Children say strange and unexpected things, such as detailing events they shouldn’t know about. It’s possibly because they’re little sponges that will absorb anything from who knows where….or because they only recently knew the world through a different life and still have the memories! Whatever it may be, the stories are good. This article is based on a Reddit thread.
When my oldest son was three, he used to wake up crying and saying that he wanted to “go home”. Over and over he would repeat it. I would reassure him that everything was okay, he was at home. Happens for many months. We had a huge map of the world in the hallway and one night when he was upset, I took him to the map and showed him where we lived and asked, where his other home was. He pointed out a small town in Mexico. Day after day he pointed to the same exact place. So, we took him there. It was a beautiful little area and we had a great time. There was nothing profound in any of his reactions. When we got home he started sleeping through the night and never mentioned it again. We live in California and my husband and I are both white. However, our son is adopted and although his bio father is technically “unknown”, we were told it is probable that he was Hispanic.
Germanpoetrygeek
My 3 yr old said, “I was your mom in heaven,” Multiple times. When I was six weeks pregnant with her, my mom died unexpectedly the day she found out the secret that I was pregnant at 40 with what would be her last and 21st grandchild. We were going to surprise her on her 75th birthday, two weeks later, but a niece let the secret out.
When my girl was 4, we were looking through pictures boxes. I have no family pictures posted in my house. Later that night I realized my girl took three pictures of my mom and put them in her room. She’s never seen pictures of my mom before. I asked her why she took those pictures and she said, “because I’m pretty.”
capnvontrappswhistle
My son went for over a year talking about his other mommy and daddy, with a completely straight and serious face. We have a blended family, so he has me (Mom) and at his father’s house his Dad, Stepmom, and brother. He said he had 2 fake mommies and a fake daddy and then a set of real ones. When trying to get clarification thinking he was having trouble adapting to new family roles, he informed us that we were the fakes and that his real parents were much older, lived far away on a farm, with his older brother.
That story came up off and on, as well as weird side statements from him. We had him at the ER one time, in a private room, he hears voices outside which he normally wouldn’t pay any mind to. He perked up, looked at the door, and goes, “That sounded like my real Mommy’s voice!”. He was very excited and animated about it (my kid is usually pretty deadpan, so that was off too.). I decided to just ride it out, but admittedly it did freak me out at first. He hasn’t done it in awhile.
SerenityNeutraylis
Not a parent, but my mom told me this story:
When she was in law school, her mother (my grandmother) bought her a string of pearls. My mother continued to wear this same string of pearls long after graduation and long after my grandmother died.
My grandmother died two days after I was born, in the same hospital. She got the chance to hold me once (during which time my father swears she transferred her soul into me.)
One night when I was about three or four, I crawled into my mother’s lap. She was wearing her pearls and I reached up to touch them. I looked her dead in the eye and said: “I got these for you before I was born.”
Then I went back to playing. My mom says she still gets goose bumps when she thinks about that story. I also inherited my grandmother’s love of the Packers despite never having lived in Green Bay.
SalemScout
My 3y/o niece, in a hotel near her home “I’ve been here. I used to sit in this chair and knit.” Wouldn’t say anything else when pressed further.
Another time in an antique shop, we looked at an old school desk with a flip-top lid when she, bemused, said: “Where’s the inkwell??” It just seemed strange that she’d expect there to be one.
Blinky84
While chatting with my 4-year-old son he started going into vivid descriptions of being a friendly old man who his neighbors were fond of. He gave a description of what he used to looked like and then how he died, how he felt once he died, and how he woke up again while being born.
The way he talked made it seem like he was recalling going to the zoo the previous weekend. He was so casual about it that when he looked at my expression on my face he said “What? What’s wrong?”.
I don’t believe in past lives but that was strange.
Woken-soaked
He literally told me. He was 3 and pretending to run over his lego men. When asked to stop he said,
“That’s how I died isn’t it?”
“No, you’ve never died.”
