All Of Your Questions About Past Life Memories, Answered By An Expert

As the director of the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies who has studied past life memories for over 20 years, Jim Tucker, M.D., has encountered some mind-blowing cases. One of the most notable is perhaps the story of James Leininger: Soon after his second birthday, James started having horrible nightmares about a fatal airplane crash. When his parents asked him about these terrors, he told them he was a pilot whose plane had been shot down—he offered striking details, like the name of the aircraft carrier and the first and last name of a friend who was on the ship with him. 

Much to his parents' surprise, James' statements had some uncanny similarities to a pilot named James Huston who had died during World War II—nearly 50 years before James Leininger was born. In other words: It seems little boy James had experienced memories of a past life.

"The average age when a child starts talking about their past life is 35 months, so usually it's around their third birthday," says Tucker. As they gain better verbal skills, they might discuss events that happened in their past life or their previous family members. "Seventy-five percent of them will talk about how they died in their last life," says Tucker. "In those cases, 70% of them are through some sort of unnatural means: murder, suicide, combat accidents."

From those statistics, we can infer that a child is more likely to have a past life memory if it's associated with some sort of trauma from their previous life. That said, Tucker notes that a child will typically reveal past life details when they feel safe or relaxed. "The child has to be in the right frame of mind to talk about these things," he notes. "It's usually during relaxed times, sometimes after a bath or during a car ride."

You're probably thinking: How can you tell if a child is recounting a past life memory or if they have a creative imagination? Is it fantasy or an actual memory?

It's a common question, says Tucker, but the key is to determine whether the child's statements are actually verifiable. "What the child describes, does it match somebody who lived and died in the past?" he asks. "The child has to recall the right details that would allow tracing, typically names of either people or places; otherwise, it's extremely difficult." 

That said, he does hear a bunch of "weak cases," in which the child is either unable to provide details or he's unable to trace them back to someone who has, in fact, lived and died. But when he does come across a verifiable case, the details are astounding. Of course, he must also make sure the child hadn't gotten that information through some sort of ordinary means, like through the TV or overhearing conversations among adults. 

It's another common question: Do we all have past lives and only some of us verbalize them? Or do only those who remember their past lives actually have them? According to Tucker, there's no evidence that everyone has past lives—then again, there's no evidence against it either. 

However, he notes that because there is this trauma associated with past life memories, perhaps an individual is more likely to have one if they have some "unfinished business" to tend to, "[like if] the previous person either died violently or died young," he explains. 

Past life memories are certainly fascinating, but only a portion of the population actually encounters them. That's not to say we can't learn from those who do remember their past life—according to Tucker, his research only strengthens the notion that consciousness transcends our physical being. 

"I have become convinced that there is more than just the physical world," he notes. "Consciousness is the core of reality that the physical world grows out of, not the other way around." This makes sense when you think about past life memories: In these cases, consciousness prevails even when the body loses its physical form. "The brain died physically, and the consciousness continued on," notes Tucker.