Believe it or not, it’s not uncommon for children aged between 2 and 5 years old to talk about details from their past life or how they died the last time they were here. But whether this is down to an overactive imagination or genuine memories from a past life is hotly debated. One thing is for sure, when they share details that they couldn’t possibly have known or use terminology that wouldn’t be a normal part of their vocabulary their stories can be pretty damn convincing, and sometimes a bit creepy too! Interestingly, many parents report that by the time these children reach the age of 4 or 5 they seem to forget all the memories that they shared in such vivid detail previously. Weird, huh?

We’ve compiled a list of some of the very strange things people report kids have said so you can decide for yourself.

When my son was 3, he told his mom that he was a cosmonaut the last time he was a grown-up. Not an __astro__naut, the Russian version. We’re 99% certain he hadn’t heard the word before. (LonePaladin)

My youngest (4-5) would tell about how warm and “cozy” she was in my belly, how cold and scary it was to be born, and how the hardest part was that she “used to know everything” but now she “doesn’t know anything.”

I would give her space to talk. Her frustration at almost being able to remember “everything” was almost palpable. (break_in_the_clouds)

I was the child in this case. I don’t remember any of this, but when I was 4 we travelled to Ireland to visit my dads grandparents. We were walking through a shopping area when I started yelling about wanting to see the train and ran into a shop. My parents ran in after me as I was going nuts about some train. There was no train, it was a clothing store. The woman working there asked my parents what I was doing as I was just running around frantically. I finally yelled “the train!”. I had found, in the back of the store, a framed newspaper clipping from the 1940s of the front window of this shop when it was a toy store and there was a big model train scene set up. (fragnoli)

When I was about 4 my family and I were moving house. We went to view this house in a rural village that was right by an airfield that had been very important during WW2, and there were still disused Anderson shelters in the garden and fields behind. Apparently the minute I saw them I ran to my mum, clung to her arm and asked “Are there going to be more bombs?”, and got really agitated. Nobody ever spoke about the war, this was in the 90s, and we didn’t even have a tv. My mum was really spooked by the whole thing. (lamantchenille)

Obligatory not the parent but the kid here.

Apparently used to have rather frequent bouts of nightmares back when I was 4. And it always began with me screaming the name Sarah, then calling for help loudly (which would wake pretty much everyone in the house up), and ending with me just blubbering out “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over and over again, all the while crying and sobbing. When I would wake up in the morning, I’d have no recollection about any of this. My parents had no idea what caused it, given that they knew no one named Sarah that I had interacted with, we had no TV or anything of the sort, I hadn’t begun going to preschool yet, and didn’t know how to read beyond a few simple words. Nothing they did seemed able to stop it either.

The whole thing went on for a good long while (almost a year) until one day, it just sort of stopped. Mom apparently tried asking me once about it, and kid me said something to the effect of, “Sarah doesn’t want to see me crying anymore. So I won’t.”

Didn’t actually know any of this happened until some years back when I got to talking to my parents about how I always found the name Sarah to be beautiful. (TinyOrbo)

Not me but a friends little sister. The whole family was out for dinner at a restaurant in a skiing village which they recently bought a cottage near. My friends little sister as soon as they walked in said “I know this place. My mother and I used to paint here.” To which her mother replied “We’ve never been here before, what do you mean?” she replied with “No. My mother from before. We used to paint here all the time.” The family was obviously a little freaked out but didn’t think much of it as she was pretty young and they figured just messing around. Later on though, when talking to the waitress, the little girl again adamantly mentioned how she used to paint there and the waitress revealed that it in fact was an art studio for many years in the 1900s but had been converted sometime in the early 2000s into a restaurant. Needless to say the entire table, waitress included, got goosebumps and were at a loss for words. (Cut-It)

Well, I’m not a parent but I once told my mother, “I used to be your dad”, when I was a toddler. And if that’s not weird enough he died about 9 months before I was born. (tyedyyeleather)

