My other mummy.

[Cadders1]

A friend of mines DD has just turned 3 and has started to say some very odd things about having a previous life. She talks about her other mummy and says when I was emily. She obviously doesn't call this her previous life - but just drops these things into conversation. She also mentions a fire a lot. She also recently visited a local village with her mum and was adament that there was a park there on the green - apparently there used to be one - but it was removed over 30 years ago. Has anyone else got experience of this?

ds2 aged 4 has another mummy. Apparently she's called Sophia and lives in a blue house and is poorly, and she tells him lots of things.

There are lots of interesting studies on childrens imaginations which may be comforting. A bright child could well have these kinds of imaginary lives, friends etc and developing them at an early age can really set them up for life cognitavly (sp?)

Doesnt explain the park in the village though

Not personally but my brother went through a phase of talking about his other mum when he was about 2 or 3. When my mum questioned this saying I'm your only mummy he said no I mean the one I had when I was a man.

We were driving to the coast one day (a road he's never been on) when he pointed to a building way off in the distance and told us he used to go in that pub when he was a man. My dad (a bid sceptic) dismissed it as a house but it turned out to be a pub. There is no possible way he could have known. It was a tiny dot in the distance when he said it and we were miles from home.

Eventually he stopped and now as an adult is as big a sceptic as my dad.

Cadders1 I am a believer in past lives as I have been through hypnotherapy to recall some of my own. Amazingly I discovered things that happened to me that I now am scared of in this life, if that makes sense.

I don't have first hand experience of children recalling it but a friend of mines DS when he was about 3 started to tell them stories. He said he was a soldier in india and he led his men down from the mountains. His mother asked him if it was warm in india - he said, no don't be daft Mum - we were in the mountains, it was freezing.

I think it's harmless to listen, and I am not sure that children are freaked out about it as much as we might be. It can be very interesting to listen to, and then sometimes the memories are never mentioned again.

My daughter has just turned three and often talks about times that happened before she was born, because she's listened to when I've told her things from my past. She retells versions of those stories to me, including herself in the narrative and embellishing details in them, because I think she a) has a wonderful imagination and b) the concept of a time before she existed is, naturally, hard for her to grasp. When I hear accounts of similarly aged children talking about other mummies and other lives, I think similar factors are at work.

I think you are right indigobarbie she is not freaked out by it at all - its more her mum! Like your friends DS she gives very specific details about some things which she has no experience of.

I am not sure about the idea of past lives - but I do remember a tv programme about a boy whose parents took him to a village in Ireland that he said he lived in!