Children who Remember :: A personal experience with reincarnation

 

Painting depicting Reincarnation
 

"I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence." - Socrates

There have been numerous cases of children remembering another life. From the moment they can talk, they begin to describe people, places or dead relatives of whom they had not known in this life. They insist they were someone else, some going so far as to recall their death.

Children who remember their past lives without any prompting are very matter of fact when talking about it.  Past-life memories, particularly those in children, are a phenomena with far-reaching implications for every person who is curious about the truth of reincarnation.

 

I've experienced this phenomenon myself: One day whilst driving home, my son, who was about 3 years old at the time, blurted out, “Mummy? You are Breena”. I looked at him in the rear-view mirror as he was looking out the window. He continued: “You were Bree-nah. But you had long dark hair. Why did you cut it? Can we go back? I miss our dog. Do you remember him mummy?” I replied, “I am not Breena. My name is Laura", but this made him a little agitated, reiterating: “No, Mummy. You were Breena before, not now!”. He went on to describe in detail, a round dwelling where we lived and what we wore, what we ate and a dog we owned. He never described a father figure or any siblings.

I was shocked, to say the least. I had to pull the car over to compose myself as it dawned on me his descriptions mirrored a dream I had had, many years prior.

Initially, I thought my son had called me "Breanna", as I had not heard the name "Breena" before. It was only later that, upon investigation, I discovered that the name Breena is a real one, old Irish Celtic in origin, and means “dark haired” (my son had said I had had dark hair), or “Fairy Palace”. My son made a point of correcting me, pronouncing it “Bree-nah”.

 

Roundhouse Dwelling
 

Then not that long ago, our family visited a Neolithic site, which consisted of roundhouse dwellings and a museum devoted to this period in history. My son, who is now 7, was absolutely fascinated by it. Whilst he has never mentioned Breena again, on this occasion he made note of "remembering" certain artefacts that he was being shown, and commented that “it was different; not that exactly”. When  queried about what he had meant, he shrugged his shoulders and replied, “You wouldn’t understand”.

Roundhouses, such as the one in the picture above, were built from the Bronze Age, throughout the Iron Age, and into the sub-Roman period. How is it possible that a child the age of seven can identify and familiarise with them, and other artefacts from a period in history he couldn't possibly know anything about?

There seems to be a growing number of cases in the public sphere these days of children that seem to recall, in astonishing detail, the lives of people who have lived before. Some are able to recall these events well into adulthood, whilst for others the details fade with time. It makes me wonder if this is something we all can do in childhood - if, perhaps, those fears, fascinations, and wild fancies have less to do with imagination than, as adults, we'd like to believe.

Of course, I’m sure many children (especially as they grow older) are influenced by what they read and see on television. But when your child describes in detail a life they couldn’t have possibly made up, you do have to wonder…

 

 

For anyone interested in reading about the past lives of children, I suggest a visit to Carol Bowman’s Forum where you can share your own experiences, and read those of others.

Laura  

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Night Terrors: What visits you in the dark?

[Picture: The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, 1781]


 

Let's start this post with some scientific facts:

* Night terrors (or sleep terrors, as they are sometimes called) occur mostly in children. If a child is still suffering them by the time they reach their teens, it is more than likely they will continue to suffer from them well into adulthood. About 1% - 5% of children suffer from night terrors, whilst only 1% - 2% of adults.

* Scientific research has found that night terrors occur during Stage 4 of sleep, which is a deeper, non-dream phase of sleep when the brain should technically be "void" of any unnecessary activity. Night terrors cannot be nightmares, because nightmares occur during REM sleep, which is the dream phase of sleep. (To learn more about the stages of sleep, go here).

* A person who does not and has never had a night terror cannot "make" themselves have one. Although, there are certain factors believed to contribute to the likelihood of a night terror occurring for those susceptible to them (e.g. lack of sleep, caffeine, stress etc). However, the actual cause and reason for their occurrence remains unknown.

* Many sufferers cannot remember the details of their night terrors. However, for those that can, the most common thing they see is a dark, shadowy figure in the room.

* During a night terror, its sufferer's heart rate increases to a staggering 160 to 170 beats per minute. This is well above the rate expected for a "stressful" situation.

* A person suffering night terrors is not automatically assumed to have a psychological condition. In fact, most sufferers do not, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is the most common misdiagnosis.

 

It's been almost three months since my last night terror. Or, what I believe to be a night terror. I have no other explanation for it. I remember it clearly because it actually happened during the day, and it involved something that I'd not previously experienced during a terror: A grinning, partly decayed corpse lying in the bed next to me, in full, horrifying colour (thank you, daylight). Then, just as suddenly it had appeared, it was gone.

