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Past life memories through dreams

A number of people have had dreams or nightmares about past lives which produced evidence which could later be verified.

An English case that convinced many experts including psychiatrist Dr Arthur Guirdham, was that of Mrs. Smith, a perfectly sane ordinary English housewife who for years had been suffering from terrible nightmares of being burned at the stake.

In 1962 Mrs Smith went to Dr Guirdham in a hospital's outpatient department, where Dr Guirdham worked as a psychiatrist. She was seeking treatment for a recurring nightmare which she experienced occasionally since her teens, but was now coming two or three times a week. In her dream she was lying on her back on the floor while a man approached her from behind. She did not know what was going to happen but was absolutely terrified.

Although Dr Guirdham remained calm and professional, he had to hide his surprise while listening to his new patient because he had been having the same nightmare for more than 30 years. The doctor did not tell the patient about this. Strangely after this meeting neither the doctor nor the patient had the nightmare again.

Their meetings continued, though. Dr Guirdham was certain there was nothing mentally wrong with his patient but he wanted to know more about her knowledge of the past. She gave him a list of names of people she said had lived in the 13th century and described things that happened to them. She also told Dr Guirdham that he, too, had been alive then and was called Rogiet de Cruisot.

As a psychiatrist, Dr Guirdham knew about claims of reincarnation but never had much interest in the subject. However he decided to investigate the information Mrs Smioth gave him.

He found that the names given to him by his patient were indeed accurate, though only mentioned in fairly rare history records of the Middle Ages. Those records had been written in French and had never been translated into English. The people Dr Guirdham's patient described were all members of the Cathar sect, a group that had flourished in southern France and northern Italy in the Middle Ages. Among other things, the Cathars believed in reincarnation.

Over time, Dr Guirdham met more and more individuals, 11 in total, who had memories of their past lives living together in a Cathar group.

None of the subjects were drugged or hypnotized; past names and incidents simply appeared in their minds, said Dr Guirdham.

Mrs Smith also gave Dr Guirdham copies of drawings and verses of songs she had written as a schoolgirl. Experts in Medieval French confirmed that she was writing in langue doc, the language of Southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

She went on to astonish experts with her knowledge of the Cathars in Touluse who had been persecuted by the forces of the Inquisition. She reproduced word for word in 1944 songs which were only discovered in archives in 1967; she knew historical details which only came to light later upon the most painstaking investigation such as:

• correct drawings of old French coins, jewelry and the layout of buildings
• correct details of the family and social relationships of people who do not appear in text-books but who were ultimately traced though the records of the Inquisition
• that the crypt of a certain church was used to hold religious prisoners
• details of rituals and religious dress.

So impressed was Professor Nellie, the greatest living authority on the period, that he advised Guirdham that in future when there was conflict between the accepted historical view and the memories of his patient, he should 'go by the patient.'

Guirdham later went on to discover several other people close to him who all shared the same memories that he documented in his book
The Cathars and Reincarnation.

He went from being a total skeptic nicknamed 'doubting Thomas' to putting his considerable professional reputation on the line to lecture his colleagues in the British medical profession about 'Reincarnation and the Practice of Medicine' (Guirdham 1969).

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