Evidence of past-life recordings in the brain?

Central to ITLAD/CTF is that at the point of death consciousness slips into a hyper-realistic re-creation of the subject's life. In Near-Death Experience terminology this is called the "Panoramic Life Riview".

Now in order for my theory to work there has to be evidence that such 'memories' exist and are stored in the brain (or if elsewhere can be accessed by the brain for 'projection' into consciousness.

A few years ago I read a book called Epileptic Seizures: Pathopsychology and Clinical Semiology edited by Hans O Luders and Soheyl Noachter. This book was written for professionals in this field but at that time (and as I still do) I needed to know as much as possible about epilepsy and pre-epileptic aura states. This book has contributory chapters by many of the world's leading authorities on the subject. I was particularly interested in a chapter written by Peter Wolf, Martin Schondienst and Elizabeth Gulich. This specifically discussed the latest research into aura states - or, as the professionals term these - "Experiential" Auras. Specifically the writers were interested in what was actually being experienced by Wilder Penfield's patients when they had their three-dimensional past-life memory experiences Now what is of great interest is what neurologists mean by the word "experiential". The neurologist Dr Pierre Gloor explains:

'Typically experiential phenomena, when fully expressed, create in a patient's mind experiences, usually from his personal past, that have a compelling immediacy similar to, or sometimes even more vivid than those occuring in real life. It is this quality of being like a real life experience whic justifies the term "experiential" ... experiential phenomena typically combine elements of perception, memory and affect" (page 337)

What he means is that the memories that Penfield's stimulations evoked in the subjects were absolutely vivid and totally real ... so real that they were identical to the original experience. In other words the subject does not experience the events as a memory but as a literal re-living!

Indeed Penfield and his associate Jaspers wrote about the stimulated "memories" thus:

'Recollection may carry with it the emotion that the individual"felt" at the time of the original experience and the deductions, true or false, that he made concerning the experience."

and then they added the totally itladian observation that....

'it seems to be the integrated whole (of events, related thoughts and emotions) that is recorded."
Note that they specifically use the word "recorded".

Remember, these quotations are not taken from some wishy, washy, New Age book but one written by professional neurologists. This is why ITLAD/CTF is of such importance!

(the image above is Wilder Penfield)

Third-person memories

When I recall memories from my childhood (and I must admit that I don't have a very large pile of conscious memories from which to choose -- but that is probably an entirely different topic and one for my therapist ;-) many of them play back in my mind in the third person. That is, the mental image that is my memory recollection includes me as a child; the image is not the event as seen by my childhood eyes but as seen by an observer.

Now, I could understand this happening for events for which I really have no conscious memory but am recalling a story my mother told me. But there are some events that I am certain were never discussed for which this takes place.

Very recent events are recalled from my point of view in that I see things as I would have seen them when they happened. I can picture them from a third-person perspective but the "natural" recollection is first-person.

I have a few ideas:

1) For very early memories (before age 3 or 4), perhaps I did not have a complete sense of "I" and my consciousness was not completely differentiated from everything else. My memory, then, is from "my" point of view but at that time, "my" meant the outside world as well as.

2) How much has our "photo-op" culture affected this? Is this a result of seeing so many pictures and basing our memories on pictures rather on the actual events? I've been thinking about this lately and writing about it. If I want to relive an experience, all I have to do is scroll back through my iPhoto library and there it is. Little is left to our actual memory anymore. I wonder if my grandparents or great-grandparents experienced anything like this since they would have seen very few pictures of themselves as children.

3) Could this be some kind of split in consciousness or personality? The consciousness with which I am recalling the memory was not the consciousness directly involved in the event that created the memory?

So, does anyone else experience this? What are your thoughts on the cause or nature of this?