Children who report tragic deaths in past lives often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), says psychologist Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson.
Such children, aged 2 to 6, can talk about how in the past they were a different person, and often the life of this person ended tragically: a soldier died on the battlefield, a crashed pilot, a victim of a murderer.
After 6 years, they lose interest in these things and even forget what they were talking about. These memories, whether they are fictional or really from past lives, can have a negative impact on the child.
Sometimes these children miss their former family or home and want to return. Others develop phobias that have an association with a violent death they remember. Still others are haunted by the memories of the alleged reincarnation in the form of nightmares or flashbacks of past memories.
Sometimes these symptoms are very similar to PTSD combat syndrome that occurs in soldiers returning from war.
In his report, Dr. Haraldson cites the WHO criteria for diagnosing PTSD:
1. The patient has experienced a severe stressful event or was in a life-threatening situation.
2. He constantly scrolls in his head the memories of this event. They can appear in the form of sudden "flashes".
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3. The patient's memory deteriorates, or his psychological excitability increases: problems with sleep, irritability or fits of anger appear, difficulty in concentration, suspicion and excessive starting reaction.
In Haraldson's study, of dozens of children in Lebanon and Sri Lanka, many often relived the tragic deaths and displayed outbursts of anger over and over again. Lebanon and Sri Lanka were chosen to exclude the factor of external influence on children, because these countries have a completely different culture.
Some of them find it difficult to concentrate, they suffer from mood swings or aggressiveness.
Dr. Jim Tucker, a reincarnation researcher at the University of Virginia, writes: "If a person in a previous incarnation died an unnatural death, 35% of children have a strong fear of death and exhibit defensive behavior, which is one of the symptoms of PTSD combat symptom."
His book tells the story of a white girl who remembers being African American in a past life. She was 7 years old, she was walking along the road on a hot day and noticed that her hands seemed to be covered with ash. She was then abducted by two white men who arrived in an antique car. They raped and killed her.
Because of these memories, she developed a starting reaction. Memories of this tragic event often haunted her during the day, and at night she had nightmares.