by SpareJoker » Nov 9th, '10, 10:27
A 1976 study found that 40% of hypnotizable subjects described new identities and used different names when given a suggestion to regress past their birth.
In the 1990s a series of experiments undertaken by Nicholas Spanos examined the nature of past life memories. Descriptions of alleged past lives were found to be extremely elaborate, with vivid, detailed descriptions. Subjects who reported memories of past lives exhibited high hypnotizability, and patients demonstrated that it was the expectations conveyed by the experimenter that were that was most important in determining the characteristics reported by the patients during their 'memories'.
The degree to which the memories were considered credible by the experimental subjects was correlated most significantly to the subjects' beliefs about reincarnation and their expectation to remember a past life rather than hypnotizability.
To create these memories, Spanos' subjects drew upon the expectations established by authority figures and information outside of the experiment such as television, novels, life experiences and their own desires.
Spanos' research leads him to the conclusion that past lives are not memories, but actually social constructions based on patients acting "as if" they were someone else, but with significant flaws that would not be expected of actual memories.