The brain and the rebirth - after all, who are we?

"It is necessary to be born again", by going through multiple experiences in the incarnation process. An open and extremely complex question is how much we can know about how the content of wisdom and the talents - acquired by the Spirit in the course of its previous lives - and how this is transferred to the physical brain of an unborn child.

The development of the nervous system - The genetic patrimony of this child puts order in its development, adding aptitudes in stages, which coincide, these phases, with the progressive myelination of the nervous fibers. First, fibers are myelinated upwards, thus allowing the motor activity of the legs and then the arms. In the brain, the organization is backwards, first the visual areas at the occipital poles and then the frontal lobe, which only completes its formation after the age of 17.

The memory - who am I? - I am what my memories say. The human baby at birth is not zeroed regarding its memories. Specialized tests confirm that it has recorded its mother's voice and possibly other sounds it heard while in the womb, however, there is no confirmation that listening to Mozart's music will give this child a brain of a talented musician.

What is generally known is that the child does not consolidate, store or retain as memory its experiences until the age of three - this forgetfulness is known as "infantile amnesia".

From the spiritual point of view – As a general rule, we do not have any recollection of our past lives. Spiritist authors teach that even though we do not have these memories, in one way or another we can perceive in each of us certain tendencies brought from other lives - innate ideas, or even tendencies that are revealed without much effort. A particular professional with academic background in a specific area can perceive his trends and abilities in completely different competencies. A professor of mathematics or a psychologist can exercise in parallel a talent for music, handicraft or a literary talent, as the physician Guimaraes Rosa did. Personality, character, and temperament have a genetic basis and, certainly, an influence of the spiritual baggage of other lives. A Spirit friend has taught us that we may not know what we were, but it is not difficult to know what we have done in previous lives.

A brief note on the types of memories - We can derive from the classification of memories 3 key expressions: Semantic and episodic memory, which are part of the declarative memory, and the implicit or procedural memory.

The semantic memory refers to the knowledge acquired by the lessons we have learned in one way or another: who is born in Brazil is Brazilian, Paris is the capital of France, Voltaire was a great philosopher of the Enlightenment, and America was discovered by Christopher Columbus.

The episodic memory is personalized, it refers to personal facts lived by us; it is narrative, and therefore fails. Its consolidation is firmer in the autobiographical data: my name, my address, my marital status, the city where I was born, my nationality, whose son I am, what profession I exercise, and who my children are.

The episodic memory of personal events refers to events lived by us, recent or not. What did I have for lunch yesterday? Who called me this afternoon? To which beach did I go at the end of this year? Who visited me this Sunday? This type of memory (episodic) has a time stamp and is strongly contextualized.

With the marks of time: I went to the beach at Christmas, I traveled in the Easter week, I went fishing in February of last year, and I changed my car in December.

When connected to context: I watched that movie at the Shopping with my wife, I loved the shrimp from that restaurant in Joinville, I was at the hotel when I heard that news, it was in the soccer game that I sprained my ankle, I stayed at home because it rained a lot.

These memories can be rescued, but as they are retained, especially in the hippocampus, when we remember them, we always make a new description of the facts. This is why the testimonies in the episodes of life are unreliable.

The procedural memories are the learned skills. Riding a bicycle, driving the car, flying the plane, strumming the keyboard, dealing with the factory press, carving the wood in a piece of handicraft, playing the piano, drawing or painting a landscape.

Is it possible to recall the history of previous lives? These are rare occurrences, but occasionally we find children reporting that they lived elsewhere, giving the necessary identifications for this proof. The medical literature and the cinema have enriching accounts that attest to the reincarnation and the occurrence of the permanence of these episodic memories. Generally, as the child grows, these memories are lost. There are also exceptional, but well described cases of semantic memory persistence.

There are some children labeled autistic, or idiots savans, who are able to respond brilliantly to a particular subject of general knowledge or of a particular domain, such as literature or mathematics. On the other hand, the occurrences of procedural memories are extremely commonplace in the family environment of many of us.

There are in almost every family the designers, the painters, the pianists, the skilled craftsmen who make castles in the sand or wood without any previous teaching.

