The Children Who Remember Their Past Lives

[G. Keenan]

Umm. Yeah. I don't know what to make of this. I bet in some cases, a child has seen a tv show or overheard an adult conversation that parents aren't aware of. And I wonder if stories can be absorbed by the brain while a child is just a baby, or even in the womb. Say you're watching a holocaust movie while your 6-month old is asleep in the crib. How do we know what that little brain is absorbing that will come out verbally 2 or 3 years later? That said, that probably can't explain all of these cases. And it would be interesting to know how many of them happen in children who aren't surrounded by tv or radio. I wonder if there are accounts of this from a pre-television/pre-radio era. The article mentions this is occurs with more frequency in cultures that believe in re-incarnation. Maybe this phenomenon is what gave rise to ideas of reincarnation? Maybe people raised in cultures that believe in reincarnation are more open to seeing this behavior and not feeling scared by it, so they don't hide it from others, hence a higher rate of reporting it?

Anyone with children, or who had younger siblings, ever experience anything like this?

What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren’t hers?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

It's such an odd phenomenon.

I can't read the article behind the paywall, but there are documentaries on youtube about these kids. The one I remember there was a kid who said he had a family in Barra Scotland too. And all the details (bros/sisters, parents, dog, house details, etc). Some of the details (family surname, house location/details, dog) were correct while others (dad's first name, deaths of family members) were not.

It's a youtube documentary so no telling the accuracy of the reporting, it's not like it would be tough to fake this story. Well, depending on how badly you wanted to fake it, I can see how it could be done.

[G. Keenan]

These memories, if we can call them that, fade around age 8 as kids start getting more into the real world, especially school. Which is interesting.

The article has several examples of the phenomenon. It starts with a 2 year old who has an imaginary friend name Nina, who kind of talks through her, and the kid has memories of the holocaust via Nina.

This one was pretty crazy. It's been reported on before.

Over the past dozen years, Cyndi Hammons has grown adept at fielding the messages that appear in her Facebook inbox, sent by overwhelmed parents who don’t know what to do about children who seem to be remembering a past life.

“Anybody who is struggling with it, I tell them, ‘You’re going to make it through,’” she says. Mostly, she just tries to listen and offer understanding. “I don’t know that I’ve helped anybody, but I know what it feels like. I know what the fear feels like, what the judgment feels like, and it’s heavy,” she says. “And most cases aren’t solved. Ryan’s was solved. So I was very lucky.”

It didn’t feel lucky in the beginning, when Ryan was waking up sobbing at night and describing things his mother couldn’t fathom: that he remembered living in Hollywood in a big white house with a swimming pool. That he once had three sons and a younger sister. That he drove a green car, and his wife drove a black one.

“It felt like living with someone who had Alzheimer’s, mixed with grieving,” Cyndi says. But that someone was her small child, and all she wanted was for him to feel safe and happy.

Cyndi didn’t tell anyone at first, not even her husband, Ryan’s father. Kevin Hammons was the son of a Church of Christ minister, a police officer in their small town in Oklahoma, and Cyndi knew what he would think. For months, it remained a secret between mother and son. She brought home library books about Hollywood in the 1940s so Ryan could leaf through the pages. When he wanted to collect sunglasses instead of Hot Wheels, or window-shop for suit jackets, or listen to Bing Crosby, “that’s what we did,” Cyndi says.

But Ryan’s night terrors and recollections did not stop, and eventually Cyndi told Kevin what was happening. He didn’t initially accept the possibility of reincarnation, she says, but as a detective, he told her to write down everything Ryan said. Not long after, Ryan saw a man he recognized in one of his library books, a peripheral figure in a photograph of six men: “That’s me!” he told his mother.

Cyndi wrote to Tucker, and in April 2010, with the help of a production crew from the A&E series “The Unexplained,” they were able to identify the man as Marty Martyn, a movie extra and talent agent who died in 1964.