It was this terror that really got me thinking about the nature of night terrors, in particular how it is possible that modern science is unable to provide an explanation for their existence. I appreciate that there is a lot we still don't understand about the human brain. We know so many things, but there's even less we know about life after death.

I am one of the (un)lucky (haven't quite decided which) few who never "grew out" of night terrors. I've been getting them for as long as I can remember: I cannot pinpoint the moment they began, and I've never been able to determine a trigger. Stress or no stress; tired or well-rested; caffeine or no caffeine - they've just been there, always. They come and go as they please, and no two terrors are the same. 

I also remember them all, in minute detail. Whilst they are termed "terrors", I am not always afraid. My level of fear (or lack thereof) depends on the terror itself; it's "content", so to speak. As long as they keep their distance, I am in control, but I really don't like it when they touch.

My most common response during a night terror is one of curiousity; it watches me and so I watch it back. The logical part of my brain likes to tell me that what I am seeing simply isn't possible, but why then am I seeing it at all? If it happens more than once in a single night, or multiple nights in succession, my reaction turns into one of anger and frustration ("I'm trying to sleep, y'all!").

But this wasn't always the case. As a child the terrors would terrify me. Growing up on a farm we didn't have street lights filtering in through the windows at night. During those nights when there was no moon, it would be pitch dark - so dark you couldn't see what was right in front of you. I didn't have a night-light (I wasn't afraid of the dark, per se, I just didn't like what came with it). It was on those moonless nights when the terrors would be most frightening; when I'd know there was something in the room with me because I could hear it moving, making inhuman sounds. This was the most common terror I'd experience as a child, but it wasn't the only one.

As a teenager, the terrors began to change and become less subtle. I'd often see a large, dark, shadowy figure without legs come down from the ceiling and either hover above me, or skirt the edge of my bed. By this stage, however, I was becoming less frightened of these events and I would tell the creatures to go away, at which point they would either disappear before my eyes, or retreat back into the ceiling. 

Once they disappear there's a moment of clarity, followed by logic saying, "You must've been dreaming". The ardenaline can take awhile to subside; the heart a few more minutes to return to normal; the body a moment longer to relax. But, I have always found it surprisingly easy to go back to sleep after a terror.

I wasn't brought up to believe in ghosts. We didn't even tell ghost stories. My family were ardent church-goers, and for a long time I was convinced that the devil was trying to take me (what he wanted me for is anyone's guess!). 

As an adult who still suffers night terrors, I cannot help but wonder if there is a more profound reasoning for their existence than just the brain "misfiring" and creating random events. What if they're not random at all? If they are not a dream, and not a hallucination, then what are they? I can't help but wonder why so many experience very similar things in a night terror, and why it is that these dark shadow-figures insist on taking centre stage.

Is it possible that during the phase of sleep when our brain is empty, and we are at our most vulnerable, that we are able to see things beyond what we would normally see when completely awake and lucid? Perhaps a night terror is a small piece in the evidentiary puzzle of proving there is either life after death, or some kind of "spirit realm"? Could it be that the things we see in night terrors are not mere (unexplained) imaginings at all, but real beings, seen only when the veil between this world and the next slips and falls, revealing its secrets? 

I'll let you decide. Afterall, I'm still trying to figure it out for myself.
 

Do you suffer night terrors (or what may be construed as night terrors) too? What visits you in yours? 

 

Curious to know more about night terrors? Try these websites:
nighterrors.org

sleephealthfoundation.org.au

 

 

 

Sarah  

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Why do children see ghosts?

I am constantly using Google to trawl through online paranormal forums, and the question I most commonly see popping up is whether or not children can see ghosts. Opinions vary, from children having over-active imaginations, to them being more susceptible to their environment due to their rapid development. Interestingly, I have also come across the suggestion that because children's eyes are still developing, it may be that they can perceive what we cannot.

But then why do some children see the unseen whilst others do not - or cannot? Are these abilities simply inherited, passed down from generation to generation? Or is there a simple scientific explanation for it all?

My maternal “Mad Aunty Doss” (as she was affectionately called) always told my mother that the female side of our family had the ability to communicate with the dead. She would often know before anyone else that a member of the family had passed away. But she also told my mother when I was born that I had “The Gift” (whatever that was to be); however, no one ever paid her too much attention, probably because ghosts (and being able to see and communicate with them) wasn’t discussed in social situations as much as it probably is today.

