OF THE MIND?
There are several ways to interpret what happens during regression, and none should be casually collapsed into the others.
The Spiritual Interpretation
Reincarnation appears in religious and philosophical traditions across different cultures, most prominently within Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and other systems of belief. From these perspectives, consciousness, or some dimension of the individual, continues beyond one physical lifetime.
Past life regression therefore may be interpreted by believers as accessing memories carried from previous incarnations. For someone who already accepts reincarnation, the experience may fit naturally within an existing worldview. But spiritual tradition is not scientific verification.
The Psychological Interpretation
Psychology offers other possibilities. The mind is an astonishing generator of narrative imagery and association. A regression scene might operate symbolically rather than historically. Imagine someone who repeatedly enters relationships in which they feel powerless.
During regression, they experience themselves as a servant in another century, unable to leave an oppressive household. Did that life objectively occur? We cannot know simply because it appeared under hypnosis. But psychologically, the symbolism is striking. The unconscious may be giving form to an emotional experience that previously had no language:
I feel trapped. I have surrendered my power. I believe I cannot leave.
In this interpretation, the story may function somewhat like a dream. We do not need to believe that a dream literally occurred to recognize that it can contain meaningful psychological material.
Cryptomnesia
There is another fascinating possibility. Human beings absorb enormous amounts of information throughout life – books, documentaries, conversations, photographs, films, childhood lessons, travel, overheard stories. Much of it is forgotten consciously.
Sometimes forgotten information can later return without the person recognizing its original source. This phenomenon is called cryptomnesia. Something that feels completely new may actually be old information whose origin has been lost. A historical detail arising during regression could therefore feel mysterious while having been encountered years earlier.
Confabulation And Suggestion
Memory is not a video archive. We do not simply press “play” and retrieve an untouched recording of that past. Remembering is reconstructive. The brain rebuilds experiences using fragments of information, expectations, emotion, later knowledge and context.
Research on hypnosis and memory therefore raises an important caution: hypnosis does not reliably transform memory into a more accurate record, and suggestion or guided imagery can contribute to memories of events that were never encountered.
This becomes particularly important when a practitioner asks leading questions. There is an enormous difference between:
“What, if anything, do you notice?”
And:
“Look at the man standing beside you. Who is he?”
The second question has already supplied a man. Good practice must respect that difference.
SANCTOUM INTELLIGENCE – MEMORY IS NOT A CAMERA
One of the most persistent misconceptions about the human mind is that memory functions like stored film. It does not.
Contemporary memory research describes remembering as a reconstructive process. Details can change. Later information can become integrated. Confidence can increase even when accuracy does not. This matters enormously in hypnosis.
Research has found that hypnosis does not reliably improve accurate recall and, under some conditions, can increase false recollection and confidence in experiences that did not occur.
For this reason, imagery emerging during regression should not automatically be treated as factual historical evidence. An experience can feel completely real without proving that the event objectively happened.
That principle protects both the integrity of hypnosis and the person experiencing it.
INSIDE A REGRESSION
So what actually happens?
There is no single universal protocol, and practitioners differ significantly in their methods. But a carefully facilitated regression session generally begins long before anyone is invited into another lifetime.
It begins with conversation.
Why has the person come? What are they hoping to understand? Is there a recurring fear, relationship dynamic, emotional reaction or unexplained attraction they want to explore?
A responsible practitioner should also establish expectations.
Regression is not an archaeological excavation of the brain. Nobody should promise that what emerges will be historically accurate. The person is then guided toward physical relaxation and increasingly focused internal attention.
Breathing may slow. Awareness of the external room may become less important. The practitioner may use imagery, counting, bodily relaxation or other hypnotic methods to deepen absorption.
Then the journey begins. The person may first be invited to notice sensations.
A feeling. A color. A temperature. An impression. Nothing needs to happen immediately. In fact, one of the greatest obstacles can be the expectation that something spectacular should happen.
The conscious mind interrupts:
Am I making this up? Is this really happening? Why can’t I see anything?
A skilled practitioner does not force an answer. Instead, curiosity replaces pressure.
What do you notice? What happens next? Where does your attention go?
Eventually an image may emerge. Perhaps the person sees feet. Then clothing. Then surroundings. A street. A forest. A house. A coastline. A face.
The practitioner may invite exploration while avoiding unnecessarily supplying the details.
