The death of a child leaves an irreparable gap in a family's life. Not only do the parents' lives undergo a profound change, but so do the lives of the deceased child's siblings. Grief reactions are diverse. While children up to approximately five years of age do not understand the meaning of death, older children and adolescents change after a brother or sister has died. On the one hand, they develop sadness, anger, guilt, social withdrawal, or fear of another death. On the other hand, they develop greater maturity, compassion, a sense of responsibility, moral sensitivity, greater resilience, and a stronger awareness of the meaning of life. Thus, intense grief does not exclude the experience of personal growth. Bereaved children often have a remarkable openness. Compared with their peers, they are more willing to share their thoughts and feelings with others. This also applies to topics concerning the deceased sibling. Among younger children between the ages of six and twelve, this openness is also shown in maintaining a connection with the sibling and believing that the sibling is in a good place where they can run and play again. Many children dream of their deceased brother or sister, hear and sense their presence, as Matthew describes in our book Where the Light Begins : “I dream of him, but it doesn’t feel like dreaming.” Children also continue to have conversations with their deceased brother or sister. For example, they tell them what they did that day, that they miss them, what is happening at home, and they speak about birthdays and prayers. Furthermore, memories of the deceased sibling are preserved (e.g. memory books, diaries, photographs, toys, artwork, clothing, and letters). Some even sleep in the former bed of the deceased sibling. In addition to this open processing of the loss, younger children also differ in the way they cope with grief. They are increasingly able to interrupt their grief. These "breaks" from grief, for example through play, help children cope with distressing emotions. The younger the children are, the more quickly grief-related distress and fears decrease, and everyday life returns. Every grief experience is individual, and accordingly, life priorities, interests, and life goals change. Some children want to live more closely in line with the values or follow the example of their deceased sibling. These may be possible signs of growth and adaptation. Open communication, family cohesion, and social support promote this adaptation. The stories explored throughout our book, Where the Light Begins , remind us that love survives death. In the hearts of many bereaved children, this love continues to shape memories, relationships, and the quiet courage to move forward.

Death is something that many people fear. The idea that we might be able to foresee our own death is comforting to some people because it would give them time to put their affairs in order or say goodbye to loved ones. For others, such a thought would be deeply distressing and could become emotionally overwhelming. In the context of events involving death, psychologist Carl Jung described numerous cases in which individuals had precognitive abilities. Precognition refers to the perception of future events that, although according to conventional standards, cannot yet be predicted and are independent of a person's ordinary sensory impressions or prior experiences. Such perceptions may occur in dreams, known as precognitive dreams , which contain specific information about a future event that later corresponds with what actually happens. Precognitive dreams may also appear as warning dreams in the form of nightmares, which typically occur more often in children than in adults. Precognitive experiences may also occur as intuitive impressions or premonitions , a feeling that something is about to happen. These experiences often involve warnings of unpleasant events, such as health problems, personal dangers, or natural disasters. According to Louisa E. Rhine, one of the pioneers of experimental parapsychology at Duke University in North Carolina, who collected reports of extrasensory perception from children between the ages of 10 and 18, precognitive dreams were reported considerably more often (52%) than intuitive impressions (25%). Compared with adults, children report experiences involving family members and neighbors significantly more frequently, as well as events concerning people of the same sex and family pets. Overall, the largest group of the predicted events involves everyday events (54%). Nevertheless, death (18.5%) and serious injuries (19%) can also be found, as in the case of Elias from our book Where the Light Begins . Following a recurring dream, Elias anticipated his own death with the words, “If I go today.” In some cases, the central theme of a precognitive dream may also be shared by two or more people who are especially close to one another, such as parents or siblings. Each reports a similar dream before the event occurs. Why do some people possess precognitive abilities while others do not? Researchers have suggested that experiences of precognition may be associated with certain personality characteristics. According to psychologists Kirsten Cameron and Jenny Wade of the California Institute of Integral Studies, childhood trauma, particularly persistent emotional and physical neglect, may at least facilitate precognition. The critical factor is presumably not the trauma itself, but rather the greater likelihood of developing dissociative tendencies in response to it. Dissociation may facilitate certain altered states of consciousness. One such state, known as absorption-imaginative involvement , refers to the ability to become deeply immersed in inner experiences, generate vivid mental imagery, and focus attention intensely on internal impressions. Researchers at the Universidad Abierta Interamericana in Buenos Aires, Argentina, have reached a different conclusion. They suggest that premonitory experiences