Kate Hackett
I took a class in college about the kind of creepy and unexplainable — The Wild Mind. Things that we couldn’t make sense of, but we could see with our own eyes, like dowsing rods and so on. We did a unit on past lives, some kids spent the night in a haunted theater downtown, it was a cool class.
And reading through these responses totally reminded me of it! u/TapiocaTuesday asked
“Parents, what spooky “past life” memory did your kid utter?”
And whoooo boy, the answers will spook you!
1. Jazz
Was watching an old video of a jazz drummer playing a solo. No idea who it was but he was really good. My daughter, probably age three, was looking over my shoulder for minute before she said “I used to play the drums like that when I was a man”
Unfortunately she has no longer has any recollection of making that statement or playing drums. But she is a very musical person and I’m hoping she stays that way.
2. David
When I was 4 my parents and I went to my aunts farm. The wind started picking up and I looked back at my parents and said “gotta tie the hay bale down in the wind. That’s how David died.”
To this day no one knows who David is.
3. War
My little brother said when he was 3 or 4: When I was a grown up, I went to war, and I never came back.
4. Remember my hat?
My daughter asked me, “Remember my fancy hat,” and when I said no, she said, “Yeah, before I was dead, I used to work in a bank. I saved my money and bought a hat in a round box. I was on the bus and a man almost sat on it. Then the bus crashed and I died.” She was about three and totally casual about it.
5. Can I grow up?
My middle son used to talk about having a different mom before me. He would say she was blond and looked nice but wasn’t nice. He would bring it up randomly and only ever got a bit emotional when he would tell me that when he was with her he never got to grow up. He said he chose me to be his mom this time because I would let him grow up and get old. When he would say the last part it was as if he was looking for reassurance. He’d ask me like “right, mom? I can grow up this time?” Really fucked me up sometimes.
6. Other mom
My nephew, around 2 or 3, would talk about his “other mom” and then look confused when you asked him to elaborate. “She’s not here now”.
7. I came back
My 5 year old daughter said to me “I was in your belly twice, Mama. The first time I died before I came out…but I came back. “
I did lose my first pregnancy 8 months before getting pregnant again. She was never told. I don’t know what it was but- that’s what happened.
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8. Danced
My son said once, “Mommy, when I was big and you were little, I remember when we danced in the kitchen.”
The only person I ever danced in a kitchen with as a child was my grandfather.
9. The red rocks
I used to watch my nephew when he was about 3 or 4. One day he was at my house and pointed to a magnet of Arizona – it had a picture of the desert with rock formations. Kid pointed at it and asked where it was. He said he used to live by “red rocks like that with his first family” who all had straight, dark hair (his is blond and curly… now) and that he had a mom and a dad and he had had a brother until he went too far into the desert too close to dark and got eaten by “not dogs, not wolves but smaller”. I said “coyotes”? And he kind of mouthed the word and said, “oh, that’s what you call them.” Then he was sad and didn’t want to talk about it anymore so we had lunch and that was the first and last time he mentioned it.
10. Died and returned
When my son was 4 we had driven past a cemetery. He asked me if I remembered when he died and was buried. I said no and asked him what he meant by saying that. He said he had died, was buried in a cemetery and that’s when he started growing in my belly. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when he said this. He doesn’t remember saying this.
11. Waited 100 years
When my nephew was about 3 or 4 my sister said he was throwing a tantrum in the car while he was in his car seat and he yelled at her randomly “I waited 100 years to be born!”.
12. Potty trained
When I was 3 I used to tell my mom stories about my other family every night before bed. The siblings I had and the dog too. One day she took me to target and I told her I wanted big girl undies and she said she would buy them for me and I could wear them when I was potty trained. I told her that my other family already potty trained me so I can start wearing them now. I put them on that day and never had an accident after that. She never potty trained me and was just shocked.
13. Uncle Andrew
Didn’t believe in ghosts and sh-t until this day but it’s fair to say that now I have a slightly more open mind. Our 2/3 year old daughter was playing on her own but like she was playing hide and seek with an imaginary friend. Asked are you playing hide and seek? She said yes. Who are you playing with? “Uncle Andrew”
My wife’s brother Andrew was 7 when he drowned when my wife was 5. Didn’t like to talk about it so we never mentioned it.
14. Hay in the windows
I don’t have kids but when my brother was a toddler he said something to my mom about throwing hay in the window for the horses. My grandfather died before his birth and was a farmer. The barn had windows and he would just throw the hay in the windows for the horses to eat. My mom was really freaked out but he never said anything else similar again.
15. The cat
I had a brother pass away from brain cancer. At the time we had a cat who was a calico and just sort of knew he was battling something. She was really mean to most people but with him she was gentle. He would grab her paws and she would just let it happen. Well about three years after he passed my parents had another child. Another boy. He was about three when he told my parents about the white, brown and black cat that used to let him grab her paws. She had died about a year before he was born.
16. Last time
Apparently when I was really little, around 3 or so, I told my mom that this was my last time here, that I wasn’t going to come back.
17. A suit and tie
My little brother was born just after 9/11. When he was a toddler one time, he went on about how he used to work in a tall building and wore a suit and tie. Freaked my parent out.
18. Bombs
According to my Dad, when I was around 5 I was staring out of the window during a heavy thunder storm. When he asked me what I was doing I answered “when do the bombs drop? Are they gone yet?”. I grew up in Germany, and my dads dad used to alert the city for incoming air raids. My grandpa died three days before I was born, and at five I had no idea about the war, or my grandpa. Really freaked him out at the time. A couple moments later I forgot what I said when he asked me more questions.
19. Ice factory
When he was around 4, my grandson used to talk about his job at the ice factory. One day he was talking about his boss “Farvo” and the day he quit. I asked him why he quit and he turned to me and quite passionately said “I’ll tell you why I quit! They made me work 15 days in a row without a break and I had enough of that!” It was weird hearing all that righteous anger coming out of that little boy.
20. Where rivers meet
My coworker has a son who, when he was about 3, told her he used to grow rice and lived in a place where two rivers met. He was able to name the rivers, and she located it on a map of East Asia. Pretty wild.
