To think children may see things we can’t?

[Opal93]

My son is autistic and his language is disordered so it’s very hard to ask him what he actually means when he tells us something, but lately there have been a few instances where he has said things that have spooked us out a bit! Tonight he was at my mums, and he said “goodnight nana Marlene” (my mums mum who died when he was one) and started singing her favourite Doris Day song, word for word which he has never heard before and I didn’t know of the song until my mum told me today he started singing it and she has no idea how he knew it. My dad died when I was 16 and my son knows his photo. We were in a park the other week and my son pointed behind me and said “it’s grandad Stephen!” And I looked behind me thinking he probably saw a man that looked like the photo but there was nobody there. Another time, he started talking to my husbands dad about “nanny Margaret.” I didn’t realise he even had a nanny Margaret but apparently it was my husbands dads mums name. Then he said nanny Margaret has a big belly, and my FIL looked freaked out then and said she had a massive hernia that ruptured and killed her. I wouldn’t say I’m a believer in ghosts or life after death but it does make me wonder. Any other experiences of kids sensing things?

When I was just turned 8, I was playing quietly by myself. I was suddenly aware my grandma was with me, that she’d popped in, though I couldn’t see her - just felt her. Accepted it as kids do. Then my dad called me into the kitchen and told me my grandma had died. I nodded but thought - I already knew that.

I believe this OP! Although MN is one of the more skeptic places on the internet so you are unlikely to get too many people accepting it.

Children's brain states are different to adults. They are usually in an Alpha or Theta state vs adults who are in a more active, logical mindstate. This allows them to be constantly learning. Their brains are also taken up with learning the ways of the world vs adults who have to remember and carry out a million different daily "work" tasks, so I believe that they have the capacity to use their brain and perception in a different way. Their brains are not filled up with all the stuff adults think about every day in the same way. So it makes sense that if there is another dimension of reality, ghosts or whatever, they might be able to perceive it more easily.

And I think the person who said why can't they do XXX if they have these superpowers has missed the point. We are talking about different mind states rather than different "learned" skills and social skills or dexterity tasks that take years to learn.

My son is autistic and he has an amazing memory for details. Is it possible your son has overheard you, many years ago, talking and has randomly repeated what he heard?

I was going to say this same thing. My son can recall details from years ago and remembers conversations I wasn't even aware he was listening to.

I think pushing a belief onto a child that they have some sort of special power to communicate with or see dead people/spirits/ghosts isn't a good thing as it will create problems for that child, even more so when that child is neurodiverse and so may have an altered perception of what is or isn't real anyway (as an example, my son cannot grasp the concept of acting, actors playing different roles, or films being pretend and takes it at face value that what he is watching is 100% real and that IS Iron Man/Tony Stark). I think these sort of belief system are confusing for children and potentially frightening too, not to mention the pressure of being told they have a "gift".

Don’t be so ridiculous 🤦‍♀️

There are various cash prizes in existence that can be claimed by anyone who is able to prove the existence of an afterlife, paranormal phenomenon, or supernatural powers. If these abilities were real and so very common amongst children due to their super-duper mystical brains, don't you think someone would have claimed them by now?

I believe this. There's a documentary on Netflix I think it is that's really worth watching - the episode about previous lives is uncanny. I'll look up the title.

Surviving Death. Some of the episodes are a bit off the wall but I recommend the reincarnation one.

What a load of old bollocks.

Not long after my grandad died when I was little, I once told my mum I couldn’t go upstairs because grandad was standing telling me I couldn’t

I didn’t even know he had died then

Reincarnation! How is that even possible

Fairy stories are more believable

@PickAChew

Mine definitely can. This current pair of varifocals is awful.

Honestly, OP, no, children do not have mystical powers with which they can communicate with the dead, they are deeply imaginative, natural parrots, and don't have a strong distinction between the real and the imaginary. Your DS is just remembering and repeating things he's heard from perfectly normal sources, and, depending on his age, if he were less language-disordered, he would probably be able to explain.

I don't think these things necessary mean that ghosts or reincarnation exist but something is happening.

I knew my grandma had died before anyone told me. I still remember her coming to say good bye to me. Really weird

I have a distinct memory from when I was around seven; it was a Sunday summer afternoon and I heard my father call my name. I ran in to find out what he wanted but only my mother was in the sitting room and when I told her she said I must have been hearing things, my father had gone out in the car about half an hour ago.

I was very confused, I know I heard him call me. I can still hear his voice.

He came home about an hour later after a completely uneventful trip.

No

@FourTeaFallOut

So basically any living thing that is incapable of actually saying ‘no of course I can’t see ghosts, stop talking shit’.

And, at the inevitable accusation of being mean, I think it is really unfair to dump this hocus pocus crap on autistic children.

This!! It borders on offensive at times.

Sorry, when you're dead you're dead. Absolutely no credible proof of an afterlife

YABU. Children are simply less sophisticated and therefore more likely to be credulous. In your child's case, unless your child never goes to school, and never listens to the radio or watches TV without you being there. you can't possibly say he has never heard the Doris Day song before. Given that he has disordered language, how many times does he say something random that has no obvious meaning and you simply forget about it? The fact that he occasionally hits on a name that is similar to the not-at-all-unusual names of people in your family really means nothing.

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall

I knew my grandma had died before anyone told me. I still remember her coming to say good bye to me. Really weird

^^ Exactly the same as me.

Is this illusion just limited to us oh so superior humans?

Does every slug,snail,head lice and ant 'come back' as well?

@Geneticsbunny

My son is autistic and he has an amazing memory for details. Is it possible your son has overheard you, many years ago, talking and has randomly repeated what he heard?

Same here. My five year old DD is autistic and freaked me out one day last year singing a song over and over that I thought there was no way she could have possibly heard. It was a very old fashioned song, that my grandmother (who died before she was born) used to sing to me, I really associate it with her so it could have felt very woo (except I am a real non believer in woo).

Anyway she kept doing it and it transpired that her grandmother has sung it to her on the swings one day. She'd heard it once or twice, committed it to her insane memory and sang it on repeat for weeks afterwards.

Nothing woo about it, but I'd have sworn she couldn't have heard it anywhere. I'd have been wrong!

No they can't, they have vivid imaginations. When I was a kid I told my mum that I once had another mummy who fed me to rats because I was naughty .

On every parent facebook group you get multiple posts from people convinced their kid saw their dead Nana or has the sixth sense or whatever. I don't think people realise how warped and vivid kids' imaginations really are.

Also it's confirmation bias. Like I have really bad anxiety and always think the worst. 9 times out of 10 it's not the worst. On the rare occasion it has been, I could be like "wow, I had a sixth sense that was going to happen". I didn't - it was coincidence.

My mom told me that every morning when she walked downstairs with me I would look behind her to the top of the stairs and smile and say "Hello lady"
I can't remember this but it freaked me out when she told me lol

My mom told me that every morning when she walked downstairs with me I would look behind her to the top of the stairs and smile and say "Hello lady

I used to do that to my sister "I'm not waving at you, I'm waving at the man behind you".

I couldn't ever see anything, I was just winding her up. Think I was about 5 at the time.