Spontaneous Life Between Lives Accounts in Children

From: The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife - Gregory Shushan

There are two types of accounts of such narratives: those related by people who have undergone deliberate past-life regression (PLR) through hypnosis or other psychological techniques; and cases in which a child begins spontaneously to report memories of a previous life.

The phenomenon occurs across cultures, spanning, Thailand, Burma, Lebanon, India, Turkey, North America, and elsewhere. Two of the main recurring characteristics Stevenson (1980: 354) found were that the memories first manifest between the ages of two and five, and that a significantly large proportion claimed to have died violent deaths. It has also been found that more cases are reported in cultures in which the incarnation beliefs are prevalent. Intermission memories are relatively uncommon, however, occurring in fewer than 300 cases out of the reported 2500 in a study.  Reports of intermediate states were rare among Hindus in India, and among Buddhists in Sri Lanka.

 Cryptomnesia is when the subject because information they already possessed I did not consciously remember it, such as through books, TV shows, movies, or articles in newspapers or magazines.

Cryptomnesia, however, cannot explain why children with such memories often recognize people and places wholly unknown to their current personality. Significantly, they also display consistent behavioral and emotional reactions to particular individuals they knew in the previous life, and those reactions are appropriate to the past personality and relationship.  The children in most cases are simply too young to possess the store of knowledge and memories they displayed.  Their comprehension and powers are recalled also reportedly beyond normal childhood scope and ability. 

The few cases of xenoglossy which the subject speak any language unknown to the current cells or possible exceptions, that very few are compelling.

Burma

Spontaneous cases with intermission memories appear to be more common in Burma than elsewhere. A historical example involves two male twins named Maung Gyi and Maung Nge, born in 1886. When they learned to talk, they began calling each other by the names of a husband and wife who had died in the area around the time the boys were born. The parents of the boys decided to test their knowledge of their previous life, and found that they were able to identify roads, houses, people, and even their former clothing. They also recalled specific incidents unknown to the parents. At the age of six, the children were interviewed by British official Harold Fielding (1898), who noted that one of the boys – the ostensible reincarnation of the woman – was “more like a girl than a boy.” 

The boys described their intermission memories to Fielding: “After they died they said they lived for some time without a body at all, wandering in the air and hiding in the trees. This was for their sins. Then, after some months, they were born again as twin boys. ‘It used,’ said the elder boy, ‘to be so clear, I could remember everything; but it is getting duller and duller, and I cannot now remember as I used to do.’” 

Another young Burmese boy told Fielding (1898) 

that he passed three months between his death and his next incarnation without a body. This was because he had once accidentally killed a fowl. Had he killed it on purpose, he would have been punished very much more severely. Most of this three months he spent dwelling in the hollow shell of a palm-fruit. The nuisance was, he explained, that this shell was close to the cattle-path, and that the lads as they drove the cattle afield in the early morning would bang with a stick against the shell. This made things very uncomfortable for him inside.

The children also frequently reported encountering the souls of other deceased people, and over half recalled “choosing parents for the next life.” Some followed their new parents home, while others were directed to them by the elder figure. Some recalled entering their new mother, usually being ingested into her body after “transforming into a grain of rice or speck of dust in the water.” 

Thailand

Buddhists in Thailand claim to have experienced intermediate states comparatively frequently, though usually remember nothing about them. Those who do most often recall an OBE in which they witnessed their own funeral, and seeing a “man in white” – a sage who welcomes and guides souls, and helps them to decide upon their next birth. The deceased are often given food, usually fruit, which causes them to forget their previous life. Those who claim to remember the experiences say they did not eat the fruit. 

A girl named Ampan Petcherat, who began speaking of past-life memories at only one year old, reported that a man took her to the realm of the dead and “introduced her to the ‘head man.’” She then went “up a ladder to heaven” with another man, where she met yet another – a kind man “of large size and black complexion who was dressed in white.” The girl claimed to be the reincarnation of a four-year-old boy and displayed traits of a male child that age, making thirty-three verified statements of recognition. Another girl, Ratana Wongsombat, began talking about a previous life at the age of eleven months. She described an intermediate state with “many levels of heaven.” She was taken to the highest level where she encountered the Buddha’s relics

Francis Story (1975) also mentioned “many” reports of deceased individuals being met by a guide who assists in the transition to a new birth – in numerous cases an old bearded man dressed in white. There are also “several” cases involving the deceased being offered the “fruit of forgetfulness”

India

In 1930, at the age of four, an Indian girl named Shanti Devi began to talk to her parents about her past life, and her longing to visit her previous home. Studying the case documents in the 1970s and 80s, Ian Stevenson found that Shanti Devi had made 24 verified statements about her previous life. In 1936, aged 10, she recounted her intermission memories: 

“Just before death I felt a profound darkness and after death I saw a dazzling light. Then and there I knew I had come out of my body in a vaporous form and that I was moving upwards.” She was met by four teenage males dressed in bright saffron robes. They had a rectangular vessel about ten inches in diameter into which they placed Shanti Devi’s soul and took her to the third plane. They told her that “those who aspired for a higher life sincerely, but who had committed fleshly wrong in this life, were dipped in the river before moving any higher.” They then proceeded to the forth plane where “all is open space” and “full of light … very mild, and smoothing and enlivening light.” There she saw “still more saints, brighter in appearance than those on the third plane.” With them was the deity Krishna, who “was showing each person a record of his activities on earth, good and bad, and accordingly what would be his condition in the future.” Though Shanti Devi did not recall much of his words, she did hear him read out “House Number 565,” which was her address in her new identity. The four saffron-robed saints then took Shanti Devi “to a place like a staircase where it was very bright.” After sitting there for a long period, she “was taken to a dark room, from all sides of which a very bad smell was coming out. I was made to lie down in a clean place there. … I did not feel any pain. I simply passed into a state of unconsciousness, and at that very moment I saw very brilliant light

Japan

More recently, a number of unusual Japanese cases have been identified in which children recall only the intermission prior to the present incarnation, without having memories of a previous life at all.  One boy, aged six, remembered “flying in the sky looking for my mother looking down, I could see my mother and chose her.”

A total of 21 such cases were researched, and it was found that most described the other world as “cloud or sky” though others said it was a realm of light, “a white space where you can see the Earth”, “like a star”,  “where there are a number of levels”, “up there”, and “in the shape of a long ellipse”. It was a peaceful, joyful realm, though “difficult to describe”.  Most met a god, or god-like figure who help them decide on their future parents.  Many saw their future siblings, and one described other souls as “light balls” Seeing activities on Earth concerning one’s future family was common, and over half remembered the reason for their rebirth, which varied from helping people on Earth to having a better life than their previous one. “One child said he did not remember why he was born because he forgot the reason when he was born in order to find what it is in the current life.” Over half the children remembered entering their mother’s womb, and three were assisted in the process by a deity, “a shining ball, or an angel-like entity”.