November 7, 2025 • 51 mins
Join Sandra as she explores children's NDEs and past life memories, and offers practical ways for us to communicate to loved ones who have passed.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Ghost Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for
podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here.
They invite you to enjoy all our shows we have
on this network, and right now, let's start with Chase
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast, AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Episode will discuss the reasons we now know that our
(01:04):
loved ones have survived physical death and so will we
Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Before we dive into
our main topic today, I want to share some afterlife news.
On a recent interview, author and investigative journalist Lee Strobel
shared a collection of powerful, verifiable stories that provide stunning
(01:26):
evidence for the survival of consciousness. He spoke about the
nature of near death experiences, where a person is clinically dead,
often with no heartbeat or brain waves, yet their consciousness
continues to function. The most compelling evidence comes from cases
where people have an out of body experience and see
(01:49):
or hear things that it would be impossible for them
to know. Strobells shared the story of a woman named Maria.
While doctors were working to revive her clinically body in
a hospital, she said her spirit floated out, floated up,
and she found herself looking down from the ceiling. When
(02:09):
she was revived, she told the staff that there was
a red sticker on top of one of the ceiling
fan blades. Of course, no one could see that from
the ground, so they got a ladder, climbed up, and
sure enough, there was the red sticker, exactly as she
had described. He told another even more detailed story about
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a nine year old girl who drowned in a Ymca
swimming pool. She was clinically dead for three days with
her brain swollen, before she was miraculously revived with no damage.
The skeptical doctors gave her a crayon and paper and
asked her to draw the emergency room where they had
(02:55):
worked on her. She drew it perfectly, but then she added,
by the way I followed my parents home that night,
She described exactly what her mom was cooking, what chair
her dad was sitting in, and that her brother was
playing with a Gi Joe jeep in his room, right
down to the exact clothes they were all wearing. Everything
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was correct. Perhaps the most powerful account he shared was
about a woman named Vicki who had been blind since birth.
She was in a car crash and had a near
death experience, and in this experience, for the very first
time in her life, she could see her spirit floated
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out of her body, and she clearly saw the resuscitation efforts.
She saw trees and birds for the very first time.
When she was revived and her spirit returned to her body,
she was blind once again. Medical researchers who studied her
case said it was impossible based on our current understanding
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of medicine. These incredible, verifiable accounts are the perfect starting
point for our deep dive today into a subject that
is both profoundly comforting and incredibly evidential the connection between
children and the afterlife. We've just heard stories of children
having near death experiences, and we will explore those even
(04:23):
more deeply later on today. But the connection goes much
further than that. Can children see spirits? Do they remember
a time before they were born? Are their imaginary friends
always imaginary? The evidence suggests that children, in their innocence
and openness, are some of the clearest channels that we
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have to the world beyond. Think about what it's like
to be a small child from birth to the age
of seven. A child's mind is like a sponge. Everything
is possible. They haven't yet built up the layers of skepticism, doubt,
and what society teaches us, you know, that heavy stuff.
We adults carry, that little voice in our head, the
(05:08):
ego that tells us what's real and what's not, simply
isn't fully formed yet. This makes children wide open to
experiences that we adults might dismiss. Mediums often say that
communication from spirit comes through our feelings and our imagination,
two faculties that are incredibly strong and unfiltered. In a
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young child, they don't have the fear of being wrong
or worry about what others might think, so, they just report,
matter of factly, what they see and hear. This brings
us to the common phenomena of the imaginary friend. While
many are surely products of a creative mind, countless stories
suggest that sometimes these friends are very, very real. A
(05:57):
lawyer named Rachel Rogers shared a story worry about her
three year old son, Thomas. One night, as she was
putting him to bed, he pointed to an empty spot
in the room and said, that man's right there, Mama,
standing next to you. He's the one that comes to
play with me, as you can imagine, mom. Rachel was terrified.
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She saw nothing. She tried to dismiss it, but Thomas insisted,
even describing the man as older, tall, and wearing glasses.
The next day, trying to understand, she asked Thomas to
draw a picture of the man. He grabbed a pencil
and scribbled a stick figure wearing a pair of thick,
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black rimmed glasses. This continued for months. Thomas would see
and play with this man, and his mother, though trying
to be open minded, was baffled and a little spooked.
The breakthrough came when Rachel started researching her family tree.
An aunt sent her a collection of old family photos
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she'd never seen before. As she was looking through them,
her son Thomas walked into the room, glanced at an
old wedding picture and pointed, that's him. He said, matter
of factly, that's the man who comes to play with me.
Rachel said, the hairs on the back of her neck
stood up. The man in the picture with his big,
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thick rimmed glasses was her grandmother's second husband, her great
great grandfather, who had died when she was only sixteen.
There was no way Thomas could have known him, or
seen a picture of him, or described him so accurately.
He was seeing and playing with a loving relative from
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the spirit world. This kind of specific evidential information is
powerful when it comes from a child. Another mother, Tricia Jordan,
shared that her son Luca, began seeing his late grandmother
when he was just a baby. Tricia's grandmother passed away
when Luca was only eighteen months old, just as he
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was starting to speak. She said, the first thing he
told me was how Granny would tuck him into bed
every night. At first, it scared her and she would
change the subject. But the most chilling and undeniable piece
of evidence came through a song. Luca began singing a
song called the Big Ship Sails on the Alley Allio,
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over and over again, telling his mom that Granny was
there with him. Here's the thing, Tricia had never sung
that song to him. It was a special song that
her grandmother always had sung to her when she was
a child, and there was absolutely no way little Luca
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could have known about it. As Luca got older, his
abilities continued. At the age of four, they were passing
a house near their home when Luca pointed and said
that a man named Martin used to live there, but
that he died in a fire. His mother, shocked, did
some research and discovered that was true. A man named
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Martin had indeed lived in that house and had died
in the fire. Tricia said, I've always believed in the
afterlife a little bit, but what I have seen with
Luca blew my mind. It made me believe completely. These
accounts go beyond just seeing spirits. Some children seemed to
retain memories of a time before they were born into
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this life. These are called before life memories. A friend
of mine shared a story just after my book came out,
and I assumed he would think my investigations were strange,
but the opposite was true. He told me that when
his daughter was very little, she would often talk about
why she picked him and his wife to be her parents.
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One day, she looked at her mother and said, you
don't have curly hair or glasses anymore. The little girl
had never been shown a single picture of her mother
from before she met her husband, when she had permed
curly hair and yes, wore glasses. In the book Life
Before Life, the authors share the story of a little
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boy named Desmond. At three and a half, he told
his mother, you know, Mommy, before I came to be
with you, I was with Auntie Ruth. He couldn't have
known his Auntie Ruth had suffered a stillborn baby ten
years earlier. The family never mentioned it. He talked about
a place he called home, where the fields and other
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children and big people were there, and they all took
care of him. He described playing in pools where they
didn't sink and never got wet, and where the water
played songs for us, but not with words. He even
described how he was taught to make flower hours sing
just by thinking about them, and they would appear in
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the colors. He wanted and start to play music. As
Desmond got older, these memories faded, but for a few
precious years he held a clear connection to the world
he had come from. These stories of children seeing relatives
they never met, knowing songs they were never taught, and
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remembering a life before this one, to me, are profoundly evidential.
They show us that the veil between worlds is at
its thinnest when we are young, before life teaches us
to stop believing in the magic that surrounds us. And
you know, it's not just imaginary friends or memories from before.
Sometimes children have a direct window into the spirit world
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at the end of their lives. I'm reminded of a
powerful story about a young boy in hospice. He kept
complaining to his nurse about the noise coming from the
corner of his room. The nurse, seeing no one, ask
him who's making all the noise. The little boy gave
the names of three children. When the nurse checked later
the records, she discovered that those three children had all
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passed away in that very same room before he had
even arrived. It's stories like these, so simple, so direct,
with details the child could just never know that make
this evidence so believable. They don't have a reason to
make these things up. They haven't had a lifetime to
build up layers of doubt or expectation. They just tell
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us what they see, purely and honestly. But what happens
when children themselves have a brush with death? The stories
they bring back are some of the most powerful and
scientifically studied evidence we have. Will explore the incredible world
of children's near death experiences when we return. For any
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parent who has a child in the next world, a
wonderful and healing resource I always recommend is our friends
at helping parents heal. Let's go to the break and
we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm
(13:32):
Sandra Champlain. Before the break, we talked about how a
child's mind is wide open, making them clear channels to
the spirit world. We heard amazing stories of children seeing
relatives that they have never met, knowing special family songs
they were never taught, and even remembering a life before
they were born. Their stories are some of the purest
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proof we have because they come from a place of
complete innocence. So this brings us to one of the
most powerful and scientifically studied of all areas. That's children's
near death experiences. When a child has a brush with
death and they come back, the stories they tell are breathtaking.
