Some children remembered their past lives, and these stories are well documented
The University of Virginia has been collecting testimonies from people who claim to remember past lives for over half a century. The archive already contains more than 2,500 cases, and approximately 70% of them have been linked to specific people from the past. Below are seven stories. They don’t prove anything, but they make you wonder: what do we really know about memory and consciousness?
Studying Memories of Past Lives
First, a little context, because without it, it’s easy to dismiss all of this as esoteric nonsense or a TV show about psychics. According to Mental Floss, where the stories listed below were described, the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia School of Medicine was founded in 1967 by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson. Over his career, Stevenson collected thousands of pages of material on alleged reincarnation cases and published over 290 scientific papers.
His fellow psychiatrist Harold Lief once remarked that either Stevenson was making a colossal mistake, or he would be considered the “Galileo of the 20th century.” However, most scientists simply ignored this research.
Today, the work is continued by child psychiatrist Jim Tucker. For each case, the researchers record more than 200 variables and try to disprove the testimonies no less rigorously than to confirm them. Children typically begin talking about a “past life” between the ages of two and six, and by school age, the memories usually fade.
It is important to emphasize that DOPS researchers do not claim that reincarnation has been proven. They say that the phenomenon of children’s memories of “past lives” is real as an experience, but what lies behind it remains unknown. Critics point to cryptomnesia (hidden memories), confabulation, and parental influence.
James Leininger: The Boy Who Remembered a Pilot’s Past Life
At the age of 22 months, James Leininger from Texas first visited an aviation museum and, according to his parents, stood frozen in front of a hangar containing a World War II-era airplane. Soon the boy began crashing toy planes into a table, saying “The plane crashed and it’s on fire.” At night he screamed in his sleep: “The plane is on fire, the little man can’t get out.”
Over time, the child began claiming that his plane was shot down by the Japanese and that the ship he took off from was called “Natoma.” The parents discovered that the aircraft carrier Natoma Bay had indeed served in the Pacific during World War II. The boy also mentioned the name “Jack Larsen” — and a person by that name had indeed served on that ship.
According to the parents, James said he was “the third James.” The only pilot from Natoma Bay who died in the Battle of Iwo Jima turned out to be James M. Huston Jr. The Leininger case made it into a publication by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and remains one of the most cited examples in American reincarnation research.
Shanti Devi: A Story Investigated by Mahatma Gandhi
This case occurred long before DOPS was established, in 1930s India. Shanti Devi was born in Delhi in December 1926. At the age of four, she began describing in detail a life she had allegedly lived in the city of Mathura, approximately 145 kilometers from her home.
The girl talked about a husband who owned a cloth shop and described details, including a cesarean section she had undergone in her “past life.” Her school principal sent a letter to the address Shanti had named. A reply came from a certain Kedar Nath, whose wife Lugdi Choubey had indeed died after a cesarean section in 1925, one year and ten months before Shanti’s birth.
1930s India: The case of Shanti Devi attracted the attention of the entire country
When Kedar Nath came to see the girl, introducing himself as her husband’s brother, Shanti allegedly recognized him immediately and embraced him. The story caught the attention of Mahatma Gandhi, who appointed a commission of 15 prominent individuals — parliamentarians, lawyers, and journalists. The commission took Shanti to Mathura in November 1935. There, according to the commission’s report, the girl recognized Lugdi’s relatives and pointed to the place where she had hidden money. The money was not there, but Kedar Nath later admitted he had taken it after his wife’s death.
The commission published its report in 1936, concluding that Shanti was a reincarnation of Lugdi. However, there is also a critical report by Bala Chand Nahata, which states that the collected materials were insufficient to confirm reincarnation. The case was later investigated by Ian Stevenson himself, who documented no fewer than 24 matches between Shanti’s memories and verified facts.
Dorothy Eady: A British Woman Who Became an Egyptologist by Memory
Dorothy Eady was born in London in 1904. At three years old, she fell down a staircase and, according to her parents, woke up as a completely different person, with a changed accent and a demand to be “taken home.” When the family visited the Egyptian exhibition at the British Museum, the girl exclaimed: “This is my home!”
As a teenager, Dorothy began studying hieroglyphics under the guidance of the famous Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, E.A. Wallis Budge. She claimed that in a past life she had been a priestess of Isis at the temple of Pharaoh Seti I in Abydos. According to her, a spirit named Hor-Ra dictated the story of that past life to her over many years.
Eventually, Dorothy married an Egyptian, moved to Cairo, and became the first woman to work in the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. When she finally reached Abydos, the chief inspector decided to test her: in the complete darkness of the temple, she had to locate specific wall paintings. The locations of these frescoes had not been published at the time, and she succeeded without any errors.
The Temple of Seti I in Abydos, associated with Dorothy Eady’s story
Under the name Omm Sety, she lived in Abydos until her death in 1981, making a significant contribution to Egyptology. Astronomer Carl Sagan called her a lively, intelligent, dedicated person who made a real contribution to Egyptology, but emphasized that independent confirmation of her past life claims, beyond her own accounts, did not exist.
Ryan Hammons: A Child Who Called Himself a Man from Hollywood
In 2015, NBC was drawn to a boy named Ryan Hammons, who at the age of five told his mother: “Mom, I think I used to be someone else.” According to his mother, the child asked to be taken to his “other family,” shouted “Action!” as if on a movie set, and described a white house with a pool.
One day, while flipping through a book of stills from Hollywood films, Ryan pointed to a photograph and said: “That’s me.” The photo showed Marty Martyn — a Hollywood talent agent who started as an extra and ended his career in luxury in New York. Child psychiatrist Jim Tucker investigated this case and concluded that the boy’s statements did not fit the usual explanation for how we perceive the world. After meeting Martyn’s daughter, Ryan’s interest in Hollywood faded — which, according to Tucker, often happens when children meet people from their “past life.”
The Pollock Twins: Sisters Who Seemingly Remembered the Lives of Deceased Children
A separate category consists of cases involving twins. In 1957 in England, 11-year-old Joanna and 6-year-old Jacqueline Pollock were killed when they were struck by a car on the way to church. Their father, a firm believer in reincarnation, believed that his next children would be rebirths of his deceased daughters. The twins born later, Jennifer and Gillian, according to their parents, recognized the sisters’ toys, which they had never seen, and described places in town they had never been taken to. One of the twins had a birthmark in the same location as the deceased Jacqueline.
By the age of five, the twins’ memories began to fade. Researcher Ian Stevenson included this case in his database.
Uttara Huddar: A Woman Who Suddenly Spoke the Language of a Past Personality
Not all stories involve children. Uttara Huddar from the Indian state of Maharashtra earned a master’s degree in English literature and a doctorate in biology when, at the age of 32, she suddenly began speaking Bengali, a language she did not know. She started calling herself Sharada Chattopadhyay — a married woman who had lived over a century earlier.
Uttara could describe Bengali traditions and customs in detail, accurately reproduced Sharada’s family tree, and claimed to remember her death from a cobra bite. Uttara’s mother later recounted that during her pregnancy, she had dreams about snakes biting.
