Past Lives of Children
Reincarnation in dreams

An extract about reincarnation dreams from 'Fantasy Dreaming' reincarnation section by Craig Hamilton-Parker

What sort of person would you be today if your family had been different? Suppose you had come from a different ethnic background? Would this have changed your view of the world or yourself? And what if either or both of your parents had died when you were a baby and you were raised by a single parent or foster parents? Would you have been a better or worse person with other paternal influences in your life? Even your brothers, sister and grandparents--or absence of them--has contributed to your psychological growth. The truth is, family influences have had a huge effect on your life. They have helped you become the person you are today.

Many of your dreams and fantasies reflect your childhood experiences and your relationship with your parents, grandparents, and siblings. In dreams, family members appear as symbols for the psychological processes that are happening at a hidden level of your being. Influences from childhood work in the background of your consciousness and motivate you in many surprising ways.

For children, fantasy is an important part of life. The stories children are told and the games they play influence their spiritual, emotional, and mental growth. In play, children expand their understanding of themselves and others, their knowledge of the physical world, and their ability to communicate with peers and adults. They explore material and imaginary worlds and their relationship to them. Through the fantasy of play, children learn and develop as individuals and as members of society.

Play is usually fun but also may sometimes include serious reflection. Play is a way of learning that helps develop an approach to action. Exploration is also a key aspect of a great deal play fantasy. Through play and through a process of curiosity and creativity, a child tests out all kinds of assumptions and ideas about themselves, other people, and the world. Adults, too, gain much understanding of the world through play. Play is the means by which the psyche can unfold.
Many of the games that children play reflect the psychological processes that are unfolding within as their awareness of themselves and the world expands. Distressing experiences a child has had may manifest themselves in play. A child who has been sexually abused may tell a teddy bear things that the child wouldn't dare tell an adult. Psychologists and sociologists recognize the importance of play in the development of the personality and that it can reveal the potential and stumbling blocks a child is encountering. Play can therefore be used as a form of therapy to help guide children to develop positive qualities.

Reincarnation Dreams

The fantasies you act out in play express many things about yourself. Could it be that some childhood fantasies express ideas that come from a time before your birth? Could it be that some children's fantasies have their source in previous lives? Many people believe that much of their emotional troubles are the result of unconscious memories brought forward from traumatic past lives. In Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung wrote that, as a boy, he remembered in great detail being a very old man in the eighteenth century. My wife and I have the same birthmark on the back of our neck. We believe it corresponds to a death in a previous lifetime we shared together. When we first met, we were astonished to discover we had both had a recurring dream of being attacked by soldiers from behind and having our necks cut through with swords. When our daughter Danielle was born she also had the same marking on the back of her neck. (In recent years my marking has faded.

A personal friend on mine who is a well-known regression therapist told me that she has met children who are quite certain they have lived before. She spoke of a five-year-old child who surrounded herself with all her teddy bears and dolls. "Are these your children?" my friend asked. The child looked at her with a face filled with indignation and answered: "No, they are my orphans!"

Children have strange fantasies. You have to wonder what the source of this information is. Cases are on record of children who have been able to speak a language they could not possibly have learned- the term for this is xenoglossy- or have described places that they could not know about.

Some of the most interesting studies were done by Dr. Ian Stevenson, who wrote on the subject of reincarnation. He found cases of children who acted as if they had been transferred without warning from an adult's body into a baby's. "When one of our Turkish children began to speak," he explained in an interview, "almost the first thing he said was, 'What am I doing here? I was at the port.' Later on he described details in the life of a dockworker who had fallen asleep in the hold of a ship. A heavy oil drum had fallen on him and killed him instantly. Cases like this remind me of a woman who had a stroke while playing bridge. When she came around several days later, her first words were, 'What's trumps?'"

It is believed that longer intervals between lifetimes mean fewer memories. For most people, the interval between death and rebirth is long, but occasionally people return to earthly life instantaneously. Children who remember their past lives may be those who have reincarnated quickly. The fantasies that these children display in their play may reflect the traumatic experiences that caused the immediate incarnation.

Stevenson also points out that many children remember being a person of the opposite sex in their previous life. Of 100 cases in which the child recollects having been the opposite sex in a previous life, in 66 of them, girls remember previous male lives. More girls remember boys' lives than the reverse. This gender-changing raises interesting questions about homosexuality and gender confusion. Dr Stevens explains in the same interview: "A biological explanation, such as Klinefelter's syndrome (a genetic condition in which a male is born with an extra X, or female, chromosome) can explain some but not all cases. Western psychiatrists and psychologists do not have a satisfactory explanation for this, whereas in Southeast Asian cultures, gender-identity confusion is considered one result of reincarnation and taken calmly. Reincarnation ought to be considered as a possible explanation at least some of the time."

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