Skeptics often try to explain our adult endes by saying
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they are just byproducts of a religious belief or maybe
what we expect to happen. But what about a three
year old or a five year old. Children are too
young to have formed complex ideas about life, death, and
the afterlife. They haven't been told what they're supposed to see.
They simply report what happens to them, and that makes
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their accounts incredibly more evidential and very powerful. I'll never
forget a story a man told me on an airplane
many years ago. He was at a campground with his
two young sons. When he was helping his younger son
in the restroom, His four year old son, who was
so eager to learn how to swim, wandered down to
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the lake. The father came out, realized his son was
gone and found him floating in the water. He pulled
him out, revived him, and rushed him to the hospital.
When the little boy woke up, he wasn't scared at all.
He looked at his dad and told him not to worry,
that he was with the big face in the sun,
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and that this big face told him it wasn't his
time to go. That one experience shaped this boy for
the rest of his life. His father told me that
as the boy grew up, he had an overwhelming constant
urge to always help people. And that's a change we
see so often in all people who have had these experiences.
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They come back with a deep sense of purpose and
a desire to give. For many years, the leading researcher
in this field was pediatrician dot Org Melvin Morse. He
was voted one of America's best doctors and was an
associate professor at the University of Washington for twenty years.
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It's important to know that he wasn't a mystic or
a spiritual guru. He was a scientist, a man who
had done research on brain tumors and tested medicines on laborats.
He was grounded in practical medicine, which is what makes
his story so compelling. He didn't go out seeking this
phenomena it found him, and it completely changed the course
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of his life. It all started with a nine year
old girl named Crystal. As a young doctor Morse was
working in the intensive care unit when Crystal was brought in.
She had been found floating face down in a swimming pool.
Her body was lifeless, her brain was showing massive swelling,
and in the direct language of the emergency room, doctor
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Morse said she was a train wreck. He guess she
only had about a ten percent chance of surviving. As
he was trying to insert a line into her artery,
which was a very difficult procedure. Her family asked if
they could hold a prayer vigil around her bed. Doctor
Morse thought to himself, why not, She's going to die anyway.
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As the family prayed calmly, he was thinking, how can
they be so calm? Isn't it obvious she's about to die.
Three days later, and against all odds, Crystal made a
full recovery. When she was well enough for a follow
up exam, doctor Morris asked her what she remembered. He
was amazed to find a normal, healthy, nine year old girl.
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She even remembered him telling her mother, that's the one
with the beard. She accurately described the other doctors who
had worked on her and many of the medical procedures
she had gone through, like having a tube down her nose.
All things had happened while she was deep in a
coma with her eyes closed. Doctor Morris asked her an
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open ended question, what do you remember about being in
the swimming pool? Crystal's reply changed his life. She said,
do you mean when I visited the Heavenly Father. At
their next meeting, Cristel told him everything she remembered, a
feeling of darkness, then a tunnel opening up. A guide
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she called Elizabeth, who was tall and had golden hair.
Elizabeth took her up a tunnel where she met her grandfather,
who had passed away. She also met two young boys
souls waiting to be born. They were named Andy and Mark.
She said. They played with her and introduced her to
many people. Then she was given a glimpse of her home.
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She watched her brothers and sisters playing in their rooms.
One brother was playing with his truck, her sister was
combing a barbie doll's hair while singing a rock song.
She saw her mother in the kitchen cooking chicken and rice,
and her father sitting quietly on the couch. Later, when
she told her parents this, they were shocked. Of course,
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she too described the clothes they were wearing, where they
were in the house, and even the exact meal her
mother was making, all with perfect accuracy. Finally, her guide, Elizabeth,
took her to meet Jesus and the Heavenly Father. The
Heavenly Father asked if she wanted to go home. Crystal
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cried and said she wanted to stay. Then Jesus asked
if she wanted to see her mother again. She said yes,
and then she woke up. Doctor Morse was so compelled
by her story that he went to the nurses, who
confirmed that her very first words when she woke up
were where are Mark and Andy? Doctor Morris had found
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his life's work. Another powerful story from doctor Morse's research
is about a ten year old boy named Chris. He
had sidney transplant, but afterward developed a severe infection that
invaded his heart. During emergency heart surgery, young Chris died
and was revived. The moment he woke up, he couldn't
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wait to tell his mom his secret. He told her,
I've been climbing a staircase to heaven. It was such
a good and peaceful feeling. I felt wonderful. He described
climbing a dark staircase upward toward a light. He said,
I got about halfway up the staircase and I decided
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not to go any higher. I wanted to go up,
but I knew I wouldn't come back if I went
too high. That would hurt my mom and dad. Since
my little brother has already died, they wouldn't have anyone
to take care of. So this ten year old boy
in this beautiful place made the selfless choice to turn
back around and come back for his parents. Another of
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doctor Morris's stories that has with heartbreaking and beautiful is
about a seven year old boy named Kurt who had
severe muscular dystrophy and was in a constant state of
pain near the end of his life. His heart stopped
for three minutes. When he was revived, he was completely
at peace. He said that when his heart stopped, he
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found himself outside his body, watching the doctors and nurses.
He even said hi to one of the nurses, Bonnie.
Then everything went dark until he saw angels. He said,
I was in a beautiful place with flowers and rainbows,
where everything was white. He talked to several people there,
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including Jesus, who wanted him to stay. Kurt wanted to
stay two, but they decided together that he had to
come back to see his parents one more time. After
that experience, Kurt was no longer afraid to die. He
told doctor Morse he knew he was going to a
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world without pain. A few weeks later, Kurt passed away peacefully.
These experiences aren't always about floating in a beautiful garden.
Sometimes they are more dramatic, and even children describe them
with the words they have. Take the story of a
boy named Christian. He was digging a tunnel in the
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sand at the beach when the sand collapsed on him.
He said he faded and was brought up a tunnel
of brightness. Along the way, he saw parts of his life,
like a Christmas when he was only four years old.
He knew he was out of his body and close
to death. At the end of a tunnel, he saw
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a man dressed in white robes with a bright light,
who at first seemed to him like a wizard. He
also saw his friend Ryan, who had recently drowned in
a pool. The wizard spoke to him without moving his
mouth and said, son, you're too young to die. You'll
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go back. It's not your time yet. The next thing
Christian knew he was opening his eyes at the hospital. Later,
when he was scared of getting a cat scan, a
bright light appeared to him again and told him nothing's
going to happen. You're going to be okay. His mother
said that after that moment, he was completely calm and peaceful,
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telling her I saw God in the machine. These stories
shared by children from all different backgrounds are powerful. They
share the same core elements leaving the body, seeing a
tunnel and a light, and meeting loving beings, but they
are told with a purity and an honesty that's really
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hard to deny. A tunnel becomes a huge noodle with
a rainbow in it, a divine being becomes the big
face in the sun, or a wizard. They simply tell
us what they saw, ah, And what they saw is
that death is not an end, but a beautiful and
loving beginning. Sometimes these experiences happened when a child is
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too young to even report it. Take that of a
six month old baby. The baby had survived severe kidney failure,
but as he grew up, his parents noticed something strange.
He would have terrible panic attacks whenever he went through
a tunnel. They couldn't understand it. Finally, when he was
four years old, the family was talking about his grandfather
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who was about to pass away. The little boy then
said that he had died too when he was a baby.
He told them about the experience in the tunnel. In
another incredible case, a boy named Mark had a full
cardiac arrest when he was only nine months old. He
didn't speak of it until he was three, after seeing
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a Christmas play and telling his parents that God didn't
look like the man in the play. Then he described
his experience floating out of his body, seeing the doctors
working to wake him up, and then flying to the
waiting room, where he saw Grandma and Grandpa crying and
holding each other. He then went up a dark tunnel
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to a bright place where he ran through fields with God.
These stories from infants and toddlers are perhaps some of
the most powerful of all. There's no possibility of them
making them up, but some children come back with memories
that are even more specific from a memory of a
life they lived before. We'll explore the incredible world of
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children's past life memories when we return. You're listening to
Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of
(26:05):
the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We're about to explore a
fascinating and for some a very controversial topic, children who
have memories of past lives. But before we dive into
these incredible stories, I want to share something with you
from the bottom of my heart, especially if you're a
parent listening. It's important to know that most of the
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well documented cases of children with past life memories come
from Eastern cultures with families that practice religions like Buddhism
or Hinduism. Coming back for another life is a central belief. Now.
