10_Year-Old Boy Remembers Past Life as 1930s Hollywood Actor

A ten-year-old boy remembers a past life as a 1930s Hollywood actor.

“Mom, I have something I need to tell you. I used to be somebody else.”

Those were the words that five-year-old Ryan Hammons told his mother as he was being tucked into bed five years ago, according to NBC News’s Today.

Ryan reportedly began having vivid nightmares at age four. The next year, Ryan told his mother he wanted to “go home” to Hollywood, and related stories about meeting actress Rita Hayworth, taking trips to Paris, and dancing on Broadway. The boy said he had once lived on a street with the word “rock” in it. Read more

Woman Speaks Foreign Language Without Learning It - As It Was Spoken 150 Years Ago

A woman speaks a foreign language without learning it - as it was spoken 150 years ago.

Even as far as reincarnation stories go, this is an unusual one.

In the 1970s, famed reincarnation researcher Ian Stevenson encountered a woman who could fluently speak a form of Bengali spoken some 150 years earlier. Modern Bengali contains about 20 percent English loan words, Bengali Professor P. Pal told Stevenson. But this woman had long conversations with Professor Pal without using a single one. On the other hand, she used more Sanskrit words, just as Bengalis did around 1810 to 1830, the hypothesized time period of her past life. Read more

Are a Small Boy's Vivid Memories Evidence of Reincarnation?

A small boy's vivid memories may be evidence of reincarnation.

Another great case from The Survival Top 40 is the James Leininger reincarnation case. This story is sufficiently well known that I don't think I need to summarize it; anyway, Miles Edward Allen's excellent summary is readily available at this link (PDF).

Besides the strongly evidential value of James' statements about the plane he piloted, the ship he flew from, the names of his fallen comrades, etc., there are three aspects of the case that strike me as particularly interesting.

First, little James showed strong emotions when remembering his past life as a pilot. The whole episode began with James' nightmares, in which he struggled and screamed in bed. Whatever he was experiencing was obviously vivid and terrifying. Moreover, he showed flare-ups of righteous indignation that would seem more appropriate for a WWII flier than a two-year-old. As Miles Edward Allen recounts, when James identified his ship as the Natoma, his father replied that the name sounded Japanese. "Little James grew indignant and said no. It was American!" It's certainly credible that a patriotic serviceman would have that reaction; after all, it was the Japanese who shot him down. James, on the other hand, was probably too young to know or care about the Japanese through his own personal experience. Read more