Observing well, in each of us we can see that the episodic memories are firmly consolidated until some dementia hits us, making us forget even our name.

The episodic memories for personal events are fleeting and deceptive. Who reports his wedding party does the same as fishermen or players do: each report produces a new version. That is what the ancients said: whoever tells a tale increases it by one point.

On the other hand, certain events of our life can occur loaded with strong emotion and a fright or a threat can consolidate with more strength a certain occurrence. A crash with our car in which someone gets hurt, the threat of a robbery or kidnapping, the fear of facing a risky surgery, the pain of a fractured femur by falling of the bicycle.

Considering reincarnation, it is likely that these episodic memories laden with strong physical or psychic emotion can be a good explanation for our fears, panic attacks, phobia, and difficulties in facing the lift, the airplane, a vaccine sting, a snake, a spider, a simple cockroach or public speaking.

The Memories of Procedures - Throughout life we ​​learn skills and acquire abilities common to us humans. Walking, running, writing, swimming, driving, riding, cycling, dropping a kite and other more important, such as  playing the piano, violin, singing with the guitar, painting, crafts, among many others.

The major highlight in this type of memory is that it is more or less permanent. No one forgets how to swim or ride a bicycle. The strumming of the guitar or piano, on the other hand, requires constant training, but the basic rudiments remain forever.

I will never forget that the first patient I met with Alzheimer's disease was a tailor. He could not tell his wife's name or address, but he gestured with his hands and showed how he cut the fabric to make a suit. The patient with this disease is trainable and able to learn certain new motor skills, but does not retain new knowledge, such as the hospital address.

It can be hypothesized that the memories of procedures are the ones that are most conserved from one incarnation to another. They remain ever more firmly consolidated in our brains - especially in the basal nuclei and cerebellum - and the examples are part of the history of all families. They are the skills, the talents, tendencies, artistic trends and the performances that appear easily in the crafts, music, painting, sports, among many others.

A simple summary - The autobiographical memory is firm, reliable, it accompanies us throughout life without distortion. We lose it when serious brain injuries occur. It hardly ever lasts from one life to another. The episodic memory is easily distorted. It is always redeemed with a new version, it is not recovered. It is retold. It is sensitive to emotional events that increase its features. They can justify what we feel today in the form of fears, phobias, psychic traumas, déjà-vu and other phenomena of human psychopathology.

The memory of knowledge, semantics, is cumulative and can favor learning in certain areas from one life to another.

And finally, the memories of procedures that are usually expressed in motor skills are more solid, we say that no one forgets how to ride a bicycle. From one incarnation to another, they can remain as a professional trend, diverse artistic talents, predisposition to this or that sport.

And what will death do to our memories? - People say that "nothing is taken from this life". I usually say that we are going to take our neurons; they imprint our identity on them. A famous neurosurgeon did his surgeries with the patient awake. With the skull open, he electrically stimulated several brain areas. In addition to the motor and sensory responses he was able to stimulate the temporal region where he produced reminiscences kept by the patient. We all know, as Spiritists, that what happens in the brain is transferred to the Spirit through a semi-material vehicle, the perispirit. But throughout our lives the neural networks accumulate a rich learning that consolidates our behaviors and enriches our memories. Functional resonance exams and direct stimulation in neurons detect these skills.

The question is: does all this melt away with death?

We learn from the Spiritist Doctrine that this material is entirely transferred to the perispirit.

This phenomenon allows us to think about some consequences. Soon after death we will be exactly the same as we are today, with the same memories, behaviors and experiences. This explains why even when disincarnated, there are Spirits who will continue to doubt reincarnation. And for most of us, it will not be overnight that we have access to the memories of our past.

Dr. Nubor Orlando Facure, Director of the Brain Institute of Campinas, which he founded in 1987; he is a physician specialized in Neurology and Neurosurgery. He was a professor for 30 years at UNICAMP, Master of Neurosurgery. In 1990, he created in the Department of Neurology at the University the first postgraduate course on "Brain and Mind", with a spiritualist approach.

Translation:
Eleni Frangatos - eleni.moreira@uol.com.br