With Tucker and the television crew, Cyndi and Ryan traveled to California to meet Martyn’s daughter, Marisa Martyn Rosenblatt, who was 8 when her father died. She was skeptical — but she ultimately confirmed many of Ryan’s statements about Marty Martyn, including some she hadn’t realized were correct. She didn’t know that her father had driven a green car, or that he had a younger sister, but it turned out both claims were accurate. Marty Martyn’s death certificate cited his age as 59, but Ryan insisted he had died at 61; Tucker found census records and marriage listings that confirmed this, as did Martyn’s daughter.

When the episode of “The Unexplained” aired in 2011, it catapulted the Hammons family into a different realm, where their names were in newspaper headlines, and everyone in their town knew Ryan’s story.

“Kevin and I had professional jobs. I was a county clerk’s deputy for 14 years,” Cyndi says. “We were known in our community.” But that didn’t stop people from telling her their thoughts: Your child needs to find Jesus. You’re a bad parent. Are you doing this for money?

“People don’t really understand this unless they’ve lived it,” she says. “Everything pivoted around protecting Ryan. I didn’t care what anyone thought about me — it didn’t matter. I knew the truth, and I just knew that Ryan had to be okay.”

Ryan is a college junior now. He doesn’t remember being Marty Martyn anymore, and this isn’t a story he shares when he meets people. He still isn’t sure how to label what he experienced: “I’m open to anything,” he says, “but I cannot say with certainty that reincarnation is real.” He says he is at peace with the unknown, focused now on his future.

But he knows his mother is still searching for answers about what they lived through. Time has made Cyndi the lone keeper of those memories: Ryan’s father died two years ago, and Ryan’s recollections have faded. “It isn’t really my story,” he says. “It’s kind of her story now.”

[Smith Corks One]

Ian Stevenson did some pretty extensive research/reporting of it. I’m Buddhist, so it doesn’t strike me as particularly odd or surprising at all.

[GeddyWrox]

I haven't experienced anything like this, but I remember dreaming things before they would happen quite frequently as kid. Like, the strongest, most accurate deja vu you could possibly imagine. It happened to me dozens if not hundreds of times.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

I have very occasional deja-vu. It only lasts 5 seconds or so but in that moment, I know what will happen next. And it almost always comes with the feeling I dreamed the moment in a past dream.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Kids have superpowers that would make the most insufferable atheist squirm, and the most assured theist fear possession. They pick up emotions so effectively in a way we can’t anymore. Creativity oozes from them like they’re high. My son had this friend named Australia none of us could see for a while. Fortunately he is no longer mad at me for not taking him to Australia’s house.

I also couldn’t read the piece. I would be interested in comparing this to that trance like phenomenon where people can rattle off a book right off the dome. Can’t remember the name for it.

I doubt there’s anything supernatural happening. And likely some confirmation bias happening here and there. But it sure is interesting.

[IMADreamer]

I haven't experienced anything like this, but I remember dreaming things before they would happen quite frequently as kid. Like, the strongest, most accurate deja vu you could possibly imagine. It happened to me dozens if not hundreds of times.

I'm in same boat. I have very strong Deja vu at times. It can be a little freighting.

I'm probably going to say something stupid here so everyone just chalk it up to me being dumb but I would not be surprised at all if the multiple universe theory is a thing. Maybe for brief moments they bleed over and that explains things like kids remembering past lives.

[GeddyWrox]

I haven't experienced anything like this, but I remember dreaming things before they would happen quite frequently as kid. Like, the strongest, most accurate deja vu you could possibly imagine. It happened to me dozens if not hundreds of times.

I'm in same boat. I have very strong Deja vu at times. It can be a little freighting.

I'm probably going to say something stupid here so everyone just chalk it up to me being dumb but I would not be surprised at all if the multiple universe theory is a thing. Maybe for brief moments they bleed over and that explains things like kids remembering past lives.

Heck, that's not THAT crazy! It's pretty a interesting theory, honestly. There are fully legit scientists that have said infinite universes might be a real thing. Fun to ponder, for sure!!

[CardsofSTL]

I believe all of it