occur more frequently in individuals who are emotionally sensitive, open to unusual experiences, and not characterized by greater psychological distress. Individuals who report premonitions have higher scores on empathy, emotional understanding, and perspective-taking. They also show elevated levels of positive schizotypy (unusual perceptions, unconventional patterns of thinking, and openness to unusual experiences)—in contrast to negative schizotypy (social withdrawal and a tendency toward impulsive and nonconforming behavior). Some researchers have argued that precognitive dreams may point to a non-material aspect of consciousness and challenge the conventional concept of the arrow of time. From this view, precognitive dreams can be understood as a form of Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity . Thus, precognitive dreams do not represent a normal cause-and-effect relationship. Rather, the dream appears to anticipate a future event, even though, from the perspective of linear time, that event has not occurred yet. Carl Jung’s explanation: The unconscious is timeless. Past, present, and future are not strictly separated within it. That is why future events may already emerge in dreams. Jung expressed this idea, for example, as follows: “It is as if the unconscious were already there where we are not yet or is still there where we are no longer.” A similar premonitory experience is reported by Marlon in our book. Regardless of how precognitive experiences are ultimately explained, many children report that such experiences hold profound personal significance for them. Some describe precognition and premonitions as comforting, healing, or personally transformative. The responses of parents, teachers, and healthcare professionals are especially important: dismissal, disapproval, ridicule, or premature psychiatric labeling may lead children to remain silent, question their own perceptions, and therefore suppress or unconsciously inhibit their memories of dreams. For this reason, adults should listen with openness and provide safe, supportive environments in which children feel comfortable to discuss their experiences. Read true stories of children’s near-death experiences and how they responded to them in our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .

Especially at the threshold between life and death, people repeatedly report experiences that raise profound questions. Among these are the so-called deathbed visions , which occur during the final days or hours before death. Children, who often have not yet developed firmly established religious beliefs or a fixed worldview, frequently describe these end-of-life visions with remarkable openness and naturalness, without interpreting their experiences through preconceived conceptual frameworks. Many children report encounters with deceased relatives (particularly grandparents), deceased pets, as well as other children who had died in the same hospital or hospice. Some also describe angels or beings of light, a bright light, or a peaceful place beyond that light. During the deathbed visions, children often respond purposefully to individuals and direct their gaze toward specific spots in the room, as though they were perceiving someone there. Particularly thought-provoking are the few reported cases in which children describe deceased individuals whom they had never met during their lifetime or, in some instances, had not even known they existed. Nevertheless, the children describe them with remarkable accuracy. Besides the content of these visions, another aspect has been observed: the extraordinary state of consciousness many children show during these experiences. Some had previously been barely responsive or had been in a coma. Yet during these episodes, they appear fully conscious, awake, oriented, and are able to engage in clear, coherent conversations. This condition is known as terminal lucidity , a state in which individuals nearing death temporarily regain an unusual degree of mental clarity and the ability to communicate, often after these capacities had been diminished or lost during the course of their illness or the dying process. Furthermore, many children report a profound inner knowing that their lives are coming to an end. Dalia, from our book Where the Light Begins , expresses it this way: “There’s someone there. … And she’s waiting.” Such a statement reflects a remarkable sense of inner clarity in the final moments before death. Children often speak of the feeling that they are “going home.” In addition to these waking experiences, some children's end-of-life experiences may also occur during vivid dreams and, in some cases, appear to be precognitive. For example, a child may see the exact funeral home where their body will later be taken after death, despite having no prior knowledge of the funeral home's appearance, name, or location. Reports of deathbed visions inevitably raise the question of how these experiences can be understood from a scientific perspective. Some consciousness researchers interpret those visions as a possible expression of a transitional process in which consciousness enters another state that is independent of the brain. According to this view, consciousness returns to a broader nonlocal field from which it originally emerged. During a person's lifetime, consciousness is understood to be expressed through the brain rather than generated by it. Thus, the brain may function more like a receiver or tuning device. Deathbed visions constitute a natural part of the dying process, offering comfort, reassurance, and serenity to the children experiencing them and, in some cases, also helping their relatives through the process of saying goodbye. For many families, these experiences become precious memories that imbue the farewell with hope, love, and a sense of inner peace. Read true stories of children’s near-death experiences and how they responded to them in our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .

