I was always interested with the concept of past lives. I'm not a religious person at all, but I could fall into the category of those annoying millennials who describe themselves as "spiritual." I'm not here to tell you that past lives exist or don't exist, but I definitely think it's an interesting concept that deserves some exploration.

Let me describe what past life regression therapy is. It's a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives. It generally involves the subject answering questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and events from past lives, similar to recovered memory therapy. Of course, some people believe that these are just false memories from the imagination. That's not really my place to decide, although I think it could be either and if it helps the subject in any way, then it doesn't really matter if it's true or not.

Now, I don't have the money to go pay for a session of past life regression with a therapist, so I found a one hour long hypnosis video on YouTube that I used instead. You can find this video at the bottom of the article. I wasn't sure if it would work or not, but I knew that if I decided it wouldn't work, then it definitely wouldn't. I also chose to do some yoga beforehand in order to be as relaxed as possible during this online solo regression session.

After starting the video, I started out by lying flat on my yoga mat with a pillow under my head as the video lulled me deeper and deeper into relaxation. I wasn't sure when I might start remembering things, so I just focused on being relaxed and doing what the tape told me. I was asked to recall different memories from my current life, going back several years. A very odd thing happened when I remembered memories of a car accident I was in when I was 16. I could feel my entire body start shaking like it did after the accident and I started gasping for breath, and then all of a sudden, I was still again as the tape continued to prompt me for further memories.

I constantly felt my eyes darting back and forth behind my eyelids as if searching through memories, like we scan through our photos in our phones. And all of a sudden I saw myself in a wedding dress, but I didn't look as I do now. I had black hair wrapped up and a veil hanging off the back of my head. I was shorter and my skin was a bit darker. I had a mole on my right cheek. I could see mountains and the sea and I knew I was in southern Italy. My name was Ingrid and I was marrying a Benvenuto. I caught glimpses of myself dancing in the middle of a bunch of people who were clapping rhythmically and singing to the music playing at the reception.

And then I was back to the tranquil beach I started the tape out on and literally felt my body coming out of a meditative state of relaxation. I didn't feel as heavy and my limbs started aching to move again. I stretched and it didn't feel as if I had been under for a whole hour. I definitely was awake, but so deep into a relaxed state that I didn't notice anything going on around me. I didn't realize my toes were numb from the cold in my room until I opened my eyes.

I really don't know if those glimpses of a life in southern Italy were my imagination or if they were actually a past life. But I've always felt a connection to Italy and I feel like it might be. Maybe I am my reincarnated great great great grandmother from my family that comes from Sicily. I tried looking up people with the names Ingrid and Benvenuto but I couldn't find anything.

Regardless of whether or not these are memories of a past life or a figment of my imagination, I would recommend it to anyone, even if it's just from a video on the internet. I found myself so relaxed and at peace once I come out of the hypnosis. I am definitely going to try it again and see if I get similar results. Whether or not you believe in past lives, just give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.