“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.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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 fu*ked me up sometimes.” – reddit

“My daughter, when she was 3, used to talk about her imaginary friend all the time. Said he was big and fun, and spent alot of time playing with her. One day I was scanning old photos and had a photo of my father on my desk and she said, “hey how did you get a photo if my friend?”

I instantly got shivers down my spine. My father died in the house ~15 years previously, and she played in a room that used to be his office.

I cautiously asked her to tell me more about her friend, and without hesitating she told me he talked funny. The chills stopped me dead in my tracks because dad was an Aussie who never lost his accent.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“Not me but a friends little sister. The whole family was out for dinner at a restaurant in a skiing village which they recently bought a cottage near. My friends little sister as soon as they walked in said “I know this place. My mother and I used to paint here.” To which her mother replied “We’ve never been here before, what do you mean?” she replied with “No. My mother from before. We used to paint here all the time.” The family was obviously a little freaked out but didn’t think much of it as she was pretty young and they figured just messing around. Later on though, when talking to the waitress, the little girl again adamantly mentioned how she used to paint there and the waitress revealed that it in fact was an art studio for many years in the 1900s but had been converted sometime in the early 2000s into a restaurant. Needless to say the entire table, waitress included, got goosebumps and were at a loss for words.” – reddit

“My little brother when he was little (like three or four) said that he was in the jungle saving animals and one day he had to decide if he would stay with the animals or come live with us. He chose us, but reminded my mom that he couldn’t stay forever. Just for a little while.

He passed this last January at 26 years old.” – reddit

“My younger sister, when she was 3, started talking to my mom about “When I was a big girl, and you were a little girl”. She said she went to my parent’s wedding. She described her old self physically, and my mom says that sounded like my mom’s grandmother Grace.

My sister also talked about the “green” house she used to live in at the end of a dirt road and the fact that her mother (my mom’s great grandmother Matilda), died from a snake bite, while they lived there. She described the snake as “pretty” and with the full description my mom thinks she was describing a copperhead. Now we lived in northern Nebraska (no copperheads), and Matilda died in southeast Oklahoma (copperhead region.) My sister said she killed the snake with a hoe.

These discussions always took place at bedtime. One day, we were putting in the garden and my dad was sitting down and sharpening the hoe with a file and my sister told him he was doing it wrong. He told her to show him how to do it. She put her hands on his and placed them in the correct position, and later he said that she was right, he was doing it wrong.

For those of you interested in timelines. This would be in 1980, my mother’s grandmother Grace died in 1968, and her great-grandmother Matilda died in 1902. Also, we don’t know if snake bite was the cause of death for her great grandmother Matilda. I was 15 at the time these little nightly discussions were going on so I remember them fairly well. She probably told these things on and off for about 6 months and by 4 she would say “I’m tired of talking about it”. – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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”. – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“I was driving my family across the state to visit family. Some commercial on the radio about Vegas came on and I started singing “Vivaaaaaa Las Vegas” in my best Elvis impersonation. My son was about 3-4 and he says “I don’t like Vegas. I lost my life and a lot of money there.” His mom and I glanced at each other like “WTF?” He never said anything else about it.” – reddit

“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 say this.” – reddit

“My middle son (5) is named after my wife’s grandfather.

He just looked at her a couple of weeks ago and said “I remember when you were little and you sat on my lap.”

He also once gazed into my mother in law’s eyes (at 3-4 years old), stroked her cheek and said “my daughter.” – reddit

“When our son was maybe 3 or 4 he described his life as a ballerina on stage – from the lights, to the music, to the applause. His next words chilled me to the bone “I was at a party on a boat, and I fell into the water, then POOF I was here.” I asked him to relate the story when his father came back from a business trip a couple weeks later, and it was identical. But after that we never discussed it again. I didn’t want to go there.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“None of mine have, but back pre-pandemic I was watching my friends then three year old for her and he saw a big military ship and he got this kind of far away look and said “I remember when my boat sank. There were so many sharks.” I said what? He blinked said what, and then started asking questions about the boat. I mentioned it to my friend and she said “yeah, he does that sometimes.” – reddit

“When my daughter was 4 she told she used to be my grandma. Which I’d like to believe it’s true because when I was pregnant with her I would dream my grandma frequently.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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!” – reddit

“My mom told me when I was 3 or 4 that I scream cried when we passed an old blue Volkswagen bug. I told her that was the car I died in. It was apparently very hot and “I had a baby in my belly”. – reddit

“My son was 3 at the time.

At bedtime he said “mama, one time the bad guys got me and drove me in their car.”

And I said what?

And he continued to tell me a story about being locked in a room and he was hungry and I didn’t find him. The bad guys got away and he never got out.

That sh!t scared me so much I still get freaked by it. I held him so right that night.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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.” – reddit

“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”. – reddit

“When my son was about 3, he told us how he remembered being a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. This was in 1998.” – reddit