Sometimes, the story begins with an unusual claim by a young child: that he or she lived another life, knows how he or she died, and remembers people or places he or she shouldn't know. Scientists from the University of Virginia analyzed 1,678 of the best-documented such cases to see if there was a recurring pattern.
The study was published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. In the cases examined, the children's stories were related to a specific deceased person. The researchers compared the manner in which the death occurred with the time between the death and the birth of the child, who later claimed to remember the person's life.
Unexpected death linked to shorter interval
The results showed a link between unexpected death and a shorter period until the supposed “new birth“. At the lowest level of unexpectedness, the average interval was about 21 months. At the highest level, it dropped to about 12 months.
This represents a difference of about 40-43 percent. Unexpected cases included deaths from accidents, violence or suicide, while natural deaths included illness or old age.
“There was an earlier published paper that suggested a link between violent death and a shorter time between death and birth. "We wanted to test this relationship more systematically and see if it could be explained by cultural or psychological influences," says lead author Saideh Sadeghi.
The researchers tested whether the result could be due to religious beliefs, recent loss in the family, or other social factors. However, the relationship remained and was strongest in families that did not believe in reincarnation. This contradicts the expectation that such stories would be more common or more consistent in families where the idea of reincarnation is part of the religious culture.
The result is not proof of reincarnation
The authors do not present the analysis as evidence that human consciousness is reincarnated. The data are observational, not experimental, and do not indicate the mechanism behind the observed association.
“The mechanisms behind these results are unclear at this time, but this gives us even more reason to keep looking and not look away“, says co-author Marieta Pehlivanova.
Such claims most often come from children. According to the researchers, the stories usually fade between the ages of five and seven. The new analysis does not resolve the debate about whether it is about memories of a previous life, about peculiarities of memory and the family environment, or about another, still unclear process. It only shows that in a large set of documented cases, the manner of death is related to the time before the child was born.