Around the world, reports of past-life memories are most often associated with children rather than adults. For decades, researchers studying reincarnation cases have noticed a striking pattern: children between the ages of three and seven are far more likely to speak spontaneously about another life than older children or adults. A child may start talking spontaneously about the purported life of another person, including how they lived and the way in which they died. Sometimes, the past-life memories are triggered by certain environmental cues. Beyond verbal statements, the child may also have behaviors, preferences, talents, or skills that resemble those of the person from the past life. Some children are born with physical birthmarks or bodily defects that correspond to injuries sustained by that individual. The same applies to phobias and nightmares that appear to be related to the person’s death in the previous life. The reason has fascinated psychologists and consciousness researchers. While no single explanation fully accounts for these findings, some observations are frequently noted: young children often describe memories that seem surprisingly specific, such as identifying the person from the previous life, the place where the person lived, and recognizing other objects and people from their past life. What is particularly interesting is that similar cases appear in cultures that do not share the same beliefs. Children from religious and non-religious families have all reported experiences that seem to follow comparable patterns. As mentioned above, researchers have observed that most children stop talking about past-life memories by age six or seven, and the memories typically fade as they grow older. This consistent pattern raises an interesting question. Why do such experiences appear during a specific window and then gradually disappear? One possible explanation is developmental. Usually, children start sharing their memories from a past life as soon as they can talk. The hippocampus, which plays a crucial role in the long-term storage of autobiographical memories, is not yet fully mature during the first years of life. Young children do not yet possess a fully developed autobiographical self and have not constructed the rigid personal narrative that adults rely on to organize reality. In other words, children may be more open to unusual experiences because they have not yet learned what is considered possible or impossible. The boundaries between imagination, memory, symbolic thinking, and direct experience are often more fluid. Over time, school, friendships, daily routines, and the development of an adult identity begin to dominate. Earlier or unusual memories may become increasingly overshadowed or suppressed, making them more difficult to access with age. Thus, the early years retreat into the background. If ordinary early memories fade as the autobiographical self develops, it is conceivable, at least hypothetically, that the same process could apply to memories of previous lives. Developmental psychology may help explain why such memories appear and disappear. However, it does not explain where the information originates. This has led some researchers to explore broader models of consciousness. Research has also suggested that the answers might be found within the principles of quantum physics. Our physical world may be affected by or even rooted in a non-physical realm of consciousness. It is possible that consciousness may, in some form, continue to express itself in a new life. In this view, memories are never truly lost and may be carried over from one life to a subsequent one. Most people simply no longer have conscious access to them. In some children, however, these memories still surface before gradually fading as they grow older. Although most reported past-life memories emerge during childhood, they can also occasionally appear during near-death experiences. They sometimes contain elements that experiencers interpret as connections to a former life. While in adults this connection usually appears during a life review, Jan from our book Where the Light Begins visited a house during his near-death experience and described it this way: “It wasn’t a place. It was a part of me that came back.” For now, reincarnation remains a mystery. But maybe the persistence of reincarnation accounts across cultures and generations reminds us that life may be larger than a single biography and that some of our most intriguing sources continue to come from the voices of children. Read true stories of children’s near-death experiences and how they responded to them in our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .

When people hear about childhood near-death experiences, they often focus on the positive changes that follow. Many children return with less fear of death, a greater sense of inner peace, and a deep feeling of connection to other people and to life itself. However, for some children, the return from a near-death experience can be difficult. They may struggle to reconnect with the pace and intensity of everyday life as everything feels different from the life they lived before. The nervous system seems to re-enter ordinary life from an altered state of reality without having restored its usual filters, and therefore, it responds differently to external stimuli. As a result, children like Elin from our book Where the Light Begins have increased sensitivity to bright light, loud noises, and being touched. Elin withdrew, hid under blankets, and avoided hugs. The reordering of the nervous system can also lead to synesthesia, a merging of sensory impressions. Although synesthesia can occur independently of near-death experiences, it has been reported by some children, as was the case with Mira, another child from our book, who felt sounds as colors and sensed fabrics as tones. In some cases, there is also an increased sensitivity to medications or electromagnetic items. The latter can result in effects such as watches failing to work properly. In addition to changes in sensory perception, many children also describe profound shifts in how they relate and communicate with others. Speaking is difficult for these children, leading them to whisper or remain silent for some time; yet they listen and, if they speak, they do so with enhanced empathy and mindfulness. The latter is the result of increased compassion. Some children become highly aware of other people's feelings. They notice sadness before it is spoken. Conflict or cruelty affects them deeply. Increased compassion can be both a gift and a challenge. The same openness that allows a child to feel deeply connected to others can also make everyday life more difficult to manage. One of the greatest challenges is that many children do not fully understand what is happening to them. They simply know that the world feels different from what it did before. Things that once seemed ordinary suddenly feel overwhelming. At the same time, they often lack the language to explain these changes. As a result, many feel misunderstood or alone with their experiences, leading some childhood near-death experiencers to undergo psychotherapy to reconcile their extraordinary experiences. Over time, many children gradually learn to integrate these changes. Some discover ways of self-expression through art, music, or writing. Others find comfort in nature. They learn how to live with a heightened sensitivity that once felt overwhelming. The stories explored throughout our book, Where the Light Begins , remind us that the journey back into life does not end when a child survives. In many ways, another journey begins: the gradual task of integrating an extraordinary experience into ordinary life.

When children report a near-death experience, they often speak of light, peace, a sense of safety, or the feeling of having arrived home. What is discussed less often, however, is another part of the experience: the moment of returning. Many children describe this moment as deeply affecting. While the near-death experience itself is often marked by a sense of vastness, freedom, or lightness, returning to the body can feel like a sudden break between two realities. Some children report a powerful jolt, while others describe being pulled or drawn back into their bodies. The transition often occurs abruptly, as if someone had flipped a switch. While children often report that their return was much faster than their leaving the body, there are also accounts in which the transition between death and life is accompanied by a gentle moment of silence. In this silence, some children report entering a liminal realm between life and death. They describe being aware of both the other realm of consciousness and their immediate surroundings, such as the hospital room. This was the case for Amina from our book Where the Light Begins , who felt her mother behind a symbolic door made of wind and motion. The decision to return appears to be made consciously through nonverbal communication. While it is sometimes initiated by a single thought of siblings or parents, other children describe a profound sense that their lives are not finished yet, like Lenn, whose story we also share in our book. By contrast, others remember being told, “It is not your time yet,” or “You must return.” After returning to their bodies, a lot of children report that their bodies initially feel unfamiliar. Although they recognize them as their own, they simultaneously experience them as something that does not entirely belong to them. Some recall needing a few moments to realize that they are back in their bodies. In addition, the return to the body is usually accompanied by the reappearance of physical sensations. During a near-death experience, children report a complete absence of pain, even when they had been severely injured or were in a critical medical condition. With the return, this often changes abruptly. Pain becomes noticeable again, sounds seem overwhelmingly loud, and light appears harsh. As a result, some children initially describe the transition from death back to life as uncomfortable, because the contrast between the two states feels so immense. This may also help explain why some children report that they did not initially want to return, a phenomenon also found in many adults’ accounts. Over time, the disappointment of returning fades for most of the children. The more they integrate the experience into their lives, the more their attention shifts from the loss of what they experienced to the meaning they carried back with them. Many of the experiences described throughout our book, Where the Light Begins , convey the same impression: the return was not simply an awakening; it was a transition and a step from one reality into another.

