hey guys I got a confession I was Joan
of Arc in my past life I know it sounds
crazy but hey you should totally buy my
book about it for $19.99 hey folks Laci
green here for dnews I've been seeing
some pretty weird stories around on
Facebook spreading like wildfire their
stories about little kids who believe
that they've been reincarnated in one
story I read a kid told his village
elders that he'd been murdered with an
axe in a previous life and then he
proceeded to show them to a buried
skeleton with an axe the kicker the
little boy has a long red birthmark on
his head so the story isn't the first of
its kind dr. Jim Tucker psychiatrist the
University of Virginia wrote a book
about the experiences of several
American children who believe they've
been reincarnated one kid claims that he
used to be a world war two pilot another
a Hollywood agent and another the star
golf player Bobby Jones the doctor
claims that the children sometimes as
young as three or four can give obscure
and detailed recollections of the
historical figures they claim to be so
what's going on here hey maybe they were
reincarnated or maybe there's more to
this story let's look at the scientific
alternatives here studies published in
the journal consciousness and cognition
found that people who believed they
lived past lives are twice as likely to
make memory errors as the general
population specifically source
monitoring memory errors where you
forget where a thought or idea
originally came from they found that
when people with this tendency are
repeatedly asked to talk about a
suggested idea like say having a past
right some of them go on to convert the
idea to a full-blown false memory in the
psyche world this is called the power of
suggestion great power of the mind to
realistically blur the lines between a
story or idea that's been suggested to
us and something that actually happened
researchers at Harvard found similar
results in alien abduction studies they
also found that these source memory
errors are more common in people with
vivid imagery skellige of the brain they
respond to an imagined experience is a
more vivid and realistic detail making
it easier to miss attribute information
as a memory when it isn't
of course this effect is exaggerated for
little kids who are particularly
vulnerable to the power suggestion
forgetting where an idea came from
especially if it was planted by say
their parents oh yeah you know what I'm
about to suggest say this village kid
with the birthmark on his head also
lives near the burial site of a murder
victim
it's a pair
could make a quick buck off suggesting
to their kids that that was you in a
past life and your birthmark proves it
what they particularly if they're into
reincarnation the sort of suggestion
from parents could start with a few
coincidental similarities and easily
convince a little kid with a little
story telling trace made a funny point
this morning he said it's funny how
these kids always have extreme memories
where they were brutally murdered or
really famous
none of them are just like oh yeah I
remember being a regular guy lived and
died you know
normal stuff okay so we're skeptics can
you tell let me know what you guys think
about child reincarnation stories down
below and we'll see you next time with
more science updates