Past Life Photo?

[Sarahjeanne]

A good friend of mine if studying History of Photography came upon a photo (on the left, I am on the right) by Alfred Stieglitz called "Mending Nets" from 1892, Holland. When she sent it to me I thought it was a joke and she had photoshopped my face onto this old photo, but I googled it and it is authentic. When I look at it I feel like I am really looking at a photo of myself.

I have to wonder if this can really be a coincidence. I am not even Dutch as far as I know. I admired Stieglitz' work when I also studied him briefly in an Art History class but I never saw this photo. I did some research and he claimed that this was one of his favorite photos of a young woman mending fishing nets in the dunes.

It is also interesting for two reasons:

1. I grew up in a New England coastal town that seems similar to this photo and I now live on Long Island and I have spent a lot of time near the water, on boats and camping near the dunes. I have always felt a strong connection with salt water and boats. The smells and sounds that you would typically hear in a fishing town even in rough weather are comforting to me. But then again I did grow up on Long Island sound.

2. The person who showed me this photo is one of the very few people I have ever had an instant connection with. She has the same birthday as me and we are both very artistic. I have always had a strong feeling that I may have known her in a past life and she agrees.

I have always believed in the possibility of past lives (but I always consider that anything I believe may be wrong also). I have had many psychics tell me that I am a very old soul but I have only had one psychic tell me anything that I know was true and she didn't mention past lives. This is the first thing I have ever come across that really struck me as possible evidence of a past life.

Has anyone ever found an old photo that looked just like them?

 

[tanguerra]

Hi Sarahjeanne


Welcome to the forum.


How very interesting! It certainly might be a photo of you. The resemblance is extraordinary, isn't it?


Yes, this has happened to quite a few people here. People have found photos of themselves in the past, or stumbled upon photos of the past life of friends. It is quite a funny feeling by their accounts.

...I have had many psychics tell me that I am a very old soul but I have only had one psychic tell me anything that I know was true and she didn't mention past lives. This is the first thing I have ever come across that really struck me as possible evidence of a past life...

Psychics tell just about everyone that they're an 'old soul'. It's wise to take most of what they say with a grain of salt in my view. I think we are all old souls, but that's a whole other discussion.


Do you have any other impressions about this photo, that might ring a bell for you? Anything from childhood games, dreams or reveries you may have had over the years to do with the sea or fishing villages or the like?

 

[Sarahjeanne]

Hi tanguerra!


I've been looking through the other photos that Steiglitz took in Katwyk Holland around the same time but in most of the photos faces are too blurry. I can't say that much else struck me about the photo other than the feeling that I am looking at a photo of myself and my friend thinking the same thing before I ever saw it. But I read a little about how the wives of the fisherman would work on these nets and I do tend to get lost in tedious crafty things working with my hands. The dunes she is sitting in remind me of the dunes near where I live now and she seems content to sit there as I would be (at least if it wasn't for deer ticks).


I also found a painting of a dutch woman done around this time and it looked a lot like her but the profile of the face was more idealistic. But she had reddish hair like me, in the black and white photo it is hard to tell what color the hair is.


It seems strange to me though that in past lives we may look the same, why? Out of habit? Because we want to?


I am often told I look nothing like most of my family but then I look like an aunt on my mothers side but also an aunt on my fathers side which is weird!


My husbands sister's daughter looks a lot like her father, some might say almost exactly like him. Yet there is an old photo of her mother's great grandmother that looks exactly like her.

 

[argonne1918]

It seems strange to me though that in past lives we may look the same, why? Out of habit? Because we want to?

Welcome to the forum. Until recently no one knew that people tend to look like their past selves. But thanks to the James Leninger case that has the photos of the present person side by side with the person he was, people are starting to take notice. We have had several cases here where the parents found photos of their children's previous life after the child revealed their previous name. Several of these are 9-11 victims reincarnated. The resemblance is striking. Same facial features, bone structure, cheeks, etc. I don't think anyone really knows why.

 

[TMarie33]

Oh wow, that does indeed look like you! I have had that moment, looking deeply into a photo and feeling "this is me!". It's very unsettling at first (for me anyway) as the mind tries to make excuses around it.


Have you had any other memories or sensations come up since you posted last?


And welcome to the forum!

 

[Sarahjeanne]

Thanks TMarie33!


I was hoping I might have some interesting dreams but nothing came to me last night at all. When I think about it though, I think I am afraid to remember a past life. I might have to try some of the past life regression audio guides and see if that can relax me enough to be more open to it.

 

[Antonia]

It will be hard to get much until you are ready to receive it. Here's my stance; I believe that we reincarnate to learn lessons, fix patterns, become more enlightened, and we often do it with those we love. Sometimes they reincarnate with is, other times they observe from the other side. Knowing more about my past lives makes my mission in this life clearer. I do think that occasionally we have lifetimes that are mostly about being with someone we chose to reincarnate with. But what are the patterns in your life? For example, I would always have trouble with other women (mean aunt, kindergarten teacher beat me & half the class for breathing wrong, psycho best friend stole my diary, credit cards & phone, for example). Not until I recognized the pattern and healed on it did it stop.

 

[tanguerra]

It seems strange to me though that in past lives we may look the same, why? Out of habit? Because we want to?

Yes. It is rather odd. We tend to think that resemblance is all about sharing genes with our ancestors, and sure, it must be mostly that, because people really do look like their parents, brothers and sisters. But, also, people often resemble their previous life selves. I think we gradually change from one life to the next and obviously, if you are born into a completely different race, you will have a different coloured hair, skin and eyes from one life to the next.


Why? I don't know. Perhaps the 'soul' has more influence on our appearance than we understand at this time? There does seem to be a tendency to incarnate back into the same family group over and over, so this could also play an important part in explaining it.

 

[Antonia]

Those celebrity photos are amazing, I never saw the Gene Hackman one before. My mom has said for a long time that she thinks Britney is Marilyn. She also thinks Adam Lambert might be Elvis.

 

[Tinkerman]

Sarahjeanne, one of the earliest clues in my journey to knowing reincarnation came from my grandmother about thirty years ago. I was home visiting my grandparents. My grandma asked me about the small patch of hair that I have under my lower lip (sometimes referred to as a satchmo). I laughed that she noticed, and she asked if I knew that my great-grandfather wore the same style of whiskers on his lower lip. She then went upstairs and rifled through some boxes and found a photograph of him. It was a very cool coincidence and was a great connection to a man who'd died thirty years prior to that. She noticed the family resemblance in the photograph as did I. Back then I never had a clue what reincarnation was... never entered my mind. Many years later that photograph and a lot of other circumstances led me to reincarnation and my first post.


So yes, I've seen a photograph like that... it was almost a portal.


Tman