At times, we encounter a remembering that does not originate from our own life. A scent in the air. A certain landscape. A glance through a stranger’s window. And suddenly, we feel recognized by it. For centuries, memory has been understood as a product of the brain. Memory—a feeling, a place, or a time—was assumed to arise exclusively from neural activity, encoded in synapses and preserved within the architecture of the brain. Yet some experiences challenge this model in profound ways. Near-death experiences in children, for example, especially those occurring during states of minimal or absent measurable brain activity, continue to raise questions that conventional neuroscience struggles to answer fully. In our book Where the Light Begins , we detail cases of children who return from these states with memories that appear impossible within the boundaries of ordinary perception. Instead of being unconscious, these children experience an intensified awareness. They speak of people they have never met, places they have never seen, or languages they have never learned. Among the most striking cases are children like Eli who encountered a deceased person during his near-death experience—a person he did not know in real life. Or Jan who saw a place unknown to him in real life but instantly recognized it as a place from his past. Then there is Liva who woke up and spoke a foreign language that she did not know before the event. It is a form of remembering that does not appear connected to lived experience. It is as though memory exists independently of chronological life, waiting to emerge under certain conditions. So, if the brain quickly becomes inactive when the body approaches death, how is it possible that memories mentioned above can be retrieved? What if memory does not begin in the brain, but belongs to something larger—a field of awareness that remains connected across time, space, and perhaps even beyond the limits of individual consciousness? According to some quantum physics theories, thoughts and language exist prior to their formulation as possibilities within the quantum world. That means memory would not necessarily be stored exclusively in the brain. Instead, they are fragments of ancient memories. We see memory as something directed backward. Yet there are quantum physics theories that suggest that time does not exist as a linear sequence but as a field of overlapping potentials. In such fields, past, present, and future may exist simultaneously as possibilities. That indicates that there could be memories that are directed toward the future—premonition. Premonition that arises in children with and without near-death experiences. Maybe every child carries such a thread within them: a memory that does not begin in the brain but in the deeper rhythms of life. The scent in the air. The certain landscape. The glance through a stranger’s window. In such moments, it may not be we who remember, but the image that remembers us. Read true stories of children’s near-death experiences and how they responded to them in our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .

Near-death experiences are often described through the language of the culture in which they occur. What is especially striking is that children around the world often describe experiences with remarkably universal features, such as out-of-body experiences or communication without speech, even when the imagery itself differs across cultures. The imagery changes, but the sense of entering another realm persists. While children in Western countries speak about light, radiant beings, or soft places without walls, children from indigenous traditions may describe animals, rivers, and forests that are different from real life. While Native Americans encounter horses as companions during their near-death experiences, Indigenous children throughout the Amazon rainforest often encounter jaguars. The jaguar is not viewed merely as an animal in Indigenous traditions. It is seen as a spiritual presence or guide connected to protection and transformation, especially in the relationship between humans and animals. The jaguar symbolizes a passage into deeper awareness, a temporary crossing beyond ordinary identity. Indigenous cultures that often include shamans within their tribal societies tend to approach near-death experiences openly, believing that there is a spirit watching over the forest and its people. Toma from our book Where the Light Begins expresses it this way: “The jaguar is not something you see. He is something that sees you. And if you remember that gaze, you’ll never walk alone again.” Another spiritual guide for many Indigenous people of the Amazon is the river. For them, it is not merely water, but a living being in the form of a spirit that interacts with the forest and the people. A boundary between the visible and invisible world that another child in our book, Tiago, crossed during his near-death experience: “It knew my name. It called me, not with voice, but with waves.” The river as a boundary also plays an important role in Japanese accounts compared to Western accounts. Studies show that those near-death experiences share