I know that for a grieving parent, the idea of
a child coming back to live another life can bring
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up a huge and painful fear. If my child comes back,
does that mean I won't see them again in the afterlife?
Does it mean they're gone forever? Please hear me on this.
I personally believe that we live in a very intelligent
and loving universe. I do not believe for one second
that the plan would be to separate you from your child.
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The bond of love between a parent and a child
is the strongest force there is, and it is never
ever broken. I one hundred percent believe you will see
your child in the afterlife, and all your loved ones
in fact. So how can both of these things be true?
Although we don't have all the answers, Perhaps only a
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small part of our soul's energy comes here for a
new experience via reincarnation. Maybe time works differently and our
loved ones can be in many places at once. What
I hold on to as an absolute truth is that
your child will be right there to greet you when
it's your time to go home. You will be together again.
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So as we listen to these incredible stories, let's hold
that truth in our hearts. Let's look at them not
as a source of fear, but as another powerful form
of proof that our soul is eternal and very intelligent,
that it cannot be destroyed, and that it continues on
in life after this life. With that in mind, let's
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talk about the groundbreaking work of a psychiatrist named doctor
Ian Stevenson. For fifty years he worked for the University
of Virginia School of Medicine, and he became known around
the world for his careful research into past lives. He
wasn't just collecting stories. Doctor Stevenson was a serious scientist.
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Over forty years, he traveled thousands of miles a year
to investigate three thousand cases of children who remembered a
past life. Doctor Stevenson found some amazing patterns that showed
up again and again. He found that most children start
talking about a past life as soon as they can speak,
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usually around the age of three. They often say that
their name is different or that their real family lives
in another town. Then these memories usually start to fade
away around the ages of seven or eight. The details
these children remember are stunning. They remember names of family members,
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what their old house look like, and even family secrets
that only people from the past family could possibly know.
In many cases, doctor Stevenson and his team would use
these details to track down the family from the child's
past life. When the child would meet this family for
the very first time, they would be able to identify
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people by name, pointing and saying that's my mother or
that's my brother. One of the most powerful and physical
pieces of proof that doctor Stephenson found has to do
with birthmarks and scars. He discovered that in many cases
where a person had died from a traumatic wound like
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a bullet or a knife wound, they would be born
into their next life with a birthmark or a scar
that was in the exact same spot as their fatal injury.
Doctor Stevenson says this is physical proof that something from
a past life can carry over to a new one,
and his research uncovered so many fascinating patterns, But one
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of the most beautiful findings I think has to do
with twins. Doctor Stevenson studied thirty one sets of twins
whose past lives were factually confirmed, and in one hundred
percent of those cases, every single one the twins had
shared a significant past life relationship. They were husbands and wives, siblings,
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or best friends. It's powerful evidence that souls may plan
to come back together to be reunited with the loved
ones they can't bear to be without. To see how
all of this can play one's family, I want to
share with you one of the most detailed and incredible
stories I've heard. It's the story of a woman named
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Susan and her young son Jamie. In America. Susan knew
from the first moment Jamie was born that he was
an old soul. His first memories of a past life
actually started when he was fascinated with trains and talked
about building railroad cars in Wyoming. But that phase passed
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and a new, much more intense one began. When he
was around three or four years old, a babysitter let
him watch the end of the movie Titanic. The very
next day, Jamie was completely absorbed by the ship. For
the next two weeks, he drew and painted over fifty
pictures of the Titanic, all from memory. But it went
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far beyond just drawing. He started talking about things a
little boy should not know. He would cry and wail
about the emergency doors in the boiler rooms that trapped
the men who shoveled the coal. He would cry to
his mom, Mama, that shouldn't have happened that way. It
was a mistake. He insisted that they had rushed the
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construction of the ship and that things were done wrong.
This obsession lasted for two years. The details were chilling.
One day, Jamie came home with the drawing of the
ship that showed smoke coming out from only three of
the four smokestacks. His mom, trying to be encouraging, said, oh,
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this is nice, honey, did you run out of time?
Why is there no smoke coming out of the fourth smokestack.
Jamie just looked at her, shook his head and said, oh, Mama,
that's a dummy stack. It's for show. It's fake. They
didn't need it. Years later, through documentaries on the ship,
his mom found out that he was exactly correct. One
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of the Titanic smokestacks was just there for looks. How
could little Jamie possibly know that? The evidence kept building.
The family got a computer game that was a mystery
set on the Titanic, where you had to find your
way around the ship. Jamie's older sister, who was a
psychology student and very skeptical, came home from the holidays.
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She thought her mom was crazy for believing in all this.
Susan told her go in and sit with him and
play that game, and then you tell me what you
think about. Twenty minutes later, the sister came running out
of the room, white as a ghost. She grabbed her
mom and said, he knows his way around the whole ship.
He's ordering me around, telling me go port go, port.
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If you go up that staircase, he'll be on the bridge,
and then you'll be on the starboard side. There's no
way he could know the layout of the ship, let
alone use nautical terms like port and starboard unless he
had been there. Jamie even talked about the construction, saying
they used iron rivets instead of steel, and that the
iron became brittle in the freezing water, which is why
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the iceberg cut such a huge hole in the side
of the ship. Again, this is a highly technical detail
that wasn't even in the movie. The experience was so
real for Jamie that he started having terrible night terrors.
He would jump out of bed and run all over
the house, opening doors looking for ways to escape. It
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was clear he was reliving something traumatic. The family hoped
a visit to the Traveling Titanic exhibit might bring him
some peace. By this time, Jamie was six years old.
When they got to the museum in Chicago. All the
other kids were running around and playing, but Jamie he
was studying every single object, staring at each one. It
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took them three hours to get through the exhibit because
he was so focused. At the end, they were each
given a card with the name of a real passenger,
and a board revealed if that person had survived. Jamie's
card was for a French Canadian architect who did not survive.
Jamie couldn't read the board yet and was frantic, saying, Mama,
(35:20):
did I make it? Did I make it? His mom
and sister just couldn't bear to tell him the truth.
His mom looked at him and said, yes, honey, you did. Look,
here's your name right here. You made it. Jamie was
so relieved and happy. They had hoped the visit would
bring him some closure, and in a way, it did,
but not before one final terrifying night. A couple of
(35:42):
weeks later, Jamie had a night terror that his mom
calls the death dream. She was home alone with him
and heard a loud pounding coming from his room. She
ran in and found her son on all fours on
his bed, shaking so violently that the metal head bore
was banging against the wall. He was staring at the floor,
(36:04):
and she knew he couldn't see her. Before she could
even move, a voice came out of him that was
not a little boy's voice at all, a man's voice.
Screamed with a terror. She couldn't describe saying, she's going down.
His mother realized in that moment, oh my god, he's
(36:25):
going through the sinking of that ship. She sat next
to him, terrified and rubbed his back until the shaking
finally stopped and he fell back asleep. The next morning
she asked him about the dream. Jamie, with his dry
sense of humor, just looked at his mom, shook his
head and said, Mama, you know the water was freezing.
(36:46):
Right after that night, the night terror stopped. He slowly
stopped talking about the Titanic, and the obsession just faded away.
It was as if by reliving that final terrible moment,
he was finally free. Years later, when asked about it,
Jamie said that the Titanic was just as familiar to
(37:08):
him as his own house. The family came to believe
he had been Thomas Andrews, the man who designed the ship,
who felt so responsible that he chose to go down
with it. If you scroll back to episodes one twenty
six seventy two, and there are some others, there's lots
and lots and lots and lots of stories of children
(37:30):
and their past life memories, and as incredible as these
stories sound. They are another powerful form of evidence for
the survival of the soul. They show us that children
may have lived lives before and that the soul's journey
is a continuous one. But what about the parents who
(37:52):
are here now missing their child? Are their ways for
them to actively can and communicate? Are there ways for
all of us to actively connect and communicate with our
loved ones no matter what the age. We'll explore a
couple communication methods when we get back. You are listening
(38:15):
to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:42):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sanders Champlain. During our time together,
we've been on a journey hearing some of the powerful
and evidential stories of the afterlife through the eyes of children.
We've heard their nd stories and memories of seeing loved ones,
and even their memories of life they lived before. These
(39:03):
stories give us proof that our soul is eternal and
that death is not the end. But for a parent
who is grieving, or anyone missing their loved one, the
next and most important question is how can I connect
with my loved one? How can I know they're okay,
how can I continue our relationship. In this final segment,
(39:26):
I want to move from evidence to empowerment. I want
to share a few different methods that other grieving parents
have used to build and maintain an ongoing connection with
their children in the spirit world. There are many more ways,
as you may have heard in our last episode. Together.
