00:02
this little boy is referred to as Sam in
00:05
case studies a year and a half before he
00:08
was born his grandfather died when he
00:11
was about eighteen months old his dad
00:14
was changing his diaper one day and Sam
00:16
looked up at him and said when I was
00:18
your age I used to change your diaper
00:20
since 1996 doctor Jim Tucker a
00:24
psychiatrist at the University of
00:26
Virginia has been gathering case studies
00:28
of past life recognition in children
00:31
that could prove that a soul returns to
00:33
earth in another body we've now got
00:36
2,500 cases in our files from all over
00:38
the world many people believe in some
00:41
form of reincarnation the concept dates
00:44
back to 800 BC and the hindu punished
00:46
odds beginning in india the belief that
00:50
some essential part of ourselves may
00:52
return after death to a new body is now
00:55
being examined by some scientists as
00:58
another way to prove the survival of
01:00
consciousness can the study of past life
01:04
recollections support this theory the
01:07
answer may lie within young children's
01:09
memories very young children usually
01:12
between the age of two or three who
01:14
start reporting that they have memories
01:17
from having had a past life some of them
01:19
talk about being deceased relatives but
01:22
others will talk about being strangers
01:24
in other locations and if they give
01:26
enough details like the name of the
01:28
other location people have often gone
01:30
there and found that in fact someone had
01:33
died in the recent past there's life
01:35
matches the details of the children gave
01:38
the late psychiatrist dr. Ian Stevenson
01:41
advanced the field of reincarnation
01:44
research in the 1960s interviewing over
01:47
3,000 people who claimed to have passed
01:49
like the memories two-thirds of them
01:52
said that in a previous life they died
01:55
from unusual causes he focused on 25
01:59
cases in India and realized that young
02:02
children talking about past lives was
02:05
much more common than anyone had known
02:07
dr. Stevenson created categories to
02:09
screen for cases worthy of further study
02:12
his colleague Jim Tucker still uses this
02:15
method the criteria we use to decide
02:19
whether to register a case would include
02:23
two of the following characteristics of
02:25
prediction of rebirth and announcing
02:28
dream a birthmark or birth defect that
02:31
seems related to the previous life
02:33
statements of memories about the
02:35
previous life behaviors that seem
02:37
related and then also recognitions of
02:41
people are places from that life Sam's
02:44
story is an example of how a small child
02:47
may express what some believe on
02:49
memories of a previous life when Sam was
02:52
for four and a half his grandmother died
02:55
and his father went out to take care of
02:59
her belongings when he came back he
03:01
brought a group of family photos which
03:03
before that Sam's family had not had any
03:07
of his father's family photos in the
03:09
house one night Sam's mom had them
03:13
spread out on the coffee table looking
03:14
at them when Sam came over and started
03:17
pointing to pictures of his grandfather
03:19
mommy he's come
03:22
those are pictures daddy brought back
03:25
from grandma's funeral
03:28
that's my car you see that picture
03:36
turned out that that was the
03:38
grandfather's first new car and one that
03:40
he was was very attached to his parents
03:44
that had no belief in reincarnation in
03:46
fact his mother was the daughter of a
03:47
Southern Baptist minister sorry come
03:52
talk to mommy for a minute it's just a
03:54
coincidence Sam's mother became
03:56
intrigued by her son's statements she
03:59
started testing him with questions about
04:00
his grandfather she showed him a class
04:03
photo when his grandfather was in
04:05
grammar school
04:06
silly do you recognize anyone in this
04:10
photo
04:12
there I am
04:15
no family that's your grandpa when he
04:17
was a boy no that's me when I looked at
04:22
the picture even after having looked at
04:25
the other pictures of his grandfather I
04:27
really would not have been able to say
04:30
with any certainty which boy I thought
04:31
was the grandfather and of course Sam
04:33
was for the time that he did this some
04:36
children not only remember their past
04:38
life but the afterlife as well about 20%
04:43
of the children will describe events
04:45
between the time when the previous
04:47
person died and when the child is born
04:50
some of them described basically sort of
04:53
hanging out either where the previous
04:55
person lived or where the previous
04:56
person died so they may describe their
05:00
funeral then there are other children
05:02
who talk about going to other realms
05:04
like heaven things like that some of
05:07
them will talk about seeing other beings
05:09
there or talking with God I died in
05:12
China to heaven God gave me a ticket
05:15
that let me come back down to earth this
05:17
is not part of our everyday experience
05:19