“Yes I have! When I was 2 last time. The car hit me, my other mummy cried then I came to you.”
“… … …”
He’s a teen now, doesn’t remember a thing about it.
NodgenodgeWinkwink
My friend had a miscarriage before she had her first daughter.
A few years ago when her daughter was about 4 a group of us were at a party and her daughter was sitting on her lap and said something along the lines of “I’m sorry I left you before mommy. I was hurting really bad and I wasn’t ready.” My friend asked her was she meant and her daughter said she left her before she was born but came back. Super creepy.
Daughter doesn’t remember this conversation and still doesn’t know about the miscarriage.
Workbidness
I’ve posted this before but: My daughter, right before she turned 5 was in our hall in the middle of the night, still asleep, whimpering and crying. I got her to come lay down with me and when I asked her what the dream was, she got very upset and said “it wasn’t a dream I remembered”. She told me she remembered when she was a bad dog, and they made her go to sleep.
I asked her about it again later and she got very upset, said she was a bad dog and started crying saying she didn’t want to remember it again.
She has no idea what it means to put a dog down, let alone that it is what happens to “bad dogs.”
Leather_and_Lead
I have a few, all the same kid.
First, when my son was 3, he told me that he was once kidnapped and the police accidentally shot and killed him when they were trying to rescue him.
When he turned five he told me he had never made it this far.
Also when he was five, we drove past my grandparents’ old house, they have been gone 16 & 18 years now. He told me “I used to play in that house with Pappy (my dad) when I was little, except the house used to be white”
The house was indeed white and it had been painted an ugly gray. My dad also had 9 siblings, three of which died in infancy.
4theloveoffiber
It was in the early afternoon of Halloween. This is a rough time of year for me because my first child was stillborn near this day. I was sitting in a chair in the den, my husband was at the desk on the opposite side of the room. My two and a half-year-old daughter was moving around the room, not really doing anything.
As always happens on this day, my thoughts turn to my stillborn daughter. Suddenly my daughter plops a book onto my lap. (remember, she is two, can’t read yet.) (additional note, the walls of the room were pretty much wall to wall books) The book was given to me after the stillborn. It was a pagan book for grieving parents. Startled at the coincidence, I just kind of stared at the book. My daughter (TWO) flipped open the book and pointed imperiously to a paragraph. I obeyed, and read the paragraph. It was talking about how a child who dies might reincarnate back into the same family, or somewhere nearby. So I wondered where my child might have reincarnated. My daughter patted my leg and said, “I’m wight heah, Mommy.”
Up until those words, nothing had been spoken out loud. It gives me chills every time I remember it.
Perffiath
When I was younger, I would sleep walk, appearing to be fully conscious, then lay down and go back to sleep like nothing happened. There have been times my mom caught me opening windows in the middle of the night. Another time she was in the kitchen reading the paper and I walked in, made myself a glass of orange juice, drank it, then went to sleep at the table in front of her.
One time, my mom and dad were watching a World War II documentary late one night. Something about the push into Europe and a massive tank battle (probably Arracourt). I walked downstairs and my parents told me to go back to bed. I said, “I want to watch the battle again.” Parents said I’ve never seen this documentary. I said, “no, but I remember it. We were in that one. It went boom. points to a specific tank in the middle ground. I remember the one behind us going boom too.”
Mom puts me to bed, saying I was talking nonsense. Comes back and jokes to my dad. Dad says he’s not so sure because while she was putting me to bed both tanks exploded. The one in the rear first, followed by the one I pointed out. this was a documentary. The footage I was referring to was combat camera crew recording the battle.
EBeast99
I asked my son once who he was before he was my son. He was small, maybe 3
He looked at me sadly and said, ‘It was dark and cold and I wasn’t anything. Just all by myself..’
And then be perked up and said ‘And before that, I had black wings and I flew! And I’d take shiny stuff because all shiny things are MINE!’
