Also, when my BIL was snuggling and talking to his baby daughter, he asked her, "Where did you come from you beautiful thing? Are you a little angel who fell out of Heaven?". His son (I think he was about 3 when his sister was born), scrambled up from playing with his toys and yelled, "No, Emmie! We('re) not s'posed to tell!".

I'm atheist, and have no consistent explanation, but the threads here are not something new. Many kids, up to the age of three/four, have memories of the previous incarnation. We don't take them seriously, and there's nothing wrong with this, but the phenomena does exist.

When my son was a baby his music mobile (on the other side of the room) would start on its own but the buttons wouldn't be pressed in. When he was three, he asked his dad why the man with no nose was standing behind him. At four years old we moved my son into the spare room for a few days whilst we redecorated his bedroom to a big boy room. Whilst in the spare room my son declared he was so bored. When we asked why, he said the man doesn't play with him in the spare room!!!! We lived in that house another 8 years.

You know, while I am sure some of these are made up, I can pick out a few that I think are legit and I have a theory that I wish could be tested, but I don't know how it could ever be done scientifically. One thing about adults is most of the way we perceive the world is our brain just taking shortcuts based on information we already have. It's very efficient. Children, on the other hand, don't have that same base and so they're constantly tuned into their environment by necessity. They also then process that information differently because they don't have all the neuron "shortcuts" built up like adults do. As an adult, I found psilocybin gave me a taste of what it must be like to see the world the way they do. But I think they may pick up on things in their environment that adults just don't perceive because of the difference in processing.

I was changing my son’s diaper when he was 3 years old. He started to tell me about his siblings (he was an only child). When I asked about his siblings, he would not give me any details so I asked their names. He got really quiet and refused to answer and so I pressed again. He violently twisted his head to look me dead in the eyes and said in an extraordinarily demonic voice, “They have no names!” I got him wrapped up and got the Hell out of the room as quickly as I could. I did not go back into his room until my wife got home. He's 17, now. I've told this story for 14 years and I get chills almost every time.

My nephew was 2 and in the hospital for open heart surgery. He talked about the babies at the foot of his bed.

My brother used to say "when I was older..." Once when he was about 6, he was playing in a sandbox - he handed me a plastic bucket and said "When I was older I went to china a bought this for you." He also would say to my mom, "when I'm older and you are younger I will buy a house for you to live in."

A couple months ago, my little sister (adopted ) was arguing with my younger brother, she was about 6 at the time. She went up to my brother after the little dispute and said "I'm going to ask the devil to be mean to you." Now I am terrified. She is a little monster but this just makes it more scary.

I was early in my unplanned pregnancy with My son now 20. my eldest niece then 5 years and I were laying on the living room floor. I had not yet told anyone I was pregnant. She leaned over to me patted my belly and said “there’s a baby in there. “. I was stunned.

When my nephew was 3 yrs old, he was laying in my bed for a nap & he said who’s that boy? I said, what boy? He pointed to my wall where I had a ceramic angel hanging. He said he’s got yellow hair & blood on his face! I don’t remember how I responded but it freaked me out!!

Thanks for this post, it's amazing how many children, experience these scenarios, many people are sceptic, with so many stories, how can you doubt, about the truth of them ???

I never EVER used to believe in this stuff. I thought stories like these were attention seeking, scary stories, misunderstandings, or coincidence. And then my little cousin was born. At two years old he fell down the stairs and broke his leg after his mom forgot to close the gate. But he kept crying and insisting "he pushed me!" But the only other person home had been his dad who had been busy putting up Halloween decorations at the time. Pretty much up until Kindergarten, there were more incidents of "him" picking on my cousin. I thought he was a little boy with an active imagination and now that he was making friends he didn't need this imaginary friend/bully. But one of the last things he ever said about "him" was "hes not here anymore. He went to go find a girl this time." I didn't think on it until my niece (3) started complaining about the little boy who was picking on her and my cousin perks up and goes "the one with the broken glasses?" And she said "Yes! He's mean!" And-

When my niece was a little'n, she used to talk about the "blue light" that would drift around her ceiling at night, passing through the wall that divided her room with her mom's. Blue was our Mom's favorite color. She died when I was 12. My niece's room was on the back of the house, so it wasn't car or street lights.

Its curious that I have never heard stories like this from non Americans. I have family connections with several European countries and only people from the USA seem to have these experiences. Those that aren't made up are probably embroidered and added to or plain misunderstandings. Children say nonsensical things constantly and pick up on their parents beliefs and language, its very likely that in some of these they are from a spiritual or religious family who, on hearing a child say something innocuous but odd, inadvertently coach a story and implant false memories with leading questions, assumptions, and positive reinforcement for responses correlating to their belief systems. This can include children picking up on names, descriptions and sayings of deceased people because the bereaved doesn't realise how often they reference them and that the child listens in when they do.