Another fascinating case of past life regression took place in Wales where Graham Huxtable, a mild-mannered swimming instructor, was placed under hypnosis by hypnotist Arnall Bloxham. In a trance, Huxtable not just recalled a past life, he seemed to actually become a man named Ben, a boisterous gunner on an 18th century British frigate called Aggie. While inhabited by the personality of Ben, Huxtable would call out orders to the men on the ship in a heavy accent and use obscure nautical terminology. He even relived every moment of a battle in which he eventually suffered an injury to his leg. Bloxham had difficulty bringing Huxtable out of trance, but when he did, the man complained of a pain in his leg. And when Bloxham replayed a recording of the session, Huxtable was astonished at what he heard, recalling nothing of his experience under the trance. Although experts could verify the terms and language that "Ben" used, they could not find records of a ship named Aggie nor of the ship's captain he had named. Past life recall... or a case of multiple personality?

In 1958, a woman who in this case was identified only as T.E., underwent hypnosis by her husband, a medical doctor and experimenter with past life regression. Once in a trance state, T.E.'s voice deepened to one that was distinctly male and she declared in broken English that she was a farmer named Jensen Jacoby who lived in the 17th century. T.E.'s speech was peppered with Swedish words, a language that she and her husband swore she did not know. After six hypnotic sessions, T.E. was talking exclusively in Swedish, even conversing fluently with several Swedish persons that her husband had brought in to witness the phenomenon. These native Swedes confirmed that she was speaking a somewhat archaic form of Swedish that would have been spoken at the time Jensen said he had lived.

These are just a few of the more well-known examples of past life recall. Those who practice past life regression therapy today claim that it has certain benefits. They say it can shed light on present life personal issues and relationships and can even help to heal the wounds suffered in a past life.

Reincarnation has also been one of the central tenets of many Eastern religions, and one can return to this existence in a new physical form, whether it is human, animal or even vegetable. The form one takes, it is believed, is determined by the law of karma - that the higher or lower form one takes is due to one's behavior in the previous life. The concept of past lives is also one of the beliefs of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology, which states that "past lives are suppressed by the painfulness of the memory of those former existences. To restore the memory of one's whole existence, it is necessary to bring one up to being able to confront such experiences."

• General George S. Patton believed that he had been a soldier in many previous lives, including in the service of Alexander the Great.
• Benjamin Franklin may have been professing his belief in reincarnation when he wrote that he would return "in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the author."
• Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were contemporaries and both professed believers in past lives.
• Edgar Cayce, the American psychic, believed that he was a resident of Atlantis in one previous life.

I know I've had a past life as a Samurai.  I attempted regression on my own (which in hindsight was rather stupid, considering how dangerous that can be).  I didn't remember my whole life, just the hours before my death at the time.  I don't know the name of who I was, because that's not one of the things you usually check :P.  I regressed into the memory at will, and so, I just picked it up as though I were actually there and I wasn't regressing into a memory of a past life.  I mean, who stops for a moment each day and thinks "wait... what's my name again?"? XD

This past life explains a lot.  My instinctive (and at times disturbing) knack for blades.  Honestly, what kind of talent is THAT to be born with?!  The only application is to kill things.  When I was a toddler, my great grandmother, before the Alzheimer's set in, always said I'd "been here before".  She'd say that I "was a Chinaman in a past life" - which, to her generation, is all the same.  I could have been from anywhere in Asia for all it mattered to her :P.  Also, as a child, if I didn't know what something was called, I'd "make up" a name for it.  Which I later find out is either exactly, or very close to the Japanese word for it.  For example, I kept calling chopsticks "hashi" until I was about 7.  Also, when I was learning to speak, I had the same speach difficulties as a Japanese child does - where children from english-speaking countries might have trouble with the letter "r" and say it as a "w", Japanese children sometimes confuse "s" and "sh" sounds with "ch", which I still do sometimes.

And although this probably has more to do with my learning to speak Japanese, it's still interesting, when I'm very drunk or very tired, my sentences come out in all or half Japanese.