Who is present? What emotions arise? What feels significant?
Certain moments may become unusually vivid.
People sometimes report meeting individuals who feel familiar despite appearing in unfamiliar bodies. They may perceive relationships that seem to echo present-day dynamics.
Eventually, some forms of part life regression invite the person toward the final period of that perceived lifetime.
This can be emotionally powerful. But the purpose should never be spectacle.
The more useful question is: What does this experience mean to the person sitting in the room today?
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO GO THERE?
Curiosity certainly plays a role. Who wouldn’t wonder? If reincarnation existed, who might I have been?
But people who seek regression often bring more personal questions.
Why does a particular relationship feel strangely familiar? Why have I feared water since childhood when nothing happened to me around water? Why do I repeatedly sabotage success? Why does abandonment terrify me? Why have I always felt inexplicably drawn to a particular country? Why does a certain historical period feel emotionally familiar? Why do I carry grief I cannot explain?
The temptation is to search for dramatic answers.
Maybe I drowned. Or I was betrayed. Perhaps this person was my husband in another lifetime.
This is precisely where caution becomes important.
Regression should not turn ambiguity into certainty. If a person experiences drowning during hypnosis, it does not establish that they drowned in a previous life.
If a current partner appears as a spouse in a regression narrative, that does not prove a karmic relationship. The imagery may be meaningful. But meaning and evidence are different categories.
And paradoxically, accepting that distinction can make the exploration more interesting rather than less. Because now we can ask a deeper question: Why did the mind choose this story?
“The most important question is not “Who was I?” but “What is this experience showing me about who I am now?”
THE STRANGE LANGUAGE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
The unconscious rarely communicates like a legal document. It communicates through association. Images. Sensations. Metaphors. Emotion. Dreams demonstrate this beautifully.
You can dream that you are standing inside your childhood home while simultaneously knowing it is somewhere else. A person can look nothing like someone you know, yet within the dream you are absolutely certain of their identity.
The rational mind says this makes no sense. The dreaming mind requires no explanation. Regression can occupy similarly ambiguous territory.
A woman might encounter a young girl abandoned beside a road and suddenly experience enormous grief. Whether or not that girl ever historically existed, the image may embody something psychologically important. Perhaps the woman has spent her life feeling emotionally abandoned. Perhaps she learned very young that asking for help was dangerous. Perhaps she carries a belief that she must survive alone.
The regression narrative has given the emotion a body, a landscape and a story. That does not prove reincarnation. But neither does the absence of proof automatically make the emotional experience worthless.
Psychotherapy has long worked with metaphor, imagination, dreams, visualization and narrative.
The crucial distinction is how the material is held. As a possibility rather than proof.
WHEN AN EXPERIENCE FEELS MORE REAL THAN IMAGINATION
One of the most compelling aspects of regression is the certainty some people report afterward.
“I was imagining it.” “I could feel the ground.” “I knew those people.” “I felt the loss in my entire body.”
Such statements deserve respect.
But they also require precision. Subjective certainty is evidence of the intensity of an experience, not necessarily of its historical origin. This is difficult for humans because vividness feels persuasive. If something produces tears, physical sensations and recognizable emotion, we instinctively assume it must have happened.
“Consciousness is capable of creating profound emotional responses to imagined events.”
A film can make us cry for someone who never existed. A nightmare can leave the heart racing after the threat has disappeared. A piece of music can awaken grief without containing a single factual memory.
The mind does not require historical reality to generate physiological reality. And perhaps this is where past life regression becomes more interesting.
Because the question shifts from: Can we prove this happened?
To: Why is this happening inside me now?
THE PRACTITIONER MATTERS
Regression is not simply about putting someone into hypnosis and asking them to wander through consciousness.
The way questions are asked matters. The expectations established beforehand matter. The practitioner’s own beliefs matter. If the practitioner is convinced that reincarnation is unquestionably real and interprets every image accordingly, that belief can shape the session.
Likewise, if the practitioner constantly suggests what the client should encounter, the experience becomes increasingly contaminated by expectation.
A responsible approach requires restraint. It also requires understanding that emotionally intense material can emerge. A person may experience grief, fear, violence, separation or death within the narrative. That material should be handled carefully rather than sensationalized. And regression should never be used to manufacture certainty about accusations, crimes, abuse or other factual events without independent evidence. The deeper the person travels into imagination and memory, the more important ethical grounding becomes.
