I often hear people ask why someone doesn't remember their past lives before we hit this reality. I did, so I have some insight. While I once talked about this, I feel like it bears further expounding upon.
You see, in my 2000's canon, as The Question, I remembered the 70's DC comics universe, my past life, my name, my marriage to Linda, everything. This was obviously extremely confusing and distressing. How could I have been Superman's best friend and lived a lifetime beside him from 1971 to my death in 2019 only to be born in 1981 and know a 30 year old Superman now? It was genuinely terrifying to have two sets of memories, two lives I had lived, a life where Superman was my best friend and best man at my wedding and then a life where he barely tolerated me. Coping with that took years. Extensive research into the topic of reincarnation and past lives was necessary, coupled with an in-depth study into how the multiverse worked, before I could even start to reach some peace with the idea.
And after I told someone, it ruined my life. People already thought I was insane - ableist language against me is unavoidable in discussions of me even now - and then I went and confirmed it by claiming something absolutely impossible to be my lived truth. People who had been open to working with me were not. I was benched from many missions I would otherwise have been on. Superman didn't speak to me for two years and had there been a crisis that demanded it, I doubt he ever would have again. At least one person wanted me to be removed from the Justice League entirely.
Why don't you remember knowing your other past lives during your last one? Well... you might have. You might have, and had everyone treat you poorly for it, with ableist claims that you were insane, or untrustworthy, or not fit for your job. Your personal relationships might have suffered, and frankly? This is a form of trauma. And it may have been significant enough that you have yet to recover those memories.
But also, I have an ongoing suspicion that the reality of it is that we are not predisposed to remember past lives, not to the degree that the fictionkin community does. The vast majority of people on Earth do not recall their past lives. They do not even believe such a thing is possible. So it stands to reason that we are a statistical minority not just in this universe, but in every universe. Fictionkin are, what, a few million people? On a planet of eight billion, that's almost nothing. In your last life, you were one of the seven billion, eight hundred and ninety eight million people who did not recall your past life. The odds of you remembering your past lives in every life are astronomically low.
I suspect a combination of these two things is what has caused most of you to not have recalled your past lives during your last life. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
Signed, The Question/Jimmy Olsen
