How do children reveal experiences that challenge conventional understanding?

Children’s reports of alleged past lives have intrigued researchers for decades. Some describe experiences related to birth, the intrauterine period, and even events that seem to belong to another existence. Although this phenomenon has been studied since the 1960s, most investigations still rely on traditional methods such as interviews and questionnaires designed for adults. But how can we study something so subjective without reducing children’s participation to mere verbal responses?

This question oriented an international team, led by Donna Thomas, to analyze a case drawn from a broader research project, “70/22 - An investigation into the nature of children's extra sensory experiences across various cultural contexts”, supported by the Bial Foundation. The case involves a six-year-old child who reported memories of the intrauterine period and of a previous life. To understand these experiences, the researchers employed creative and participatory methods such as play, drawing, painting, and sensory ethnography. Rather than relying solely on speech, the child expressed memories through the body and senses—drawing, imitating fetal movements, describing sounds and tactile sensations, and representing death in a past life through gestures and play.

The findings are revealing: children communicate these memories through embodied, sensory, and playful discourses that would hardly be captured by traditional approaches. This study did not aim to prove or disprove reincarnation but to understand how these experiences are lived and shared, respecting children’s specificities and rights and creating a safe space for expression.

Thus, listening to children through adapted methods may teach us something new about consciousness, memory, and the nature of human experience. This study was published in the scientific journal EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, in the article New methodological directions for involving children in past life memories research.

ABSTRACT

Past life memories in children have been studied extensively through standard qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Research to date has produced valuable data to support how we understand children’s past life memories. Children are the primary source for data collection in past life research, as the producers/facilitators of memories. Despite this, children tend to be researched on rather than with, through adult-centric approaches. In this article, we include a case study example of spontaneous past life and in-utero memories of a 6-year old child. The case study example is taken from a parent study, ‘Investigating Extra Sensory Experiences of Children from Various Cultural Backgrounds’. Through the article, we demonstrate how using creative research methods and sensory ethnography can generate important knowledge from children about their own past life memories. We include results from the parent study that show past life memory data from children, parents and professionals. We propose involving children as active agents in past life memory research and argue for new directions in the field of PLM through creative and child-friendly research.