Much to his parents’ surprise, James’ statements had some uncanny similarities to a pilot named James Huston who had died during World War II—nearly 50 years before James Leininger was born. In other words: It seems little boy James had experienced memories of a past life. From those statistics, we can infer that a child is more likely to have a past life memory if it’s associated with some sort of trauma from their previous life. That said, Tucker notes that a child will typically reveal past life details when they feel safe or relaxed. “The child has to be in the right frame of mind to talk about these things,” he notes. “It’s usually during relaxed times, sometimes after a bath or during a car ride.” However, he adds, “We have gotten some reports where the person did have a recurring traumatic dream [in early childhood].” It’s difficult to verify those as past life memories, of course, but if a child has the same traumatic dream dozens of times, it may transcend fantasy and point to an actual memory of a past life. It’s a common question, says Tucker, but the key is to determine whether the child’s statements are actually verifiable. “What the child describes, does it match somebody who lived and died in the past?” he asks. “The child has to recall the right details that would allow tracing, typically names of either people or places; otherwise, it’s extremely difficult.” That said, he does hear a bunch of “weak cases,” in which the child is either unable to provide details or he’s unable to trace them back to someone who has, in fact, lived and died. But when he does come across a verifiable case, the details are astounding. Of course, he must also make sure the child hadn’t gotten that information through some sort of ordinary means, like through the TV or overhearing conversations among adults. “There’s a well-known case where a child who remembered being a World War II pilot, which was 50-plus years ago,” he explains. (The aforementioned case of James Leininger.) “We can be pretty certain that child didn’t hear about this random person, and yet they have a lot of memories.” However, he notes that because there is this trauma associated with past life memories, perhaps an individual is more likely to have one if they have some “unfinished business” to tend to, “[like if] the previous person either died violently or died young,” he explains. Another similarity, he says, is that children who have past life memories tend to be very bright and very verbal at a young age. So other children might have these images of past life memories—they just may not have the language skills to verbalize them. “By the time they get to where they can really verbalize them, the images may have faded, whereas with these kids, they start talking about it, and it kind of firms it up in their minds and becomes a full case.” “I have become convinced that there is more than just the physical world,” he notes. “Consciousness is the core of reality that the physical world grows out of, not the other way around.” This makes sense when you think about past life memories: In these cases, consciousness prevails even when the body loses its physical form. “The brain died physically, and the consciousness continued on,” notes Tucker. While most of us do not have past life memories, these cases indicate that consciousness may very well live on after we die. “We are not just physical beings trapped in a random universe for a few decades and then we’re gone,” Tucker adds. “This is a hopeful message for people.”