similar landscape imagery, such as flower meadows and gardens. However, the recurring appearance of a river as a boundary in Japanese accounts is particularly striking. Researchers often compare this to the Sanzu River in Japanese Buddhist tradition—a boundary between life and death. Instead of animals and rivers as spiritual guides, some traditions interpret near-death experiences through existing religious frameworks. What stands out most is that some children in India describe encounters with Yamaraj—the Hindu god of death—during their experiences close to death. A meeting with a deity that rarely appears in Western children’s accounts. Indian near-death experiences are culturally recognizable on a spiritual level, in that the soul is believed to survive physical death and therefore consciousness continues through reincarnation. Nevertheless, near-death experiences remain medically and socially insufficiently understood and discussed. While these culturally shaped elements differ in imagery and symbolism, they may still point toward a deeper psychological structure shared across humanity. All these experiences can be interpreted through the lens of archetypes within Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious, deeply embedded patterns of awareness that recur in all human beings. Culture seems not to create the experience itself, but to offer a symbolic landscape through which it becomes emotionally understandable. Perhaps that is why near-death experiences continue to resonate across civilizations, because they touch something profoundly human—our emotions. Emotions that continue to underlie the reflections are explored throughout our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .

Children experience subtle but lasting inner shifts after their return from a near-death experience, something that sets them apart from other children. Many children change profoundly in their perception, their behavior, and their relationship to life and death. They speak with calm certainty that death is not an end but a homecoming. It is a reunion, a return to a place already known. Children in our book, Where the Light Begins , describe a place we tend to forget amid the noise and haste of everyday life in this world. Tiago describes it as: “I was with everything that lives.” Or in Adelina’s words: “It’s always there. But we forget. Until it welcomes us again.” Besides having a different perspective on death, children who return from the threshold of death also have a different view on life. Many children appear unusually calm and quiet after the experience, emotionally older, or more attuned to their inner perception. The silence is experienced as meaningful. They listen more attentively and respond with greater clarity. And these children know that everything is connected. Animals and nature, along with greater compassion and heightened sensitivity to the suffering of others, often take on greater importance. As a result, they often perceive the inner emotional states of other people that others tend to overlook. Noémi describes it with these words: “I don’t listen with my ears. I listen with the part that knows when someone is sad.” What children bring back is a deep inner knowing that our ordinary reality is only a surface layer. They know the true place of our origin that feels more real than our everyday life. This place from which we come belongs not only to human beings, but also to animals. Like Emil explains it: “They’ve seen that place too, the one where everything breathes together.” A doorway to that place might also reopen within our everyday life, but only in silence: “I think silence isn’t a lack. It’s a beginning,” as Noémi says. Another deep inner knowing they gain is that nothing is lost, everything matters. Anna puts it this way: “I know now that nothing is lost. Not a smile. Not fear. Not love. Everything continues. Even when we can’t see it anymore.” And children know a presence that cannot be named. The presence is always there. It knows us and in extreme situations, such as near-death experiences, we also come to know this presence. This presence could be understood as an all-encompassing, tangible field of resonance. A deep connection between humans, animals, nature, and consciousness that connects all life through an invisible thread. In this view, the presence would not be “someone,” but rather the sustaining network behind everything. What children experience as the true place of our origin might be a form of consciousness independent of the brain that allows life to continue on another frequency. Thus, maybe what children return with is a remembrance of what we once knew before the world taught us to forget. Their stories invite us to listen more carefully to silence, to connection, and to the possibility that consciousness extends far beyond the limits we usually assign to it and continues in ways we are only beginning to understand. Read true stories of children’s near-death experiences and how they responded to them in our book Where the Light Begins: Stories of Near-Death Experiences and After-Death Communications by Children and How They Experience Them Differently Than Adults .