Chapter 11: Triggers

Any sight, sound, taste, smell, person, place, or event that reminds the child of a former life can trigger a spontaneous past life memory. The moment Billy tasted powdered sugar he was reminded of his past-life grandmother's baking, and the memory poured forth. Liia saw the sun reflecting on the metallic guardrail of a bridge——the last image she saw before she died was the sun reflecting on the silvery bridge above her. When Charlotte had silver caps put on her teeth, she was reminded of her own death and the "bad guys" who took her silver teeth.

In that moment of recognition when a child sees an object, meets a person, or sees a place that resonates with the past experience, the switch is flipped, the circuit between past and present is completed, the eyes light up, and the images and feelings rush into the conscious mind.

As more stories came to me, I started to see a pattern in these seemingly random cases. Parents told me so often: "We were riding in the car when my child began to tell me about his past life," that I began to joke that the automobile is a past-life time machine. But seriously, I wondered, what does a car have to do with it?

Then I was struck by the obvious. The motion of the car lulls children into a trance state. We mothers know we can usually rely on the hypnotic motion of the car to ease a child to sleep. A person of any age, just before falling asleep passes through the border regions of the unconscious mind——a brief twilight zone of images and intuitive impressions——called a hypnagogic state. This is a trance state in which psychic impressions, including past life memories, well to the surface just before consciousness is drowned in sleep. If the child floats in this zone without falling all the way into sleep, he will be in an opportune state to begin experiencing past life memories.

Most of us have had the experience, when meeting someone for the first time, of looking into their eyes, and knowing, without a doubt, that we've been together before. This is sometimes love at first sight; sometimes instant dread. But we adults rarely remember a literal past life story to explain the connection.

Some children, however, do remember. And if they haven't yet been taught that recognizing someone from a past life is 'impossible', they may walk up to an adult, look deep into his or her eyes, and innocently ask, "Don't you remember me?" This can have a powerful effect on the adult, especially if the child proceeds to unwind a convincing story of the past life they shared together. It can trigger profound emotions in the adult. This is exactly what happened to Victoria Bragg...