Using Candle Flame

[Laurasia]

This is a method that I sometimes use.

Cast your preferred shield of choice (a circle, bubble, cube, etc). Settle yourself down in a comfortable position, using pillows to prop yourself up if needed, with only a single candle lit across the room from you.

Slow your breathing & focus on the candle (not staring directly at it, but slightly off so you do not strain your eyes). Eventually your vision from around the candle will completely darken (sometimes even the candle itself). Stay meditating like this & wait for visions from your past to replace the visual that you had of the room.

When you are finished allow yourself a few moments to get re-oriented to your surroundings & then be sure to write down any recollections you received.

Sincerely,
Laurasia

[Miss Bothmann]

This is a really good one but I always experience a slight problem with it. When I start to trance out into alpha, my eyes automatically close for the experience. LOL!

[Laurasia]

That happens to me sometimes as well! That's perfectly fine. So long as you get into alpha & can reach your recollection it has served its purpose. It is a means of getting to alpha afterall.

Sincerely,
Laurasia

[Miss Bothmann]

Quite true. Whatever works, right? *wink*

[mccoyxyz]

I've been trying that sort of thing for years now and no matter what, I simply cannot call up any imagery.
Everything I know is in text only.
Oh well.

[Laurasia]

Text only, McCoy? Have you tried automatic writing to access your past lives? If you receive everything in text you may have success with that.

Sincerely,
Laurasia

[mccoyxyz]

I could actually try that and perhaps I will.
Overall, I find the situation quite frustrating. That is, it's relatively easy to get a text answer on anything. However, I don't even know what it was I looked like, as I've never seen a photo. And yes, I know what things looked like generally from seeing books of photos like Roman Vishniac's and so forth; but I have no idea of any photos connected to myself.
Oh well, perhaps the psychological blockage is a form of self-preservation and not to be worried about.

Still, it probably is something more than mere past life, as this refusal to provide any images concerns all aspects of life. The only images I see are in dreams. If for example the police told me to close my eyes, call up an image of a suspect and describe from it, it would be impossible to do. All I see is either blackness or at most, a bluish TV screen with nothing but the blue.
Still, given the total consistency of this throughout my life, I would guess it involves a physical medical problem with the brain as opposed to a psy explanation. The reason being any psy problem will have peaks and valleys, will come and go, will not demonstrate that sort of total consistency.

[Iseke]

So it sounds like you're not at all a visual person?

Luckily there are some good ways to try to meditate and call up information that don't rely on visualization, although meditation seems to prefer it.

Hmmm...maybe sound meditation? When you are sitting down focusing on a recall maybe you can try to hear things instead of seeing them? Maybe hearing the information being said to you, or hearing a snippet of conversation from the lifetime you are looking at? It's true that it won't help as much for imagery, but...maybe ask your higher self/whoever you are seeking insight from to describe the visuals to you?

I totally agree that automatic writing, pendulum dowsing, and other such methods are very effective in this case. I started dowsing far before the visuals came. (Prior to that, most of my recalls had been "knowings" or feelings.)

I have recalled memories in other ways besides visually--like through taste, for instance. If you are "blind" you just have to look at using your other, stronger senses in meditative work. I definitely know a few people who are not visually oriented at all, so I understand what you mean.

[mccoyxyz]

I know what you mean, I'm good at getting sound.
The real problem is more a tired-of-that-particular-genre thing.
Let me give you an example. Many years ago, I felt a desire to know more about genealogical ancestry, did some reading up on Ireland.
Eventually, one more book, one more set of photos in a book just doesn't do anything any more and I decided to go see it for real. A walking tour by myself, staying in bed and breakfasts.
I could, I suppose, always opt to go visit Poland, as a lot of folks seem to be interested in. However, I've read Lily Brett's "Too Many Men", a fictional account of just such a journey. So, of course I know everything is changed beyond all recognition anyhow.
Now here's an example of what happens in real life when you try to go back to a place: I had moved away from a particular city two years previous and was back on a visit. My favorite pizza place was now gone, an office tower in it place. My favorite restaurant had now become a gay haunt and very flamboyant too, with menu prices double. Oh well, you simply cannot travel back anywhere.
So, I guess in a sense I've reached a plateau where further of what I've been doing makes no real sense and yet there does not appear to be anything else worthwhile to do.
And yet of course there's no real urgency or importance to it. After all, if you were on our side, it's not like you need to achieve a whole lot of karmic brownie points, your karmic account should be in at least reasonable shape. Now on the other side, perhaps some of those folks feel a sense of urgency to stack up some points.
Oh well, at some point I may think of something worthwhile to do, in the meantime, well...

[rednight94]

Candles are so relaxing....
I have an old saucer my Grandma gave me, and in it I put plain, non-scented, white, stick candles. Anyway, one night a couple of months ago I was staring at the candle and I started getting visions of living in colonial times. Everything else in the room had virtually darkened and all I could really pay any attention to was the candle and wooden table-- I felt as if it was the 18th century again! It was the strangest feeling. Quite possibly I was looking into a past life...? Who knows.

[Laurasia]

Hi Rednight.

You very well could have been glimpsing one of your past lives as what you described is pretty much how this type of thing works.

Sincerely,
Laurasia