And that is how I realized my son was magpie in his past life. And gave me a clue where to find my missing earrings. (He had a hidden cache of jewelry in his room, the little imp.)
Froggyloofa
When my sister was 3 she would go on and on about her brother, Brian. We’re all girls, and we don’t know where she would have heard the name. But it was all, Brian does this Brian and me used to do that, on and on. Thinking Brian was an imaginary friend I asked her where Brian was now. She said “he’s dead, I am, too. The bomb got us and our house is gone.” Very weird.
FridayfridayJones
When I was about 3, I used to tell my mom stories of being a little Chinese girl. Apparently, I lived at the bottom of a hill with my grandmother, and I died in a flood. When I was 6 or 7, I came home from school upset that I’d been surrounded by a group of boys, and I cried to my mom that it was like when the soldiers on horses came to take us away.
the_ procrastinate
When I was 3 I told my dad I used to live in Ohio before living with him.
All these interesting stories and I’m just that guy from Ohio.
Renegard
I’ve only ever shared with a few people, how my late mother regularly hid a packet of biscuits (Usually chocolate digestives) from my brothers and I, so when we had visitors, there was always some biscuits to go with a cup of tea (How it’s done in Britain).
I once caught my daughter stuffing a packet of biscuits in the back of a cupboard behind a big bag of pasta. At the time, I thought “Crafty cow wants them for herself” but left them there to see if they’d disappear – Maybe for a teaching moment about not being selfish or something. They didn’t disappear, but reappeared when some friends came over. She just waltzed out of the kitchen, just as my mother used to, opening a packet of biscuits. She never knew my mother and I’m pretty certain nobody else would have encouraged this pretty specific behaviour. I don’t believe she’s the reincarnation of my mother, but I’m just intrigued at her selflessness – She doesn’t get it from me, those biscuits wouldn’t have gotten past a couple cups of coffee with me around. She still does it too – We have a biscuit box in the cupboard, usually with a few packs of biscuits, but when I keep a check on how many packs I’ve bought, there will be one short or I’ll come across a random packet in a cupboard somewhere. And she likes to be the biscuit-bringer when we have visitors.
His_Name_Was_Lola
My mother told me a story once.
They took me, when I was four, to the graveyard where my father’s father was buried. I had never been there before. It’s a bit outside Winnipeg, we had moved to the states, and as a family, we just don’t visit graves very much.
My dad and his two sisters walked off to find it, or get help from one of the people who maintained the grounds.
I was with my mom.
I wandered off like four-year-olds tend to do.
I went straight to my grandfather’s grave. Not, “wandered around until someone noticed the grave was there”. Not, “ran around and got brought to the grave when someone found me”.
I friggin bee-lined to it. Right to it. No stops, no hesitation, no nothing.
I mean, I couldn’t even read yet.
politicstroll43
When my son was very small, 3-4, whenever he would get tired or cranky he would say “I want to go home.” Which was way weird because we were already home. But maybe he was remembering a previous life/home?
It kinda freaked me out, and I would always hug him and say “This is your home now, please stay here, we love you.”
cardinal29
Apparently, I used to always creep my mom out when I was really young by singing a full song, over and over again whenever I was in the tub. She said she has no idea what language it was but it was always the exact same. She swears it wasn’t a child’s jibberish and was obviously a full language (just not our native English).
I try to remember it but I just can’t quite get there. I do remember singing it though and then one day not being able to sing it anymore when I was probably 6 or 7, and being distressed by the loss of it.
I wish I knew what the hell it was.
Lumi61210
My mom tells me that just as I was able to speak I told her one time that “I was starting to forget”.
She asked me “what do you mean what are you starting to forget?”, “the place where we all are before we’re born. The beautiful place where we wait. I don’t want to forget about it but it’s getting so hard to remember.”