When he was 3 my husband decided to treat our son to a flight over our city in a Cessna. When it was time to get on the plane, our boy climbed into the pilot’s seat and was extremely upset when he was told he had to move. He began crying and saying he was sorry. He didn’t mean to crash that plane last time and he said he’d be good this time. My husband managed to calm him by pointing out that his legs were too short for his feet to reach the pedals. Once he got settled in the back seat, he started fussing about not being able to use the radio, so the pilot got him a headset, just didn’t plug it in all the way. Our son then started trying to raise the tower so he could to his radio check and get clearance. At that point the pilot needed to take a break. He went for a smoke while my husband talked to our son, who told him that he crashed the last plane he flew and a lot of people died. When the pilot got back, they were able to do the flight with no further issues. About a year later, we went to an aeronautics museum when an old Mosquito was being restored. Our son told the curator that he used to fly one of those, so he offered us a tour of the plane. When we got in, our son pointed out several things that were ‘wrong’ with the plane, which turned out to be correct – things like the joy stick being the wrong sort etc. The curator told us the plane had previously been modernized and was now being restored to original condition. He also confirmed that the items our son had pointed out were in fact slated to be replaced. Our kid is grown mow and doesn’t remember ever being a pilot before and has absolute zero interest in planes, but he does remember just ‘knowing’ things about airplanes and piloting them. (Wheresthehoe)

I don’t know how old I was but when I was young (<6) I was in the car with my parents and I said something like “oh I used to live there” while pointing at a house we were driving past. Turns out it was my great great grandmothers house. (MrDeftino)

my grandma has a story from when my dad was 2-3 years old. he told her once that he was almost born before but was too sick and died and had to come back later

turns out my grandma had at least 1 miscarriage before he was born that was likely due to birth defects caused by a medication she had been taking at the time (thattrekkie)

When my daughter was 3, she saw a large ship while we were on vacation at the beach and said “That’s like the one my parents before you died on.” I said, “You had other parents before us?” She calmly went on to explain that I shouldn’t worry, they were her parents a long time before my husband and I were, but the ship they were on broke apart and they are still at the bottom of the ocean. She then said when her “before” parents died, she and her sister “Brinella” had to be separated because no one could take them both. She said her sister went to live in Australia, but she stayed in Ireland. We live in the U.S. (bipedal-in-five)

My daughter is deathly afraid of fire because “the fire at school killed my sister and my other mom was really sad.” When she started preschool at 3 they had a fire drill and she cried hysterically until it was over and she was convinced there was no fire- I had to go pick her up and on the way home she told me she’s glad they have fire drills so all of the kids don’t die like at her last school. I’m still freaked out. (Efficient_Ease_4768)

My family and I were driving through the Kent countryside and my brother (about 3 at the time) announced: “Mummy, that was the field I died in once. I bayonet went through my tummy.” I was 8 and remember wondering what a bayonet was EXACTLY at the same time my parents looked at each other and asked him HOW he knew what bayonet was? He said he didn’t know and then became almost embarrassed and shy because of our collective reactions. There was no way he would have known about war or weapons as this was the early 90s and we didn’t watch TV much at all. I’m a complete skeptic but this creeps me out to this day. (16psyche88)

I was driving my family across the state to visit family. Some commercial on the radio about Vegas came on and I started singing “Vivaaaaaa Las Vegas” in my best Elvis impersonation. My son was about 3-4 and he says “I don’t like Vegas. I lost my life and a lot of money there.” His mom and I glanced at each other like “WTF?” He never said anything else about it. (Skyhornet)

When my brother was about 3 back in the 90s our family was sitting down for dinner and he randomly said “dad, remember when I lived in Spain?” (We’re from the U.K.) and my dad humouring him said “yeah?” And he continued that he lived in Spain before with his other family but he died when he was on a fishing trip with his dad and the last thing he remembers is his dads hand trying to reach him as he drowned. He also reeled off some Spanish names for his parents which there was no way he would of known those kind of names and he started to sort of meditate in his room from time to time. He eventually stopped talking about it as he got a little older and doesn’t remember anything about it anymore. Crazy to hear so many other people have similar experiences. (DiddyKongRacingTho)

My middle son (5) is named after my wife’s grandfather.

He just looked at her a couple of weeks ago and said “I remember when you were little and you sat on my lap.”

He also once gazed into my mother in law’s eyes (at 3-4 years old), stroked her cheek and said “my daughter.” (banksy0726)

Has your child ever said anything strange about a past life? Do you think its evidence of reincarnation or just an overactive imagination?