I spent the first ten years of my life in a haunted house. For someone that supposedly had "The Gift", it was the perfect introduction to the paranormal. The house was an old Californian Bungalow, with all the period trimmings, located in Sydney, Australia. My parents had learnt of the previous occupants via our neighbour: An elderly couple who had kept to themselves until the husband passed away (in the house) and the wife had been transferred to a nursing home. 

From the moment we moved in, right up until the moment we moved out, my family experienced a variety of paranormal phenomena, including (but not limited to) hearing the sound of disembodied footsteps, having personal objects moved from one place to another, to seeing full-bodied, spectral apparitions.

As a child growing up in this house I would often see the apparition of an elderly man. I remember the first time I saw him was just after we moved in and I would have been no more than four years old. The gentleman would regularly watch me, until such time as I was moved into a different bedroom to make room for my brothers. Whilst I was still aware of his presence, I was no longer watched all night. In all that time he never spoke; he just watched me. But as I grew older I found that I couldn’t see him as clearly as I once could. Where once he was clearly identifiable, he eventually become nothing more than an outline or shadow, but I could always sense that it was the spirit of the same elderly gentleman.

But he wasn't the only spirit I saw as a child, nor would he be the last of my lifetime. After awhile, I began to expect them. The more I expected them, the more prominent and the more frequent their visitations became. Growing up, I encountered many spirits of both good and not-so-good persuasion. I believe these early encounters with the paranormal cemented my ability to see and experience what others either cannot, or choose not to see.

I have had numerous encounters over the years from simple visitations to being physically attacked. I remember a frightening occasion whereby I tried to ignore a visitation from a spirit, and was quite literally dragged from my bed. On another occasion I had returned from being away for a week or so, and in response to this absence, the spirit "threw" down my books from the top of my bookcase upon my return. I was present in the room, lying on the bed, when I heard a crash. But as I looked to where the sound had come from, expecting to see books everywhere, I discovered instead that they had been neatly stacked beside my desk. It simply was not possible for ten books to fall off my shelf, miss the desk entirely, and land in a nice, neat pile.

I now have two young children of my own. My own childhood encounters with the paranormal has made me more open to the possibility that my own children will encounter the same.

My eldest son had a number of strange occurrences take place when he was between the age of one and three. We lived in a 1920s weatherboard cottage, but unfortunately I have no information about the previous occupants or whether or not they may have been haunting our home. We fell in love with the cottage immediately upon viewing as it had all its original stained glass windows and plaster ceilings. 

Until the birth of my son, I hadn't felt any entity residing within its walls. My son slept just down the hall from our bedroom, and like all parents these days, we kept a baby monitor beside his bed. From about the age of one my husband and I could hear other voices coming through the monitor. This did not happen every night and for a long time we passed it off as interference. This was until one night when we clearly heard our son’s name come through the monitor, and he promptly woke up, screaming.

But this was not an isolated event. My son’s toys would also constantly move and play (music) throughout the night, mostly during the early hours of the morning. It got to the point where we not only had to switch the toys off, but also remove the batteries. But, much to my husband’s surprise, the toys continued to play.

Then when my son started talking he would tell us about a man in his room, and for the first time ever I felt uncomfortable in my own home. I began to fear for my child. Would he see what I saw? Would he experience the same things I experienced? Would he be attacked, and disturbed, and frightened in the same way I was when I was child? I still carry these fears, especially as my son, now a few years older, still tells me of the things he can see that no one else can. Most often he sees a dog or a small girl when his "eyes are half closed" (his words), or out the corner of his eye (peripheral vision). However, he doesn't yet seem frightened by what he can see.

Most articles on the paranormal that I read over the years about children and ghosts, seem to indicate that if what a child is seeing is a ghost (that is, the spiritual energy of a deceased person), then the majority of these encounters are with family members who have passed. I, however, tend not to agree in this wholeheartedly. Whilst I believe that in some instances the spiritual presence of a deceased relative may wish to visit a child, I am more of the opinion that spirits, whether they are relatives or not, are simply attracted to children because unlike adults who understand logic, children are more susceptible - more vulnerable to their presence simply on account of the fact that they are less likely to dismiss it.

I strongly believe that if I hadn’t experienced anything paranormal as a child, I would be a different person today. For staters, I suspect I would be handling the encounters experienced by my children in a completely different way -  assuming ,of course, that they would continue to have these experiences in the event that I did not. As for my son, time will tell whether he simply grows out of this "phase" of seeing ghosts, or whether his abilities develop and become more tuned - as mine have inevitably become.

Perhaps Mad Aunty Doss wasn't so "mad" after all?

 

Laura  

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