These practices are not things that require you to be
(39:47):
a medium. You just need a little patience and an
open mind and love in your heart. The first method
is a powerful technique called automatic writing. This comes from
the story of doctor mi and Matthew McKay, a psychology
professor who was a complete skeptic about the afterlife until
his son Jordan, was tragically killed. Consumed with the need
(40:09):
to know if his son still existed and was okay,
doctor McKay went on a journey that led him to
this form of communication. It allows him to have a
two way conversation with his son, just like they used
to at the kitchen table. He learned that this is
something we can all do. It's about quieting our busy,
(40:30):
analytical mind just long enough to allow the thoughts and
feelings from our loved ones to come through. Doctor McKay
laid out a simple, step by step process I want
to share with you now. First, create a safe space.
Find a quiet place in your home where you feel
secure and he won't be disturbed. For him, it was
his childhood desk. For you, it might be a comfy
(40:52):
chair or a spot in the garden. Make it your
special place for connection. Second, set your intention. Simply verify
in your mind who you want to talk to. You
can say it out loud or just think it. I
want to connect with my son Jordan, or I'm open
to connect with my daughter Sarah. Third, use a personal object.
(41:13):
Doctor McKay found it helpful to hold on to something
that connected him to his son. He used a funny
business card Jordan had made in high school. You might
hold a favorite toy, piece of jewelry, a photograph. The
physical object can act as an anchor a way to
focus your love and energy. Fourth, use a candle for focus.
(41:33):
You can light a candle and place it in front
of you. This gives the eyes something to rest on
and helps to quiet the visual distractions around you. Fifth,
do a simple breathing meditation. This is the most important
part for quieting that busy mind. Close your eyes or
softly gaze at the candle. Bring all of your attention
(41:55):
to your breathing. As you exhale, count one. On the
next exhale, count two, and so on all the way
to ten. If your mind wanders, just gently bring your
focus back to your breath and start counting again. Do
this a few rounds until you feel a sense of
calm and openness. Sixth, visualize the connection while you're in
(42:21):
this quiet state. Imagine a ball of light, like a
little sun, about six inches above your head. Then see
that ball of light stretch out into a tube or
beam that connects from you to the soul of your child.
This is you opening up the channel with your intention. Finally,
(42:41):
begin to write. Open a notebook or your computer and
write down your first question. It can be simple, are
you here with me? Or what are you doing now?
Or I miss you so much today? Then just wait.
The answer will show up in your mind. It might
come a few distinct words, a full sentence, or just
(43:03):
a feeling or an image. Whatever it is, Your only
job is to write it down without judging it. Don't
stop to analyze it, don't ask it did I just
make that up? Just let the pen or your fingertips flow.
The act of writing itself helps keep you in that open,
receptive state. When the flow of thoughts stop, you can
(43:23):
write your next question. The biggest hurdle for all of
us is doubt. That little voice will jump in and
say this is crazy, I'm just talking to myself. Doctor
McKay says he still feels that doubt even after fifteen years.
The secret, he says, is just keep going, acknowledge the doubt,
and then just push through it. Your love for your
(43:43):
child or loved one is stronger than your doubt. Over time,
as you feel your journal, you will look back and
see some of the beautiful wisdom the unique personality of
your loved one in the words on the page, and
doubt will begin to fade. I always say, in the beginning,
could seem like ninety nine percent us in one percent them.
(44:04):
In time they get to practice, and that percentage will
be greater and greater. Now, if a structured writing practice
feels like too much, there's another more feeling based way
to connect. This is the path that Maria pay took
after the unimaginable loss of her two sons, Sean and Kyle.
A friend guided her to a shaman who taught her
(44:26):
how to find her sons in her mind's eye through
a form of guided meditation. Her journey starts out even
more simply. Her teacher told her just go sit outside,
close your eyes and just focus on listening. Listening to
a bird, a dog in the distance, the traffic. Just listen.
(44:46):
She found that giving her thinking brain a simple job
to do listening allowed the rest of her being to
relax and receive. It was in those quiet moments that
she first started to fee the presence of her boys again.
From there, she learned to create a special safe place
in her imagination, a place she called the Upper Realm.
(45:11):
It was a beautiful garden where she knew she could
go to and meet with her sons. The meetings she
had there were so real, so vivid, that they felt
more real than her everyday life. Imagine this for yourself.
She describes walking into a garden and seeing her boys
crying with emotion. She goes to them and they put
(45:34):
their arms around her. They sit at a table together
and she watches them peel and eat their favorite fruits.
She tells them, I miss you so much, and they
hold her, stroking her hair, saying It's okay, mom. We're
always with you. You don't ever have to worry about us,
but we worry about you. This is the kind of deep, loving,
(45:56):
and healing connection that is possible when we create a
sacred space in our minds and invite our loved ones
in now. Both of these methods involve setting aside a
special time to actively seek connection. But what if connection
could come to us in those quiet, magical moments that
we all experience every day. That brings us to a
(46:17):
third beautiful practice, a method shared by psychologist and dream
expert doctor Janet peter Lado. She calls it entering the
dream Gate. The dream gate isn't just about nighttime dreams.
It's about that soft, gentle space between being fully awake
and fully asleep. It's at twilight time in the morning,
(46:38):
when you're just starting to wake up, or at night
when you're just starting to drift off. In those moments,
our busy logical mind hasn't fully taken over yet, and
we are incredibly open to the spirit world. Doctor Janet
offers a simple way to practice this. Set your alarm
clock with a soft, gentle sound and like chimes for
(47:01):
about twenty minutes before you actually need to get out
of bed. When it goes off, the most important thing
is don't move, stay perfectly still with your eyes closed,
and simply ask yourself questions, where was I, what was
I doing, who was I with, and how do I feel?
(47:22):
Then pay attention to whatever pops into your head. It
might be a fragment of a dream, or it might
be a brand new scene that appears in your mind.
Maybe you see yourself at your grandmother's kitchen table, maybe
you're walking on the beach with your child. Whatever it is,
your job is to treat it as real. And this
is the most important part of her advice, she says.
(47:44):
When people tell her, oh, it's just my imagination, she
tells them to stop cut out the just She says, yes,
it's my imagination, and thank god I have it because
it's the tool that allows me to connect. The imagination
is not a lie. It's a key to the dream gate.
She says. It's the language of the soul. Doctor Janet
(48:07):
shared a powerful story of how this works. Twenty five
years after her daughter Jeanette passed away. She was in
that in between state one morning when she saw her
daughter standing by the window. She was physical, she was warm,
and she hugged her mom. Jeanette said, don't forget me, mommy,
and then said, thank you Daddy for saving my pony.
(48:29):
Doctor Janet had no idea what she meant. Later that day,
she asked her husband about it. It turned out that
as they were clearing out boxes of old toys, he
had been secretly saving one thing without telling her, Jeanette's
beloved my little pony toy. Her daughter had come through
the dream gate with a piece of information that no
(48:52):
one else could have known. These methods, automatic writing, guided journeying,
and entering the dream gate all show us that the
relationship with our loved ones does not end. The love
is still there, the connection is still there, and communication
is one hundred percent absolutely possible. We just need to
(49:13):
learn to listen in a new way. Our bonds are eternal,
our loved ones are okay, children are growing and learning,
and most importantly, they're all waiting for us. They want
us to live our lives fully, to find joy again,
but also to know that they're right by our side,
loving and supporting us in every step we take. My friend,
(49:36):
our time together is just about up for today. As
a reminder, come visit me at we Don't Die dot
com come to one of our free Sunday gatherings with
medium demonstration included. If you don't have a copy of
my book yet, you can just enter your name and
your email address at the bottom of the website page.
There you can go to Shades ofthe Afterlife dot com
(49:58):
and scrolled through two hundred plus episodes and find episodes
that interest you. I appreciate your time, I appreciate you
being on this journey, and I'll continue to give you
everything I've got to let you know that your loved
ones are alive, you will see them again. They are
part of your life, and that your life matters. It
(50:19):
reminds me of the beautiful words A ship in a
harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are
built for. Your life is that ship. It is meant
for the journey, for the experiences, for the love. Go
live it fully knowing they are always with you. I'm
Sandra Champlain. Thank you for listening to Shades of the
(50:40):
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast, a paranormal
podcast network.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast
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They invite you to enjoy all our shows we have
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of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast, AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Episode will discuss the reasons we now know that our
(01:04):
loved ones have survived physical death and so will we
Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Before we dive into
our main topic today, I want to share some afterlife news.
