Clippings
Every now and then, the subject of pre-birth communication or of soul memory shows up in a newspaper story, a magazine article, a book or a TV show. If you spot such items -- especially stories of real experiences -- please send them in for inclusion on this page.
Spirit Babies
Young children often describe memories of pre-existence. The July/August 2002 issue of Mothering Magazine includes an unusual example in an article titled "Spirit Babies."
In an excerpt from her book Baby Catcher (Simon & Schuster, 2002), nurse-midwife Peggy Vincent tells how her twelve-year-old son Colin comforted her as she mourned a miscarried pregnancy. At 41, the pregnancy was unplanned and fairly unwelcome, but when it ended, Peggy "fell in love with the baby that was not to be." Her son then explained to her about "Spirit Babies" and why the same soul would return to her if she became pregnant again.
Colin said that every woman has "a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life." Every month, one baby is first in line to be conceived. If the pregnancy miscarries, that baby goes back into the circle, but "it becomes a Spirit Baby and all the other babies give it cuts" so that it is always first in line. Colin said that he knew about Spirit Babies because he himself was one, and had returned to his mother after a previous miscarriage.
More instances of such kid-wisdom are included in Chapter 25 ("Listen to the Children") in Stories of the Unborn Soul. I would love to receive accounts of other children's soul memories.
A reader sends this item from TIME Magazine, June 26, 2000, page 82:
DREAMING OF BABY - When it comes to predicting the gender of an unborn baby, mothers just might know best. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University interviewed 104 pregnant women who had chosen not to learn their babies' gender through prenatal testing. The mothers-to-be were asked to foretell whether they were carrying a girl or boy and to describe whether their guess was based on folklore, the way they were carrying the baby, a dream or just a feeling. Of the women who based their forecast on a feeling or dream, 71% were correct, and all the women who cited a dream were right. Researchers concluded that there is much about the maternal-fetal connection to be explored.
TV Show features "Dream Children"
"Do the spirits of children visit their families before they're born? Author Sarah Hinze says it happens all the time." Pre-birth Communication made prime time TV on April 9, 1999, when ABC's popular show "Hard Copy" aired a segment titled "Dream Children."
Just a few minutes long, the segment packed in three stories and a short interview with Sarah, author of Coming From the Light (featured in the Treasury). "These experiences can happen in dreams, in visions," said Sarah. "The child expresses great eagerness to come: 'I have chosen you as my mother, I'm ready to come to your home.'"
Paul Carter re-enacted his experience. While driving to work one day, he saw a vision of a little boy in his truck. "He was just looking at me, smiling," said Paul, "and I just reached over and ran my fingers through his hair, patted his head, and said That's my boy! And I felt this child was my son. A little while later I looked over and there was nobody there." His wife became pregnant shortly after the encounter, and Paul states he has no doubt his son is the child of his vision.
Cambria Henderson was already pregnant when she perceived the spirit of an adult woman and felt that they were communicating with each other. Their daughter, she says, "is very definitely the woman I saw."
The most dramatic story presented was that of Sarah Skidmore, who was kidnapped at age four and survived three days alone in the desert. She was comforted and companioned by a little girl "angel" who appeared to her there. Years later, Sarah identified her younger sister (not yet born at the time of the kidnapping) as the little girl who had been with her in the desert. This experience is detailed in Sarah's book.
"Astounding story that skeptics may dismiss," Hard Copy commented, "but these families are convinced that something miraculous is happening." Sarah Hinze had the last word, and gently summed up, "It's contact with unborn souls."
Isabel Allende dreams of her daughter-to-be
In her moving memoir, "Paula," author Isabel Allende describes how she envisioned her future daughter in dreams during the pregnancy. She calls this awareness a "gift" that she has experienced with other unborn children in her family. Speaking to Paula, she writes:
I knew I was pregnant before it was confirmed medically; you appeared to me in a dream, just as your brother, Nicolas, did later. I have not lost that gift, and now can predict my daughter-in-law's children. I dreamed my grandson Alejandro before his parents suspected he had been conceived, and I know that the child who will be born in the spring will be a girl, and will be named Andrea, though Nicolas and Celia still don't believe me and are planning to have a sonogram and are making lists of names. In the first dream I ever had of you, you were two years old and your name was Paula. You were a slender child, with dark hair, large black eyes, and a limpid gaze like that of martyrs in the stained-glass windows of some medieval churches. You were wearing a checked coat and hat, something like the classic costume of Sherlock Holmes. . .
Those months you were inside me were a time of perfect happiness; I have never since felt so closely accompanied. We learned to communicate in code. I knew how you would be at different periods in your life: I saw you at seven, fifteen, and twenty, I saw you with your long hair and happy laugh, in your blue jeans and wedding dress.
-- from PAULA, by Isabel Allende, copyright 1994, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Connecting With Baby for an Easy Birth
In an article in New Age Journal (June 1995), the well-known natural health advocate Dr. Andrew Weil describes how his wife Sabine made telepathic contact with her baby. With the help of guided imagery and hypnotherapy, she apparently won her baby's cooperation for an easy delivery.
Sabine, seven months pregnant with her fourth child, was experiencing lower back pain. She sought help from Marilyn Ream, M.D., who led her into a session of interactive guided imagery. As Dr. Weil explains, this therapy "empowers patients by encouraging them to develop their own strategies for managing illness. It assumes that the unconscious mind comprehends the nature of disease processes and how to resolve them." Sabine did indeed heal her back pain during the session -- and she also made contact with her unborn baby.
Marilyn asked her to shift her focus to her uterus and to the baby inside it. Sabine was soon in contact with the baby. Marilyn guided her through a dialogue with the baby, in which Sabine asked her (we knew the sex by this time) to come on time (she agreed to do so) and to help make the labor quick and uneventful. In this dialogue, Sabine would speak the words she "heard" the baby use in reply to her questions.
A second, more dramatic experience came three weeks before the due date. The baby was in a posterior position, which can cause long and painful labor. Hypnotherapist Steve Gurgevich led a session with Sabine. Dr. Weil recounts:
Steve did an hour-long session with her... encouraging Sabine to talk with the baby, asking her to turn around before the beginning of labor and help make the labor quick. When he brought Sabine out of her reverie, she looked supremely relaxed. After Steve left, Sabine and I went to the kitchen to start dinner. Suddenly, she clutched her belly and bent over.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I think the baby's turning," she said, amazed.
It happened that our midwife was coming for dinner that night. She examined Sabine and reported that the baby was now in an anterior presentation, having turned within twenty minutes of being asked to do so. The baby came right on her due date. Labor lasted a mere two hours and six minutes, which was, if anything, a little too brief in that we barely had time to prepare.
From "Birth Made Easy" by Andrew Weil, M.D. , New Age Journal, June 1995