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Original poster

anyone else's toddler ever spoken about 'past life' experiences??????

326 replies

noonar · 18/09/2007 13:33

now, am not saying (necessarily) that i believe in reincarnation, but i've just had a rather spooky conversation with my 3 yo dd. (just 3)

the gist of it was that she's bored with being 3 and wants to be a teenager again. when i asked her where i was whilst she was busy being a teenager, she said that she had a different mummy then.

the conversation went on, and then she said that she got sick and she died.

as i said earlier, i'm not saying i believe any of this, but it certainly sent a shiver down my spine.

OP posts:
seeker · 07/04/2013 18:46

Occam's Razor.

expatinscotland · 07/04/2013 18:51

It was just a coincidence, surely.

PavlovtheCat · 07/04/2013 18:52

My DD told was about 3 years old and we were making cupcakes - she told me, casually, that reminded her of when her nana/my mummy showed her how to make them, she said was sat on her kitchen side and was allowed to stir the mixture.

I asked her what she meant. She said 'nana showed me how to make cakes before' and I asked her when that happened. She laughed and said 'before you were born mama!' (with a sort of exasperated sigh that suggested I should already know that!)

My mum died when DD was 6 months old. DD was around 3 when she said this.

It completely floored me. She has also said a fair few other things relating to my mum/her nana when too young to lie/tell grand stories that have made me go Shock and has on occasions suffered from severe night terrors and during those night terrors pointed to 'nana' saying 'can't you see her? why can't you see her?' and I know they were not bad dreams as they followed the patterns that her night terrors did. She was around 5 when they phased out and it was around that time they became something other than just crying out and not being able to be woken.

Unfortunately, they were prominent as a toddler and have fizzled out now.

I always insist I am a sceptic about all this. But these don't feel like coincidences. So I must keep an open mind as I can't find any other explanation that fits, especially the above scene. And, well, it's quite comforting to think that maybe somehow, my mum and my daughter are linked spiritually. And I often wonder who she might have been if she 'knew' my mum before I arrived.

headinhands · 07/04/2013 19:13

headinhands, I was referring to your comment about what we know about the brain so far not allowing the concept of reincarnation. I'm open to the possibility that we don't know everything about the brain, so perhaps it doesn't all work quite the way we think. I'm not sure how that means that I have to believe in pterodactyls under the bed.

Explain how you know there isn't a pterodactyl under the bed?

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 19:23

expat, I think you wrote about your daughter's experience before....with the sheep?

headin, explain how being open to the possibility of not knowing everything about how the brain works has anything to do with believing in pterodactyls under the bed. (aside from the fact that you could just look under there to rule it out :))

headinhands · 07/04/2013 19:32

You have as much evidence for reincarnation as you do the existamce of monsters in your child's wardrobe. Each have as much evidence, ie, none. How are you able to determine one is plausible and cast the other off?

headinhands · 07/04/2013 19:34

Ah but the problem with merely looking under there is that someone will say 'its there!' but you however can't see it because your mind is closed to it or something of that ilk.

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 19:40

Well that would depend on what your child had told you really wouldn't it? Some people's children have given quite detailed information that can/has been verified - more than just saying there's a pterodactyl under my bed.

headinhands · 07/04/2013 19:42

Could you link me to this verifiable data please that I might be ale to pass it on to the scientific community. I think they'd be very interested in this testable evidence.

Januarymadness · 07/04/2013 19:43

Isn't the point of critical thinking that you openly listen to all arguments and then decide what you think? How can you hear what others are saying when you are trying to talk over them insisting they are wrong.

As long as people arent hurting or taking advantage of others then I respect their right to believe what they want. I may not agree but that is my business.

marissab · 07/04/2013 19:49

Eek i've strated something now havn't? I don't know any of you but because this comes under the same section as the religious threads, maybe it challenges or upsets some others beliefs. That aside, i believe we cannot know everything about the world and how it works. So i just stay open minded and i just am very curious as to where my child, who has never seen a violin, would know how to play one? I have been watching cebeebies like a hawk to see if anyone plays a violin on there. Not seen it yet. But equally i'm open to the idea that she may have seen it somewhere.