that people talking about past lives if
05:21
the children are able to describe
05:23
memories that then turn out to be
05:24
accurate for somebody who lived and died
05:26
in the pan
05:27
then this suggests that memories or
05:31
something connected with memories can
05:34
carry over possibly after the death of
05:37
the body I've had a number of friends
05:40
and acquaintances who have said that
05:43
there are children when they were two or
05:44
three would make one sort of unusual
05:46
statement like there's one woman who
05:49
said her her child said in my last life
05:52
I drove a big truck this is as they're
05:54
running down the road when they never
05:55
said anything else and you know you
05:58
don't make too much of that if in these
06:00
cases the children don't stuff after one
06:02
or two statements when children continue
06:05
to talk about having had a past life
06:06
they may offer more specific details do
06:11
you remember your family
06:14
some people denied the stare goldfish
06:17
who turned her into a fish some bad guys
06:21
she died the father had only recently
06:27
heard about the sister being murdered 60
06:31
years before and then her body had been
06:34
dumped in the bay and he felt absolutely
06:38
certain that the boy had never heard
06:39
about it
06:40
some people point out what they believed
06:42
to be flaws in Tucker's studies how do
06:45
we know all these things actually
06:46
happened that is the boy said this he
06:49
pointed there I mean I presume these are
06:52
anecdotes and stories told by the
06:54
parents recounted to the author who then
06:58
writes down we know from research on
07:00
memory from research on how much parents
07:04
influenced their children and the
07:07
reconstruction of events and how
07:08
unreliable that is exactly how that can
07:11
be distorted some people have argued
07:13
that it's the parents enthusiasm for a
07:16
case that makes it stronger than it
07:18
really is so one of the things we code
07:21
for is the parents initial attitude
07:25
about a case and when I looked I found
07:27
that in fact the initial attitude has no
07:29
correlation whatsoever with how strong
07:31
the case ultimately appears to be
07:35
memories aren't the only signs of a
07:38
former life in dr. Tucker's cases a more
07:41
rarer occurrence is when physical
07:43
characteristics carryover from one body
07:45
to another from one life to the next in
07:48
a number of our cases the child is born
07:51
with a birthmark or a birth defect that
07:54
matches a wound usually a fatal wound on
07:57
the body of the previous person this is
08:00
something that's fairly common most of
08:02
these are not the usual blemishes that a
08:04
lot of people have but they can be quite
08:07
specific or unusual markings there's a
08:11
little boy in Thailand named Chloe when
08:14
his grandmother was dying she expressed
08:17
a wish to come back as a man and then
08:20
when she died her daughter-in-law took
08:22
some white paste and ran her finger down
08:26
the back of the neck of the body then
08:29
Chloe was born a few years later and had
08:32
this white mark on the back of his neck
08:35
that looked just like someone running a
08:37
finger down the back of his neck then
08:40
when he got old enough to talk he talked
08:42
about having been his grandmother said
08:45
held her Riceville belonged to him and
08:47
made statements like that a common
08:50
practice in several Asian countries
08:51
involves marking the dying relative with
08:54
soot or paste when the soul was
08:57
reincarnated the family can recognize
08:59
its rebirth by this mark certainly I
09:02
think the birthmarks and birth defects
09:04
argue that there is something that has
09:07
carried that trauma with it to another
09:10
life and then affected the fetus of
09:12
Tucker's 2500 cases more than 2,000 will
09:16
involved violent or unusual deaths his
09:19
data suggests that physical trauma in
09:21
one life can carry over that the mind
09:24
can remember past violence and inflicted
09:27
on a new body there's a famous case of a
09:30
man who relived an event where he was
09:32
tied up and developed what looked like
09:35
rope marks on his arm so there are
09:37
examples of mental images producing very
09:41
specific marks on the body what are the
09:44
conclude
09:45
the dr. Tucker draws from this
09:47
intriguing data I think the best
09:50
explanation for our strongest cases is
09:53
that memories emotions and even physical
09:56
trauma sometimes can carry on from one
09:58
life to another the explanation for how
10:00
this carry over occurs largely remains
10:04
to be elucidated but in general terms
10:06
the idea that consciousness is not
10:10
purely a creation of the brain so
10:13
consciousness could be considered a
10:15
separate entity from the physical brain
10:18
and then could continue on in another
10:20
life the idea of reincarnation sets up a
10:24
number of possibilities regarding the
10:26
existence of the soul survivors of
10:29
clinical death may also provide a
10:31
glimpse into what happens after death