The children who remember their past lives: Chilling phenomenon of why thousands of toddlers are being haunted by memories that aren't theirs - and when to worry about your child's 'imaginary friend'

'That is the field where I died', a five-year-old boy tells his parents.

'I remember because the mud was so deep it went over my gaiters', he says serenely while pointing across a former historic battlefield in southern England.

Quite apart from the shock of their son claiming to have been reincarnated, his parents listened opened mouthed because he had no knowledge of history yet had referred to his gaiters - a protective leg covering worn by soldiers from 1700 until the end of the First World War. 

He is not alone. An American university has compiled a database of more than 2,200 children who have been haunted by 'carry-over of memories' of past lives since the 1960s.

Critics believe that these tales are inspired by other sources of information such as TV, the internet, family stories - or just figments of a child's active imagination. 

But two thirds of those cases contained enough detail to identify the deceased person the child believes they may have been, a recent study by the University of Virginia School of Medicine found. 

Scottish child Cameron Macaulay visits the home he believes he grew up in in a former life in the 1960s on Barra in the Outer Hebrides 

Cameron was the star of the 2006 documentary: Extraordinary People — The Boy Who Lived Before. The toddler would cry for his former family and have to be picked up from nursery

The house on Barra where Cameron's family deduced he could have lived based on the description from his memories

These children, generally aged between two and six, either had the epiphany having experienced déjà vu when visiting a certain place - or it came to them in lucid dreams. 

The most famous case in Britain was toddler Cameron Macaulay, star of the 2006 documentary: Extraordinary People — The Boy Who Lived Before. 

From the age of two he had perfectly described his home on a beach in the Outer Hebrides - including the death of his father in a car crash and his pet black-and-white sheepdog - despite never visiting the Scottish island and nor had any of his Glaswegian family.

‘I have to go to Barra, I have to go to Barra, my family are missing me', he would tell his parents. 

He recalled swimming in rock pools and playing with friends on the beach where small planes would land.

Cameron's visions of life there were so real to him that on occasion he would need to be collected from nursery as he was crying for his parents on Barra. Eventually his family relented and visited, and found a home on the beach there exactly as he described it.

And there are more cases like it. 

In the North East a father was shocked to hear his two-year-old daughter talking about 'Her other father who died a long time ago.'

The father told MailOnline: 'The assumption at the time was that she had an imaginary friend called Charles because she would often be appearing to talk to him or about him.

'In the end we asked her more about Charles and he said 'he was my other father who died a long time ago.

'Little by little more details started to come out. She said he lived in a house with a black door and described an iron staircase that went upwards in circles.

'It was a bit creepy but I was intrigued enough to look into whether the houses in our suburb were likely to have had spiral staircases and discovered that it was a fairly common feature of some of the older properties.

'It was very strange and lasted only a few months, in time she stopped talking about Charles, which I must admit was a relief.'

The family of a little girl on holiday in the UK claimed she had pointed to a pair of graves in a rural church and declared that was where she had buried his parents, even reeling off their names on the stones and the dates they died as well as the epitaph: 'They were dearly loved and in God's arms'. 

‘I used to come here when I was a boy’, she said, and started to describe the inside of the church in great detail. Her parents told her she had a 'a really good imagination’ but found 'she was spot on with every single detail', one family friend said.

A fourth child, aged three, told his parents 'many times' that he had drowned in a 'speedboat accident' when he was a 'much older man'.

Focus on these tales have been reignited after an academic study in the US raised the possibility that reincarnation could actually happen - because hundreds of children have told them so.

Spooky talk from youngsters aged between two and six who claim to have lived and died before should not be written off as nonsense, hypnotist and past lives expert Tony Rae has warned.

Rae, who was Chairman of The British Council of Professional Hypnotists for 25 years, was reacting to a study in the US which has documented over 2,200 cases where children have inexplicably given detailed accounts of events they could not possibly have known about.

Each year around 120 families with children with these vivid memories each year are contacting the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

It has led the department's director, and author on the subject, Dr Jim Tucker, to conclude: 'There is evidence here that needs to be accounted for and when we look at these cases carefully, some sort of carry-over of memories often makes the most sense.'

Mr Rae said: 'I would say to parents to keep an open mind if your children are saying inexplicable things and using strange language you wouldn't expect them to know.

'The most common explanation that parents give for these behaviours is that their child has 'an imaginary friend' because that's often the way these things present themselves.

'But I've had children brought to me by parents who have been utterly baffled and at the end of the day, having worked with the child, the conclusion he or she has lived before has been inescapable.'

Dr Jim Tucker is the author of the US report and an afterlife expert and child psychiatrist at the University of Virginia

In one instance a five-year-old boy who lived near the site of an historic battle field in the south of England began making strange disclosures to his mum and dad.

As they drove past the site, the boy - who was yet to study any history in school - told them: 'That is the field where I died before.'