THE SANCTOUM GUIDE – IF YOU ARE CURIOUS ABOUT REGRESSION
Before choosing a practitioner, ask questions. What is their training?
Hypnosis involves psychological processes and should be approached with competence rather than mystique. How do they describe past lives?
Be cautious of anyone who guarantees that everything encountered during hypnosis is literal historical memory. Do they use open or leading questions?
The practitioner should allow experiences to emerge rather than construct them for you. How do they handle difficult emotions?
Regression can produce intense experiences. There should be a clear process for grounding, integration and aftercare. Do they distinguish experience from evidence?
This may be the most important question of all. A responsible practitioner can remain open to mystery without turning uncertainty into fact.
DOES IT MATTER IF IT WAS REAL?
Perhaps this is the question sitting underneath the entire subject. Imagine someone enters regression with a lifelong fear of being abandoned. During the experience, they perceive themselves as a woman living centuries ago. Her partner leaves on a journey and never returns. She spends years waiting. The client experiences her loneliness intensity.
She cries. She feels anger. She recognizes something. And somewhere inside that imagine, or remembered life, she understands a pattern she has repeated in the present:
I am always waiting for someone to leave.
Afterwards, something shifts. What happened?
One interpretation says she accessed a previous incarnation and resolved an unfinished emotional imprint. Another says the subconscious constructed a metaphor powerful enough to externalize an existing attachment fear.
A neuroscientist might frame the process through emotion, expectation, memory networks and imaginative absorption.
A spiritual teacher might speak of karma. A psychotherapist might speak of narrative and meaning.
These explanations cannot yet be reconciled. But they point toward an intriguing possibility. The therapeutic value of an experience and the historical truth of an experience are not necessarily the same question. If a dream changes the way you understand yourself, its meaning does not depend on proving that the dream occurred in physical reality.
Regression may deserve similar intellectual humility. We can take the experience seriously without claiming more than we know.
THE EDGE OF WHAT WE KNOW
Science has not established past life regression as a method for retrieving genuine memories of previous lives. The American Psychological Association describes the practice as highly controversial.. and recent reviews of hypnosis and memory continue to emphasize the possibility of false recollection and the need for caution.
At the same time, hypnosis itself is not simply a relic of stage entertainment. Clinical is real. The emotions experienced during it can be real.
But whether the narrative represents an objectively lived previous existence is another claim entirely, and one for which subjective experience alone cannot provide proof. That leaves past life regression occupying an unusual borderland.
Between therapy and spirituality. Between memory and imagination. Between neuroscience and metaphysics. Between what can be measured and what can only be experience.
Is that exactly why the subject refuses to disappear? Human beings have always wondered whether consciousness begins at birth and ends at death.
Regression takes that ancient philosophical question and makes it intimate.
Not: Does reincarnation exist? But: Have I been here before?
BEFORE THIS LIFE
Imagine again the quiet room. Your eyes are closed. Your breathing has slowed. Someone asks you to look down at your feet. And suddenly your are standing somewhere you have never consciously been.
Could it be only imagination? Perhaps it is a metaphor. Maybe fragments of forgotten knowledge have assembled themselves into convincing story. Or the unconscious has created precisely the landscape necessary for you to encounter an emotion you have spent years avoiding. Or perhaps consciousness contains mysteries that our present understanding cannot yet explain.
We should be careful not to fill gaps in knowledge with certainty. But we should be equally careful not to confuse uncertainty with meaninglessness. The mind remains one of the great unexplored territories of human existence.
And occasionally, when the noise of ordinary consciousness becomes quiet enough, something unexpected emerges from its depths.
A face. A place. A loss. A love. A life.
Was it yours?
Science cannot confirm that simply because hypnosis made it vivid. And perhaps that is not where the investigation needs to end. Because there is another question, one that may ultimately matter more.
Not: Who were you before this life?
But: What will you do with the life you are living now?
SANCTOUM NOTE
Past life regression remains scientifically unverified as a method of accessing memories from previous lives. Hypnosis and guide imagery can also contribute in inaccurate or false memories, particularly when suggestion is involved. Experiences arising during regression are therefore best approached as a subjective material rather than historical fact unless independently corroborated. Anyone considering regression for significant psychological distress should seek an appropriately qualified profession and discuss whether the approach is suitable for them.