At this stage, I’m told that no elements of religion had been discussed and that I was too young for tv. My parents aren’t very religious anyhow so strange to think what I was talking about.
bostomelb
When my daughter was 4 she looked at me and said: “we’ve been together as long as you’ve been on this earth….but I’ve been here a lot longer than you.” Also, just after my Mom died, I was having a rough day. She came over to me and said something to the likes of “time moves differently in the afterlife. What is a lifetime for you is only the blink of an eye for your Mom.” She had just turned 7 when she said this.
PortiaParadise
My son was three at the time. We were at a ceramics place and I was taking a wheel throwing lesson when he says to this lady “I saw you in the fire. Did it hurt when you got burned? I was there but I couldn’t help you.”
She turned white as a sheet and explained to me that when she was a young girl, her house caught fire and she was badly burned. She told me that used to tell her family that she followed a little boy, she’d never seen, out of her room and then out of the burning house.
She is sure that my son is her guardian angel, and that he was sent to tell her this as an older lady to make sure always remembers. We became pretty good friends until we moved away. My son is now 16 and doesn’t remember much about this other than he has faint memories of her.
Qlinkenstein
My daughter would freak out and start crying and screaming while repeating. “Why! Why! I got married, I just got married, I got married.” Over and over again with this tone filled with grief that I never heard come out of a child so small. 2 and 1/2 is pretty young to be sobbing your heart out. It was a cry that I had only ever heard from adults who have lost the love of their life.
ViolentGrace
My son used to be terrified to go to sleep. He would ask me repeatedly if he would wake up. For just over a year from when he was almost 3 to a bit over age four, he would talk about how “last time, when he was a baby” he went to sleep but didn’t wake up. And he’d talk about how sad it was. And how he would miss me if he didn’t wake up.
He would repeat this every other night but sometimes would give no details and other times he would give me more details. He was so little the details were hard to get. He would say he loved me and would never forget me. He’d be surprised in the morning and very excited that “he woke up this time!”. He’d comment on techniques to make sure he woke up (which were very strange kid things like, “remember my toy truck”.)
It was really really sad. He’s seven now and remembers nothing.
Keurigirl
When my son was a little over 3 it had just snowed outside and he was off from school so we went out to play. A car passing by slid on ice and got into a little fender bender with a parked car
My son starts immediately crying and when I ask what’s he says that’s “how he died last time” and when I asked about it, he said before he was here, he was in a car that slid and crashed and there was lots of pain
He’s a teen now and when I ask he doesn’t remember a thing about dying in a car crash or remember telling me yet he remembers the day the fender bender happened. Creepy at the time.
JL224758
Not my child, but my little cousin that I babysat frequently when he was younger.
When he was 4, he began drawing a particular building nonstop. Except it wasn’t a typical 4-yr old’s scribbly drawings- he had drawn it similar to how an architect would, on an angle and using folded paper as a makeshift ruler to make straight lines. It was absolutely incredible. He had the windows drawn perfectly in line, everything was dimensional. He would spend hours drawing this building over and over again.
One day, when he was sitting in another room drawing, I walked by and noticed that he was drawing something else. It was an aerial view of a city block, except it had a couple of buildings and some other blank spaces. He had drawn maybe 40-50 x’s on the page, some in a kind of formation, others by the corner of the buildings and by trees, some where inside the buildings. I asked him what the x’s were, and why some were inside of buildings and some were outside.
….the infantry is looking out the window.”
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“exasperated sigh… we were losing daylight and had to move fast to make it through. My men took the building and were looking out the window.”
“Your men? What are you talking about?”
He looked at me with such a pained expression. I’ll never forget it. He pushed his drawing back and sat for a moment staring at it, then very quietly sad “those were my men.” Excused himself from the table (this kid was an absolute hellion- never excused himself) and walked away with his head down. I didn’t push the subject.
He made several more graphic war drawings when he was 4-5, but when he reached age 6, it was like his drawing ability greatly regressed. He drew more like a 6 year old and less like a precise architect. He never mentioned “infantry” or his men again. Note: no one in his family was in the military and he would’ve never been exposed to anything like that.
Thekkid
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