On a recent interview, author and investigative journalist Lee Strobel
shared a collection of powerful, verifiable stories that provide stunning
(01:26):
evidence for the survival of consciousness. He spoke about the
nature of near death experiences, where a person is clinically dead,
often with no heartbeat or brain waves, yet their consciousness
continues to function. The most compelling evidence comes from cases
where people have an out of body experience and see
(01:49):
or hear things that it would be impossible for them
to know. Strobells shared the story of a woman named Maria.
While doctors were working to revive her clinically body in
a hospital, she said her spirit floated out, floated up,
and she found herself looking down from the ceiling. When
(02:09):
she was revived, she told the staff that there was
a red sticker on top of one of the ceiling
fan blades. Of course, no one could see that from
the ground, so they got a ladder, climbed up, and
sure enough, there was the red sticker, exactly as she
had described. He told another even more detailed story about
(02:33):
a nine year old girl who drowned in a Ymca
swimming pool. She was clinically dead for three days with
her brain swollen, before she was miraculously revived with no damage.
The skeptical doctors gave her a crayon and paper and
asked her to draw the emergency room where they had
(02:55):
worked on her. She drew it perfectly, but then she added,
by the way I followed my parents home that night,
She described exactly what her mom was cooking, what chair
her dad was sitting in, and that her brother was
playing with a Gi Joe jeep in his room, right
down to the exact clothes they were all wearing. Everything
(03:19):
was correct. Perhaps the most powerful account he shared was
about a woman named Vicki who had been blind since birth.
She was in a car crash and had a near
death experience, and in this experience, for the very first
time in her life, she could see her spirit floated
(03:39):
out of her body, and she clearly saw the resuscitation efforts.
She saw trees and birds for the very first time.
When she was revived and her spirit returned to her body,
she was blind once again. Medical researchers who studied her
case said it was impossible based on our current understanding
(03:59):
of medicine. These incredible, verifiable accounts are the perfect starting
point for our deep dive today into a subject that
is both profoundly comforting and incredibly evidential the connection between
children and the afterlife. We've just heard stories of children
having near death experiences, and we will explore those even
(04:23):
more deeply later on today. But the connection goes much
further than that. Can children see spirits? Do they remember
a time before they were born? Are their imaginary friends
always imaginary? The evidence suggests that children, in their innocence
and openness, are some of the clearest channels that we
(04:46):
have to the world beyond. Think about what it's like
to be a small child from birth to the age
of seven. A child's mind is like a sponge. Everything
is possible. They haven't yet built up the layers of skepticism, doubt,
and what society teaches us, you know, that heavy stuff.
We adults carry, that little voice in our head, the
(05:08):
ego that tells us what's real and what's not, simply
isn't fully formed yet. This makes children wide open to
experiences that we adults might dismiss. Mediums often say that
communication from spirit comes through our feelings and our imagination,
two faculties that are incredibly strong and unfiltered. In a
(05:32):
young child, they don't have the fear of being wrong
or worry about what others might think, so, they just report,
matter of factly, what they see and hear. This brings
us to the common phenomena of the imaginary friend. While
many are surely products of a creative mind, countless stories
suggest that sometimes these friends are very, very real. A
(05:57):
lawyer named Rachel Rogers shared a story worry about her
three year old son, Thomas. One night, as she was
putting him to bed, he pointed to an empty spot
in the room and said, that man's right there, Mama,
standing next to you. He's the one that comes to
play with me, as you can imagine, mom. Rachel was terrified.
(06:18):
She saw nothing. She tried to dismiss it, but Thomas insisted,
even describing the man as older, tall, and wearing glasses.
The next day, trying to understand, she asked Thomas to
draw a picture of the man. He grabbed a pencil
and scribbled a stick figure wearing a pair of thick,
(06:39):
black rimmed glasses. This continued for months. Thomas would see
and play with this man, and his mother, though trying
to be open minded, was baffled and a little spooked.
The breakthrough came when Rachel started researching her family tree.
An aunt sent her a collection of old family photos
(07:02):
she'd never seen before. As she was looking through them,
her son Thomas walked into the room, glanced at an
old wedding picture and pointed, that's him. He said, matter
of factly, that's the man who comes to play with me.
Rachel said, the hairs on the back of her neck
stood up. The man in the picture with his big,
(07:25):
thick rimmed glasses was her grandmother's second husband, her great
great grandfather, who had died when she was only sixteen.
There was no way Thomas could have known him, or
seen a picture of him, or described him so accurately.
He was seeing and playing with a loving relative from
(07:48):
the spirit world. This kind of specific evidential information is
powerful when it comes from a child. Another mother, Tricia Jordan,
shared that her son Luca, began seeing his late grandmother
when he was just a baby. Tricia's grandmother passed away
when Luca was only eighteen months old, just as he
(08:08):
was starting to speak. She said, the first thing he
told me was how Granny would tuck him into bed
every night. At first, it scared her and she would
change the subject. But the most chilling and undeniable piece
of evidence came through a song. Luca began singing a
song called the Big Ship Sails on the Alley Allio,
(08:30):
over and over again, telling his mom that Granny was
there with him. Here's the thing, Tricia had never sung
that song to him. It was a special song that
her grandmother always had sung to her when she was
a child, and there was absolutely no way little Luca
(08:51):
could have known about it. As Luca got older, his
abilities continued. At the age of four, they were passing
a house near their home when Luca pointed and said
that a man named Martin used to live there, but
that he died in a fire. His mother, shocked, did
some research and discovered that was true. A man named
(09:14):
Martin had indeed lived in that house and had died
in the fire. Tricia said, I've always believed in the
afterlife a little bit, but what I have seen with
Luca blew my mind. It made me believe completely. These
accounts go beyond just seeing spirits. Some children seemed to
retain memories of a time before they were born into
(09:36):
this life. These are called before life memories. A friend
of mine shared a story just after my book came out,
and I assumed he would think my investigations were strange,
but the opposite was true. He told me that when
his daughter was very little, she would often talk about
why she picked him and his wife to be her parents.
(09:58):
One day, she looked at her mother and said, you
don't have curly hair or glasses anymore. The little girl
had never been shown a single picture of her mother
from before she met her husband, when she had permed
curly hair and yes, wore glasses. In the book Life
Before Life, the authors share the story of a little
(10:20):
boy named Desmond. At three and a half, he told
his mother, you know, Mommy, before I came to be
with you, I was with Auntie Ruth. He couldn't have
known his Auntie Ruth had suffered a stillborn baby ten
years earlier. The family never mentioned it. He talked about
a place he called home, where the fields and other
(10:42):
children and big people were there, and they all took
care of him. He described playing in pools where they
didn't sink and never got wet, and where the water
played songs for us, but not with words. He even
described how he was taught to make flower hours sing
just by thinking about them, and they would appear in
(11:04):
the colors. He wanted and start to play music. As
Desmond got older, these memories faded, but for a few
precious years he held a clear connection to the world
he had come from. These stories of children seeing relatives
they never met, knowing songs they were never taught, and
(11:24):
remembering a life before this one, to me, are profoundly evidential.
They show us that the veil between worlds is at
its thinnest when we are young, before life teaches us
to stop believing in the magic that surrounds us. And
you know, it's not just imaginary friends or memories from before.
Sometimes children have a direct window into the spirit world
(11:47):
at the end of their lives. I'm reminded of a
powerful story about a young boy in hospice. He kept
complaining to his nurse about the noise coming from the
corner of his room. The nurse, seeing no one, ask
him who's making all the noise. The little boy gave
the names of three children. When the nurse checked later
the records, she discovered that those three children had all
(12:10):
passed away in that very same room before he had
even arrived. It's stories like these, so simple, so direct,
with details the child could just never know that make
this evidence so believable. They don't have a reason to
make these things up. They haven't had a lifetime to
build up layers of doubt or expectation. They just tell
(12:31):
us what they see, purely and honestly. But what happens
when children themselves have a brush with death? The stories
they bring back are some of the most powerful and
scientifically studied evidence we have. Will explore the incredible world
of children's near death experiences when we return. For any
(12:51):
parent who has a child in the next world, a
wonderful and healing resource I always recommend is our friends
at helping parents heal. Let's go to the break and
we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm
(13:32):
Sandra Champlain. Before the break, we talked about how a
child's mind is wide open, making them clear channels to
the spirit world. We heard amazing stories of children seeing
relatives that they have never met, knowing special family songs
they were never taught, and even remembering a life before
they were born. Their stories are some of the purest
(13:55):
proof we have because they come from a place of
complete innocence. So this brings us to one of the
most powerful and scientifically studied of all areas. That's children's
near death experiences. When a child has a brush with
death and they come back, the stories they tell are breathtaking.
