Have you ever met someone and instantly felt like you’ve known them forever?

Maybe you have.

People who believe in reincarnation believe that death is not the end, and that we live over and over again, taking little bits of one life into the next life. Sometimes we carry over weird fears and obsessions that can help or hinder our current life.

Some people undergo past life regression therapy to find out more about their previous lives — they do it for fun, out of curiosity, or to get past a blockage.

The Royal Gazette talked with a handful of them, to learn more about their experience.

For years, Laura Petronzi struggled to have a baby. After some failed IVF attempts she was at her wit’s end. Then, she found help through an unusual source ­— past life regression therapy.

“I had been trying to get pregnant since 2006,” said Ms Petronzi. “In March 2013, I made an appointment with Deryn Higgins.”

Ms Higgins, the owner of Reid Street holistic health centre My Sereni-Tea, is trained in past life regression therapy. Her method is to put the client into a deep meditative state before asking the client questions about their previous life. Sometimes the client sees a picture, or feels an emotion. They remain in control of themselves throughout the experience and can remember what happened when the session is over.

“It was surprising,” Ms Petronzi said. “I felt really cold and my feet felt cold. I saw an image. I was a man. I had been walking in the snow and I had a wife who was having a baby. They both died in childbirth. I felt like it was my fault.”

The image was set near a farm house, and the man was going to look for help. Ms Higgins asked her to fast forward, but she couldn’t see anything.

“We went back and I saw myself working on a farm. Then, I went forward again and I was in a trench during a war. Then I took a bullet and I died. I wanted to die because I always felt guilty for having lost a wife and baby.”

Many of Ms Higgins’ clients experience a death scene. Although some people sign up for past life regression therapy thinking it will be fun, it can be emotionally painful. There are often tears during a session.

“I got really upset,” said Ms Petronzi. “But, when I left, and walked down Church Street, I just felt so light. I felt reborn.”

She isn’t really sure if reincarnation is real, or whether she just tapped into her own subconscious feelings of guilt that she couldn’t have a child - and fear that maybe she wasn’t meant to have one. She became pregnant not long after. Her son, Asher, was born in January of this year.

While she credits her pregnancy to the IVF treatments, she definitely feels the past life regression therapy helped her deal with her emotions.

“I don’t focus on the story of who I was in a previous life, but how I felt afterwards,” she said. “It was a really neat experience.”

At the end of a past life regression session there is often a take-home message. The message for Ms Petronzi was that she needed to take care of herself, and she was capable of taking care of others.

“Infertility can be very upsetting,” she said. “Before the therapy, I felt like my body was failing me.”

Ellen Brown, who is training to be a grief counsellor, said she has always had a fear of falling down stairs.

“I did my past life regression therapy a few years ago,” said Ms Brown. “It blew me away. At first, I was curious, but a little sceptical.”

During her session, Ms Brown pictured herself in a cabin in the 1800s.

“I was wearing a long skirt,” she said. “There was a group of women. I had a son. I was falling down a lot going down stairs and things. It was weird. Then, I got to the point in my life where I was dying. My husband and son were there. I had pains in my chest. It was very sombre. I was lying in a bed.”

Ms Brown felt the images were too real to have been cooked up by her imagination.

“You can’t just create this stuff,” she said. “When the therapist, Karen Simmons, brought me back, I jumped. I had really felt like I was there.”

She said she found it an interesting experience, and one day she would like to go back and try it again to see what else she can find out about her previous lives.

Jamila Faries agreed to undergo past life regression therapy for The Royal Gazette. Throughout her life she had experienced some trust issues. Her session turned up some surprising reasons for why.

“It stemmed from the past,” she said.

Through the session she found out she died trying to mediate between two factions of people she had previously trusted.

“I couldn’t get details like the year that it was,” she said. “I was in Morocco and I did something with fish so I assume I was a fisherman. Fish kept coming to me. I have never been there, but that is one of the places I would really like to visit. I like fishing, although I don’t like baiting the hook.”

During the session Ms Higgins asked her questions: ‘What is the weather like? What’s on your feet? What are you wearing?’

Ms Faries said it was hot and dry. She had sandals on her feet and she was wearing a long, dirty white or beige shirt.

The most surprising detail to her was that she had been a man.

“I could hear people speaking, but I didn’t understand what they were saying,” Ms Faries said. “It was a different language.”

Ms Higgins said she often sees people who were a different gender in their previous life, or a member of a different culture.

“If people feel a drawing to a different country or culture, chances are they probably had a past life there,” said Ms Higgins. “You might wonder why you don’t get along with a certain person, or you might meet someone and feel like you have known them your whole life. You most probably have. In families, sometimes roles are reversed. I know I was in a previous life with my mother, but our roles were reversed. We had such a strong bond, but we had some difficult things to work out in this life. We did before she died.”

Unfortunately, it is rarely so specific that you could actually track down the identity of the person in a previous life.

Ms Faries said she cried when she found out how she died.

Ms Higgins said: “Sometimes people make vows at the end of their life, like, I’ll never get married again or I’ll never have children again. That impacts their current life. Through the sessions we are able to bring about healing and change that vow.”