The mother and father put it down to play acting until the youngster continued: 'I remember that place because the mud was so deep it went over my gaiters.'

Mr Rae said: 'Understandably, they found it baffling that a lad of such a young age would use language of that kind, it's a word he couldn't have known, and they came to me in the hope of finding some answers.

'That young man went on to make other disclosures about his past life in which he'd died in battle using detail he couldn't have otherwise known and my presumption at the end of the day was that it could very well be a past life.'

Hypnotist and past lives expert Tony Rae has warned parents not to dismiss children when they have visions or memories that cannot immediately be explained

Other parents have shared similar stories of their own children. 

One said on the Mumsnet forum: 'My three year old has told us many times that he died in a speedboat accident. He described what happened then he fell in and sunk. He said he was a much older man and it was very sad. Pretty spooky. I didn't even know he knew what a speedboat was. 

'It only came about as we saw some boats in the river and he started saying that he had been on a boat. I told him he hadn't been on a boat yet and he said "yes I have, that's how I died". Then proceeded to go into detail about how it happened.

'Dying on speedboats certainly isn't a topic of conversation in our house although obviously he may have heard it somewhere. For him to say he was a much older man than he is now is strange'.

Such instances are not unusual to Tony Rae.

He said: 'I remember the case of a young girl who went to a village for the first time with her parents, not far from where they live.

'Her father was looking for the church and she told him 'It's over the bridge and across the road from the smithy.'

'Children stay in touch with their past lives, if they have had them, for a short amount of time, until it is basically educated out of them.

'It's something we should be investigating further.'

He says he was originally sceptical himself until an incident that changed his mind.

Mr Rae, described as the world's leading past life regressionist, said: 'I thought it was a lot of old tosh, for want of a better word and like many others I put these instances down to false memory syndrome.

'But a few a years ago I was staying in a hotel in Yorkshire and there was an incident that changed my mind completely.

'The hotel manager told me his bar manager had become convinced he had lived a previous life and wondered whether I could help.

'I was sceptical but placed this chap in a relaxed state and took him back and he began to tell me about his time as a soldier in the Crimean War.

'He said he was a lance corporal and he rattled off his army number. 

He gave me the name of his commanding officer, his next of kin and said he had been living in Sudbury, Suffolk.

'It was interesting but went away thinking nothing more of it.

'Months later I got a call from the hotel manager who said he and his wife had visited the Imperial War Museum in London. Unknown to me she had been taking notes while I'd been talking to the barman.

'They were still in shock. The service number had given corresponded with a soldier who had fought in the Crimean War in the same regiment as the one he'd given.

'It was absolutely extraordinary and from that day on I lost my scepticism.'

Another baffling case is that of Cameron Macauley, a young boy in Glasgow who, at the age of around two began talking about his memories of the remote Scottish island of Barra.

The island was some 220 miles from the street where Cameron lived with mother Norma and his elder brother and they had never visited it. 

Still Cameron said he recalled his 'Barra mother and dad, his Barra brothers and sisters, and his black-and-white Barra sheepdog.'

He remembered living near the beach in a white house owned by the

Robertson family, close to where planes would land.

Despite being reassured by his mother Cameron was insistent that he had really lived this other life and on occasion would need to be collected from nursery as he was crying for his parents on Barra.

In desperation Norma went to child psychologists and researchers into unexplained phenomena but they were unable to help her.

Eventually she came across Dr Tucker, the author of the US report and an afterlife expert and child psychiatrist at the University of Virginia.

Norma and Cameron travelled with Dr Tucker to Barra where a local historian helped them track down a white bungalow on a beach where a Robertson family had lived in the 1960s and 70s.

Further research found a family member who recalled that a black and white collie owned by a neighbour was frequently running around on the beach outside the family's home.

Cameron's case is one of those entered on Tucker's database maintained by the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Tucker says he wants his work - and that of his predecessor Ian Stevenson - to be 'destigmatised' within the scientific community.

He told the Washington Post: 'In many ways, I am doing this to try to sort it out for myself. With each case, I come in with certainly an openness, but also, I think, a fairly critical eye: What is the level of evidence, and could it be explained in other ways?'

He said patterns had emerged in his work. The most pronounced and convincing case tended to occur in children between the ages of 2 and 6. 

The children would describe places they have never been, people they have never met and sometimes used words or phrases that seemed beyond their vocabulary.

The youngster would often suffer nightmares and would talk a lot about what they were experiencing in their youngest years, with past life recollections fading at the age of seven or eight.

DOPS, who has operated since the 1960s, is being contacted by about 120 families per year and each case is entered onto its database

His work had led the academic to question whether reincarnation in some form could realistically happen.

He told Virginia magazine: 'I understand the leap it takes to conclude there is something beyond what we can see and touch.

'But there is evidence here that needs to be accounted for and when we look at these cases carefully, some sort of carry-over of memories often makes the most sense.'