Skeptics often try to explain our adult endes by saying
(14:19):
they are just byproducts of a religious belief or maybe
what we expect to happen. But what about a three
year old or a five year old. Children are too
young to have formed complex ideas about life, death, and
the afterlife. They haven't been told what they're supposed to see.
They simply report what happens to them, and that makes
(14:42):
their accounts incredibly more evidential and very powerful. I'll never
forget a story a man told me on an airplane
many years ago. He was at a campground with his
two young sons. When he was helping his younger son
in the restroom, His four year old son, who was
so eager to learn how to swim, wandered down to
(15:03):
the lake. The father came out, realized his son was
gone and found him floating in the water. He pulled
him out, revived him, and rushed him to the hospital.
When the little boy woke up, he wasn't scared at all.
He looked at his dad and told him not to worry,
that he was with the big face in the sun,
(15:26):
and that this big face told him it wasn't his
time to go. That one experience shaped this boy for
the rest of his life. His father told me that
as the boy grew up, he had an overwhelming constant
urge to always help people. And that's a change we
see so often in all people who have had these experiences.
(15:49):
They come back with a deep sense of purpose and
a desire to give. For many years, the leading researcher
in this field was pediatrician dot Org Melvin Morse. He
was voted one of America's best doctors and was an
associate professor at the University of Washington for twenty years.
(16:10):
It's important to know that he wasn't a mystic or
a spiritual guru. He was a scientist, a man who
had done research on brain tumors and tested medicines on laborats.
He was grounded in practical medicine, which is what makes
his story so compelling. He didn't go out seeking this
phenomena it found him, and it completely changed the course
(16:34):
of his life. It all started with a nine year
old girl named Crystal. As a young doctor Morse was
working in the intensive care unit when Crystal was brought in.
She had been found floating face down in a swimming pool.
Her body was lifeless, her brain was showing massive swelling,
and in the direct language of the emergency room, doctor
(16:57):
Morse said she was a train wreck. He guess she
only had about a ten percent chance of surviving. As
he was trying to insert a line into her artery,
which was a very difficult procedure. Her family asked if
they could hold a prayer vigil around her bed. Doctor
Morse thought to himself, why not, She's going to die anyway.
(17:19):
As the family prayed calmly, he was thinking, how can
they be so calm? Isn't it obvious she's about to die.
Three days later, and against all odds, Crystal made a
full recovery. When she was well enough for a follow
up exam, doctor Morris asked her what she remembered. He
was amazed to find a normal, healthy, nine year old girl.
(17:41):
She even remembered him telling her mother, that's the one
with the beard. She accurately described the other doctors who
had worked on her and many of the medical procedures
she had gone through, like having a tube down her nose.
All things had happened while she was deep in a
coma with her eyes closed. Doctor Morris asked her an
(18:01):
open ended question, what do you remember about being in
the swimming pool? Crystal's reply changed his life. She said,
do you mean when I visited the Heavenly Father. At
their next meeting, Cristel told him everything she remembered, a
feeling of darkness, then a tunnel opening up. A guide
(18:22):
she called Elizabeth, who was tall and had golden hair.
Elizabeth took her up a tunnel where she met her grandfather,
who had passed away. She also met two young boys
souls waiting to be born. They were named Andy and Mark.
She said. They played with her and introduced her to
many people. Then she was given a glimpse of her home.
(18:45):
She watched her brothers and sisters playing in their rooms.
One brother was playing with his truck, her sister was
combing a barbie doll's hair while singing a rock song.
She saw her mother in the kitchen cooking chicken and rice,
and her father sitting quietly on the couch. Later, when
she told her parents this, they were shocked. Of course,
(19:07):
she too described the clothes they were wearing, where they
were in the house, and even the exact meal her
mother was making, all with perfect accuracy. Finally, her guide, Elizabeth,
took her to meet Jesus and the Heavenly Father. The
Heavenly Father asked if she wanted to go home. Crystal
(19:27):
cried and said she wanted to stay. Then Jesus asked
if she wanted to see her mother again. She said yes,
and then she woke up. Doctor Morse was so compelled
by her story that he went to the nurses, who
confirmed that her very first words when she woke up
were where are Mark and Andy? Doctor Morris had found
(19:51):
his life's work. Another powerful story from doctor Morse's research
is about a ten year old boy named Chris. He
had sidney transplant, but afterward developed a severe infection that
invaded his heart. During emergency heart surgery, young Chris died
and was revived. The moment he woke up, he couldn't
(20:13):
wait to tell his mom his secret. He told her,
I've been climbing a staircase to heaven. It was such
a good and peaceful feeling. I felt wonderful. He described
climbing a dark staircase upward toward a light. He said,
I got about halfway up the staircase and I decided
(20:34):
not to go any higher. I wanted to go up,
but I knew I wouldn't come back if I went
too high. That would hurt my mom and dad. Since
my little brother has already died, they wouldn't have anyone
to take care of. So this ten year old boy
in this beautiful place made the selfless choice to turn
back around and come back for his parents. Another of
(20:57):
doctor Morris's stories that has with heartbreaking and beautiful is
about a seven year old boy named Kurt who had
severe muscular dystrophy and was in a constant state of
pain near the end of his life. His heart stopped
for three minutes. When he was revived, he was completely
at peace. He said that when his heart stopped, he
(21:19):
found himself outside his body, watching the doctors and nurses.
He even said hi to one of the nurses, Bonnie.
Then everything went dark until he saw angels. He said,
I was in a beautiful place with flowers and rainbows,
where everything was white. He talked to several people there,
(21:40):
including Jesus, who wanted him to stay. Kurt wanted to
stay two, but they decided together that he had to
come back to see his parents one more time. After
that experience, Kurt was no longer afraid to die. He
told doctor Morse he knew he was going to a
(22:00):
world without pain. A few weeks later, Kurt passed away peacefully.
These experiences aren't always about floating in a beautiful garden.
Sometimes they are more dramatic, and even children describe them
with the words they have. Take the story of a
boy named Christian. He was digging a tunnel in the
(22:21):
sand at the beach when the sand collapsed on him.
He said he faded and was brought up a tunnel
of brightness. Along the way, he saw parts of his life,
like a Christmas when he was only four years old.
He knew he was out of his body and close
to death. At the end of a tunnel, he saw
(22:42):
a man dressed in white robes with a bright light,
who at first seemed to him like a wizard. He
also saw his friend Ryan, who had recently drowned in
a pool. The wizard spoke to him without moving his
mouth and said, son, you're too young to die. You'll
(23:03):
go back. It's not your time yet. The next thing
Christian knew he was opening his eyes at the hospital. Later,
when he was scared of getting a cat scan, a
bright light appeared to him again and told him nothing's
going to happen. You're going to be okay. His mother
said that after that moment, he was completely calm and peaceful,
(23:27):
telling her I saw God in the machine. These stories
shared by children from all different backgrounds are powerful. They
share the same core elements leaving the body, seeing a
tunnel and a light, and meeting loving beings, but they
are told with a purity and an honesty that's really
(23:48):
hard to deny. A tunnel becomes a huge noodle with
a rainbow in it, a divine being becomes the big
face in the sun, or a wizard. They simply tell
us what they saw, ah, And what they saw is
that death is not an end, but a beautiful and
loving beginning. Sometimes these experiences happened when a child is
(24:10):
too young to even report it. Take that of a
six month old baby. The baby had survived severe kidney failure,
but as he grew up, his parents noticed something strange.
He would have terrible panic attacks whenever he went through
a tunnel. They couldn't understand it. Finally, when he was
four years old, the family was talking about his grandfather
(24:32):
who was about to pass away. The little boy then
said that he had died too when he was a baby.
He told them about the experience in the tunnel. In
another incredible case, a boy named Mark had a full
cardiac arrest when he was only nine months old. He
didn't speak of it until he was three, after seeing
(24:52):
a Christmas play and telling his parents that God didn't
look like the man in the play. Then he described
his experience floating out of his body, seeing the doctors
working to wake him up, and then flying to the
waiting room, where he saw Grandma and Grandpa crying and
holding each other. He then went up a dark tunnel
(25:12):
to a bright place where he ran through fields with God.
