Does Past-Life Regression Work?

In May 2008, Dr. Oz introduced viewers of The Oprah Show to Dr. Brian Weiss and his study of past-life regression. Dr. Weiss uses hypnosis to lead his patients back in time to their earliest memories. Then he takes them even further back to what he says are their previous lives. From that point, Dr. Weiss says he and his patients are able to examine the experiences that seemed to have formed the roots of their current fears and phobias. Dr. Weiss says if you can connect your current fears to a past life, those fears will often disappear.

For as long as she can remember, Jodi says she has been terrified of dolls. One of her earliest memories is having her picture taken with Santa. To her horror, the photographer asked her to pose with a doll for the photo. "I can remember holding this doll and trying to smile," Jodi says. "I was screaming inside, 'Please don't make me hold that doll!'"

Jodi's fear is so strong that she says she doesn't even let her daughter own dolls. One day when picking her daughter up from day care, Jodi arrived to find her little girl holding a baby doll. "My heart went to my stomach and tears welled up in my eyes and I started to shake," Jodi says. "I thought, 'There's my baby, she's got this doll, and I can't pick her up.'"

Jodi says even photographs of dolls scare her and nothing she does can rationalize her fear away. "I know that that doll cannot come to life. I know that there's nothing that doll can do to physically harm me," she says. "I'm still terrified."