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 19:58

I'm talking about what some people have posted on the thread headinhands - when your child is giving you information about your own family that you know they couldn't possibly know you would probably be more inclined to believe them wouldn't you? Or do you just not believe anything your child tells you if it doesn't tie in with what you 'know' to be correct?

headinhands · 07/04/2013 20:24

If children were coming out with such accurate knowledge backed up with data as this post alone suggests why has it not come to the attention of academia by now? Because it's all anecdote and nothing ever comes of it when it's put under scrutiny. The same way that the existence of angels and UFO's and astrology and tarot is all but ignored by the scientific community. There's just nothing to go on, nothing to test, nothing to work with unlike everything we have discovered about the world such as electricity and gravity.

lisalisa · 07/04/2013 20:26

My ds did this when v young. He just announced one day when about 3 that he had had another mummy and said her name but it sounded a bit garbled but what was odd was that he asid he lived in Italy. I don't think he'd heard of Italy at that age and we certainly have no links there. For a significant period of time he was " comparing" our life now with his life then. Was spooky but then again I believe in reincarnation ( find it comforting that when we go at least its not over forever) .

Viviennemary · 07/04/2013 20:31

These are very strange stories. I saw a programme about it once. They say it could be some sort of retained memory from past relatives handed down in genes or DNA or whatever rather than reincarnation. That doesn't sound so beyond the realms of possibility.

Januarymadness · 07/04/2013 20:34

Something like that is untestable in acedemia and you know it. An academic could not be 100 percent sure that a parent had not given the information away in the past. Any test on that basis would prove inconclusive.

It may well be that something HAS been said which the child has picked up on. But you dont know for sure and neither do I. Let other people reach their own conclusions.

Januarymadness · 07/04/2013 20:36

Oh but I may have solved the violin problem. Zingzillas......

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 20:39

Good posts JM :)

headinhands · 07/04/2013 20:47

Which is the most likely explanation seeing as we have absolutely no reason to think otherwise.

headinhands · 07/04/2013 20:50

Do you know for sure there isn't a zombie in my dd's wardrobe? According to your method of reasoning it would be grossly negligent of me to leave the wardrobe in her room because it might be true.

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 21:01

Again, not seeing a link here...where does my reasoning point to zombies in wardrobes?

DioneTheDiabolist · 07/04/2013 21:03

Has your DD told you that there is a zombie in her wardrobe or a pterodactyl under her bed Headinhands?

seeker · 07/04/2013 21:07

"I'm talking about what some people have posted on the thread headinhands - when your child is giving you information about your own family that you know they couldn't possibly know you would probably be more inclined to believe them wouldn't you? Or do you just not believe anything your child tells you if it doesn't tie in with what you 'know' to be correct?"

No. I just know that we tell children more than we think we do, and children pick up more than we think they do. Children hear things and put two and two together.
My brother went with a friend to a past life regression thing, and his friend told everyone loads of stuff about his life ans an Anglo Saxon-lots of incredible detail. The only thing was, it was all the plot of a book that my brother remembered reading as a child. His friend had read it too - but didn't consciously remember it. The past life memories in books and films are the same. Honestly. The Irish boy and the fighter pilot one are all like that,

greencolorpack · 07/04/2013 21:08

I remember giving a lift to my sons friend who was 3 or 4 at the time and we were looking out the window at suburban streets and he started telling me he remembered when this was all forests and farmland (it was pre 1870) and he told me very matter of fact about how he had lived before in this area. I chatted away to him for ages about it, he seemed very sure of himself. Never mentioned it to his mum.

bumbleymummy · 07/04/2013 21:11

They aren't all like that seeker and I know you linked to something which apparently disproved the fighter pilot thing before but iirc even that article said that there were some things that it couldn't explain and, in any case, they were offering suggestions about how it could have been but that doesn't necessarily mean that's how it was.

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