In past life exploration, “what were you in your past life” usually means one of three things: the role you played, such as a healer, soldier, or merchant; the kind of being you were, including the popular idea of an animal past life; or the civilisation and era you lived in, such as ancient Egypt or Rome. People report these kinds of past lives in regression sessions, dreams, and psychic readings all the time. This guide explains the most common answers, what they tend to mean, and how you can find out what you were for yourself.
The question sounds simple, but it bundles three separate things together. When someone asks what they were in a past life, they usually want to know one of the following:
Each of these answers works differently in a regression or reading, and each carries a different meaning for your life today. If you are new to the subject, our overview of what a past life is will give you the foundation first.
Regression therapists and psychic readers hear the same handful of roles again and again. The list below reflects what commonly comes up in sessions:
Notice that the roles are not exotic. In regression work, ordinary lives are far more common than dramatic ones, because the point of the memory is usually the lesson, not the spectacle.
The animal past life question is one of the most popular versions of the topic, and it deserves a careful answer. In the classical Indian traditions of reincarnation, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, souls can indeed be born in animal forms, and the cycle of rebirth includes all living beings. The quality of the life, in this view, reflects the karma of the previous one.
In modern Western past life culture, however, the animal question is treated more loosely and more playfully. Online quizzes asking whether you were a wolf, eagle, cat, or dolphin are entertainment, not spiritual method. Even in serious regression work, practitioners rarely guide clients toward animal lives. Most trained regression therapists hold that human souls incarnate as humans, because the human form is where the lessons of choice, speech, and relationship are learned. If an animal image appears in a session, it is usually interpreted symbolically, as a quality of the person, such as the loyalty of a dog or the vision of an eagle, rather than as a literal biography.
So the honest answer is: your connection to an animal can be meaningful, but it is best read as a symbol of your nature, not as a factual record. If you feel drawn to this version of the question, treat it as a mirror for your personality and instincts. Our separate guide to which animal you were in a past life explores this idea in more depth.
When people remember a past life, they rarely report a date. They report a feel: the clothes, the buildings, the light, the smells, and the customs. Still, certain eras and places come up often enough to have become part of the culture of past life exploration:
A useful rule: the more famous and cinematic the setting, the more likely the memory is shaped by culture, films, and books rather than by an actual lifetime. That does not make the memory worthless, but it should make you curious about where it came from.
Two people asking the same question, “what were you in your past life?”, can receive completely different kinds of answers, and that is normal. The answer depends on the method, the practitioner, and the state of mind of the person asking. A psychic reader might describe scenes and roles directly. A regression therapist guides you to your own inner images. A dream journal surfaces fragments slowly, over weeks.
None of these methods is more “true” than the others in an absolute sense. Each one accesses a different layer: imagination, memory, intuition, or symbol. What matters is consistency. When the same role, era, or theme keeps appearing across methods, it is worth taking seriously as a pattern in your psyche, whether or not it is a literal past life.
If you want a grounded answer rather than a quiz result, these are the steps that practitioners recommend:
Whatever method you choose, hold the results lightly. A past life story is useful when it brings compassion, clarity, or healing, and useless when it becomes an identity.
The honest position is the same as for past life memory in general. There is no scientific proof that regression memories are literal records of earlier lives, and researchers who documented children’s past life claims, such as Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia, gathered intriguing cases without settling the question. Popular books like Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters helped make the subject mainstream, but they are accounts, not evidence.
At the same time, the absence of proof does not empty the experience of value. The images that surface in regression are real experiences, and they frequently carry genuine emotional content: fears, grief, talents, and patterns that belong to the person here and now. You can treat a past life answer as a symbolic map of your inner life and still gain real healing from it.
However the question is answered, the value is in what it reveals about the present. Common examples:
In short, the answer to “what were you?” is really a mirror held up to “who are you becoming?”.
You can begin alone with journaling and meditation, but a guided session goes deeper, faster. At Ppure Energy Gurukul, Sshreevidhyaa offers 1:1 psychic readings that can reveal the roles, eras, and lessons of your past lives and how they shape you today. To understand the process first, read our guide to who you were in your past life and our introduction to past life regression. If you have questions about your own experiences, contact us here, or browse our shop for tools that support meditation and inner work.
Healers, farmers, soldiers, priests, merchants, artists, and caregivers are the most commonly reported past life roles in regression work. Ordinary lives appear far more often than dramatic ones, because the memory usually carries a lesson rather than a spectacle.
Classical Indian traditions allow for animal rebirths, but modern regression therapists rarely guide clients toward literal animal lives. An animal image in a session is usually read as a symbol of your qualities, such as a cat’s independence or an eagle’s vision, rather than as a factual biography.
Dramatic settings like Egypt, Rome, and Atlantis appear frequently in past life accounts, but they are also the settings of popular books and films. The more famous the setting, the more likely the memory is shaped by culture, so treat those reports with extra curiosity.
Often, yes. A reported life as a healer or musician can explain a talent that came easily, and a phobia traced to a remembered event often weakens once its source is named. The pattern is the point, whether or not the memory is literal.
The main routes are guided past life regression, past life meditation, dream journaling, and a psychic past life reading. Most people combine inner work with one guided session, and the best results come when the same role or era keeps appearing across methods.
No. Online quizzes are entertainment. They can spark curiosity and mirror parts of your personality, but they are not based on your actual history, energy, or experiences, so treat them as fun rather than fact.
Different methods access different layers of your mind, so answers vary between a reading, a meditation, and a dream. What matters is the theme that repeats across methods. The consistent pattern is the one worth working with.
Choose what you're looking for. You can choose multiple options.