These stories from infants and toddlers are perhaps some of
the most powerful of all. There's no possibility of them
making them up, but some children come back with memories
that are even more specific from a memory of a
life they lived before. We'll explore the incredible world of
(25:35):
children's past life memories when we return. You're listening to
Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of
(26:05):
the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We're about to explore a
fascinating and for some a very controversial topic, children who
have memories of past lives. But before we dive into
these incredible stories, I want to share something with you
from the bottom of my heart, especially if you're a
parent listening. It's important to know that most of the
(26:26):
well documented cases of children with past life memories come
from Eastern cultures with families that practice religions like Buddhism
or Hinduism. Coming back for another life is a central belief. Now.
I know that for a grieving parent, the idea of
a child coming back to live another life can bring
(26:47):
up a huge and painful fear. If my child comes back,
does that mean I won't see them again in the afterlife?
Does it mean they're gone forever? Please hear me on this.
I personally believe that we live in a very intelligent
and loving universe. I do not believe for one second
that the plan would be to separate you from your child.
(27:08):
The bond of love between a parent and a child
is the strongest force there is, and it is never
ever broken. I one hundred percent believe you will see
your child in the afterlife, and all your loved ones
in fact. So how can both of these things be true?
Although we don't have all the answers, Perhaps only a
(27:29):
small part of our soul's energy comes here for a
new experience via reincarnation. Maybe time works differently and our
loved ones can be in many places at once. What
I hold on to as an absolute truth is that
your child will be right there to greet you when
it's your time to go home. You will be together again.
(27:51):
So as we listen to these incredible stories, let's hold
that truth in our hearts. Let's look at them not
as a source of fear, but as another powerful form
of proof that our soul is eternal and very intelligent,
that it cannot be destroyed, and that it continues on
in life after this life. With that in mind, let's
(28:12):
talk about the groundbreaking work of a psychiatrist named doctor
Ian Stevenson. For fifty years he worked for the University
of Virginia School of Medicine, and he became known around
the world for his careful research into past lives. He
wasn't just collecting stories. Doctor Stevenson was a serious scientist.
(28:35):
Over forty years, he traveled thousands of miles a year
to investigate three thousand cases of children who remembered a
past life. Doctor Stevenson found some amazing patterns that showed
up again and again. He found that most children start
talking about a past life as soon as they can speak,
(28:57):
usually around the age of three. They often say that
their name is different or that their real family lives
in another town. Then these memories usually start to fade
away around the ages of seven or eight. The details
these children remember are stunning. They remember names of family members,
(29:17):
what their old house look like, and even family secrets
that only people from the past family could possibly know.
In many cases, doctor Stevenson and his team would use
these details to track down the family from the child's
past life. When the child would meet this family for
the very first time, they would be able to identify
(29:38):
people by name, pointing and saying that's my mother or
that's my brother. One of the most powerful and physical
pieces of proof that doctor Stephenson found has to do
with birthmarks and scars. He discovered that in many cases
where a person had died from a traumatic wound like
(29:59):
a bullet or a knife wound, they would be born
into their next life with a birthmark or a scar
that was in the exact same spot as their fatal injury.
Doctor Stevenson says this is physical proof that something from
a past life can carry over to a new one,
and his research uncovered so many fascinating patterns, But one
(30:21):
of the most beautiful findings I think has to do
with twins. Doctor Stevenson studied thirty one sets of twins
whose past lives were factually confirmed, and in one hundred
percent of those cases, every single one the twins had
shared a significant past life relationship. They were husbands and wives, siblings,
(30:47):
or best friends. It's powerful evidence that souls may plan
to come back together to be reunited with the loved
ones they can't bear to be without. To see how
all of this can play one's family, I want to
share with you one of the most detailed and incredible
stories I've heard. It's the story of a woman named
(31:08):
Susan and her young son Jamie. In America. Susan knew
from the first moment Jamie was born that he was
an old soul. His first memories of a past life
actually started when he was fascinated with trains and talked
about building railroad cars in Wyoming. But that phase passed
(31:29):
and a new, much more intense one began. When he
was around three or four years old, a babysitter let
him watch the end of the movie Titanic. The very
next day, Jamie was completely absorbed by the ship. For
the next two weeks, he drew and painted over fifty
pictures of the Titanic, all from memory. But it went
(31:54):
far beyond just drawing. He started talking about things a
little boy should not know. He would cry and wail
about the emergency doors in the boiler rooms that trapped
the men who shoveled the coal. He would cry to
his mom, Mama, that shouldn't have happened that way. It
was a mistake. He insisted that they had rushed the
(32:17):
construction of the ship and that things were done wrong.
This obsession lasted for two years. The details were chilling.
One day, Jamie came home with the drawing of the
ship that showed smoke coming out from only three of
the four smokestacks. His mom, trying to be encouraging, said, oh,
(32:39):
this is nice, honey, did you run out of time?
Why is there no smoke coming out of the fourth smokestack.
Jamie just looked at her, shook his head and said, oh, Mama,
that's a dummy stack. It's for show. It's fake. They
didn't need it. Years later, through documentaries on the ship,
his mom found out that he was exactly correct. One
(33:03):
of the Titanic smokestacks was just there for looks. How
could little Jamie possibly know that? The evidence kept building.
The family got a computer game that was a mystery
set on the Titanic, where you had to find your
way around the ship. Jamie's older sister, who was a
psychology student and very skeptical, came home from the holidays.
(33:26):
She thought her mom was crazy for believing in all this.
Susan told her go in and sit with him and
play that game, and then you tell me what you
think about. Twenty minutes later, the sister came running out
of the room, white as a ghost. She grabbed her
mom and said, he knows his way around the whole ship.
He's ordering me around, telling me go port go, port.
(33:50):
If you go up that staircase, he'll be on the bridge,
and then you'll be on the starboard side. There's no
way he could know the layout of the ship, let
alone use nautical terms like port and starboard unless he
had been there. Jamie even talked about the construction, saying
they used iron rivets instead of steel, and that the
iron became brittle in the freezing water, which is why
(34:13):
the iceberg cut such a huge hole in the side
of the ship. Again, this is a highly technical detail
that wasn't even in the movie. The experience was so
real for Jamie that he started having terrible night terrors.
He would jump out of bed and run all over
the house, opening doors looking for ways to escape. It
(34:33):
was clear he was reliving something traumatic. The family hoped
a visit to the Traveling Titanic exhibit might bring him
some peace. By this time, Jamie was six years old.
When they got to the museum in Chicago. All the
other kids were running around and playing, but Jamie he
was studying every single object, staring at each one. It
(34:57):
took them three hours to get through the exhibit because
he was so focused. At the end, they were each
given a card with the name of a real passenger,
and a board revealed if that person had survived. Jamie's
card was for a French Canadian architect who did not survive.
Jamie couldn't read the board yet and was frantic, saying, Mama,
(35:20):
did I make it? Did I make it? His mom
and sister just couldn't bear to tell him the truth.
His mom looked at him and said, yes, honey, you did. Look,
here's your name right here. You made it. Jamie was
so relieved and happy. They had hoped the visit would
bring him some closure, and in a way, it did,
but not before one final terrifying night. A couple of
(35:42):
weeks later, Jamie had a night terror that his mom
calls the death dream. She was home alone with him
and heard a loud pounding coming from his room. She
ran in and found her son on all fours on
his bed, shaking so violently that the metal head bore
was banging against the wall. He was staring at the floor,
(36:04):
and she knew he couldn't see her. Before she could
even move, a voice came out of him that was
not a little boy's voice at all, a man's voice.
Screamed with a terror. She couldn't describe saying, she's going down.
His mother realized in that moment, oh my god, he's
(36:25):
going through the sinking of that ship. She sat next
to him, terrified and rubbed his back until the shaking
finally stopped and he fell back asleep. The next morning
she asked him about the dream. Jamie, with his dry
sense of humor, just looked at his mom, shook his
head and said, Mama, you know the water was freezing.
(36:46):
Right after that night, the night terror stopped. He slowly
stopped talking about the Titanic, and the obsession just faded away.
It was as if by reliving that final terrible moment,
he was finally free. Years later, when asked about it,
Jamie said that the Titanic was just as familiar to
(37:08):
him as his own house. The family came to believe
he had been Thomas Andrews, the man who designed the ship,
who felt so responsible that he chose to go down
with it. If you scroll back to episodes one twenty
six seventy two, and there are some others, there's lots
and lots and lots and lots of stories of children
(37:30):
and their past life memories, and as incredible as these
stories sound. They are another powerful form of evidence for
the survival of the soul. They show us that children
may have lived lives before and that the soul's journey
is a continuous one. But what about the parents who
(37:52):
are here now missing their child? Are their ways for
them to actively can and communicate? Are there ways for
all of us to actively connect and communicate with our
loved ones no matter what the age. We'll explore a
couple communication methods when we get back. You are listening
(38:15):
to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:42):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sanders Champlain. During our time together,
we've been on a journey hearing some of the powerful
and evidential stories of the afterlife through the eyes of children.
We've heard their nd stories and memories of seeing loved ones,
and even their memories of life they lived before. These
(39:03):
stories give us proof that our soul is eternal and
that death is not the end. But for a parent
who is grieving, or anyone missing their loved one, the
next and most important question is how can I connect
with my loved one? How can I know they're okay,
how can I continue our relationship. In this final segment,
(39:26):
I want to move from evidence to empowerment. I want
to share a few different methods that other grieving parents
have used to build and maintain an ongoing connection with
their children in the spirit world. There are many more ways,
as you may have heard in our last episode. Together.
These practices are not things that require you to be
(39:47):
a medium. You just need a little patience and an
open mind and love in your heart. The first method
is a powerful technique called automatic writing. This comes from
the story of doctor mi and Matthew McKay, a psychology
professor who was a complete skeptic about the afterlife until
his son Jordan, was tragically killed. Consumed with the need
(40:09):
to know if his son still existed and was okay,
doctor McKay went on a journey that led him to
this form of communication. It allows him to have a
two way conversation with his son, just like they used
to at the kitchen table. He learned that this is
something we can all do. It's about quieting our busy,
(40:30):
analytical mind just long enough to allow the thoughts and
feelings from our loved ones to come through. Doctor McKay
laid out a simple, step by step process I want
to share with you now. First, create a safe space.
Find a quiet place in your home where you feel
secure and he won't be disturbed. For him, it was
his childhood desk. For you, it might be a comfy
(40:52):
chair or a spot in the garden. Make it your
special place for connection. Second, set your intention. Simply verify
in your mind who you want to talk to. You
can say it out loud or just think it. I
want to connect with my son Jordan, or I'm open
to connect with my daughter Sarah. Third, use a personal object.
(41:13):
Doctor McKay found it helpful to hold on to something
that connected him to his son. He used a funny
business card Jordan had made in high school. You might
hold a favorite toy, piece of jewelry, a photograph. The
physical object can act as an anchor a way to
focus your love and energy. Fourth, use a candle for focus.
(41:33):
You can light a candle and place it in front
of you. This gives the eyes something to rest on
and helps to quiet the visual distractions around you. Fifth,
do a simple breathing meditation. This is the most important
part for quieting that busy mind. Close your eyes or
softly gaze at the candle. Bring all of your attention
(41:55):
to your breathing. As you exhale, count one. On the
next exhale, count two, and so on all the way
to ten. If your mind wanders, just gently bring your
focus back to your breath and start counting again. Do
this a few rounds until you feel a sense of
calm and openness. Sixth, visualize the connection while you're in
(42:21):
this quiet state. Imagine a ball of light, like a
little sun, about six inches above your head. Then see
that ball of light stretch out into a tube or
beam that connects from you to the soul of your child.
This is you opening up the channel with your intention. Finally,
(42:41):
begin to write. Open a notebook or your computer and
write down your first question. It can be simple, are
you here with me? Or what are you doing now?
Or I miss you so much today? Then just wait.
The answer will show up in your mind. It might
come a few distinct words, a full sentence, or just
(43:03):
a feeling or an image. Whatever it is, Your only
job is to write it down without judging it. Don't
stop to analyze it, don't ask it did I just
make that up? Just let the pen or your fingertips flow.
The act of writing itself helps keep you in that open,
receptive state. When the flow of thoughts stop, you can
(43:23):
write your next question. The biggest hurdle for all of
us is doubt. That little voice will jump in and
say this is crazy, I'm just talking to myself. Doctor
McKay says he still feels that doubt even after fifteen years.
The secret, he says, is just keep going, acknowledge the doubt,
and then just push through it. Your love for your
(43:43):
child or loved one is stronger than your doubt. Over time,
as you feel your journal, you will look back and
see some of the beautiful wisdom the unique personality of
your loved one in the words on the page, and
doubt will begin to fade. I always say, in the beginning,
could seem like ninety nine percent us in one percent them.
(44:04):
In time they get to practice, and that percentage will
be greater and greater. Now, if a structured writing practice
feels like too much, there's another more feeling based way
to connect. This is the path that Maria pay took
after the unimaginable loss of her two sons, Sean and Kyle.
A friend guided her to a shaman who taught her
(44:26):
how to find her sons in her mind's eye through
a form of guided meditation. Her journey starts out even
more simply. Her teacher told her just go sit outside,
close your eyes and just focus on listening. Listening to
a bird, a dog in the distance, the traffic. Just listen.
(44:46):
She found that giving her thinking brain a simple job
to do listening allowed the rest of her being to
relax and receive. It was in those quiet moments that
she first started to fee the presence of her boys again.
From there, she learned to create a special safe place
in her imagination, a place she called the Upper Realm.
(45:11):
It was a beautiful garden where she knew she could
go to and meet with her sons. The meetings she
had there were so real, so vivid, that they felt
more real than her everyday life. Imagine this for yourself.
She describes walking into a garden and seeing her boys
crying with emotion. She goes to them and they put
(45:34):
their arms around her. They sit at a table together
and she watches them peel and eat their favorite fruits.
She tells them, I miss you so much, and they
hold her, stroking her hair, saying It's okay, mom. We're
always with you. You don't ever have to worry about us,
but we worry about you. This is the kind of deep, loving,
(45:56):
and healing connection that is possible when we create a
sacred space in our minds and invite our loved ones
in now. Both of these methods involve setting aside a
special time to actively seek connection. But what if connection
could come to us in those quiet, magical moments that
we all experience every day. That brings us to a
(46:17):
third beautiful practice, a method shared by psychologist and dream
expert doctor Janet peter Lado. She calls it entering the
dream Gate. The dream gate isn't just about nighttime dreams.
It's about that soft, gentle space between being fully awake
and fully asleep. It's at twilight time in the morning,
(46:38):
when you're just starting to wake up, or at night
when you're just starting to drift off. In those moments,
our busy logical mind hasn't fully taken over yet, and
we are incredibly open to the spirit world. Doctor Janet
offers a simple way to practice this. Set your alarm
clock with a soft, gentle sound and like chimes for
(47:01):
about twenty minutes before you actually need to get out
of bed. When it goes off, the most important thing
is don't move, stay perfectly still with your eyes closed,
and simply ask yourself questions, where was I, what was
I doing, who was I with, and how do I feel?
(47:22):
Then pay attention to whatever pops into your head. It
might be a fragment of a dream, or it might
be a brand new scene that appears in your mind.
Maybe you see yourself at your grandmother's kitchen table, maybe
you're walking on the beach with your child. Whatever it is,
your job is to treat it as real. And this
is the most important part of her advice, she says.
(47:44):
When people tell her, oh, it's just my imagination, she
tells them to stop cut out the just She says, yes,
it's my imagination, and thank god I have it because
it's the tool that allows me to connect. The imagination
is not a lie. It's a key to the dream gate.
She says. It's the language of the soul. Doctor Janet
(48:07):
shared a powerful story of how this works. Twenty five
years after her daughter Jeanette passed away. She was in
that in between state one morning when she saw her
daughter standing by the window. She was physical, she was warm,
and she hugged her mom. Jeanette said, don't forget me, mommy,
and then said, thank you Daddy for saving my pony.
(48:29):
Doctor Janet had no idea what she meant. Later that day,
she asked her husband about it. It turned out that
as they were clearing out boxes of old toys, he
had been secretly saving one thing without telling her, Jeanette's
beloved my little pony toy. Her daughter had come through
the dream gate with a piece of information that no
(48:52):
one else could have known. These methods, automatic writing, guided journeying,
and entering the dream gate all show us that the
relationship with our loved ones does not end. The love
is still there, the connection is still there, and communication
is one hundred percent absolutely possible. We just need to
(49:13):
learn to listen in a new way. Our bonds are eternal,
our loved ones are okay, children are growing and learning,
and most importantly, they're all waiting for us. They want
us to live our lives fully, to find joy again,
but also to know that they're right by our side,
loving and supporting us in every step we take. My friend,
(49:36):
our time together is just about up for today. As
a reminder, come visit me at we Don't Die dot
com come to one of our free Sunday gatherings with
medium demonstration included. If you don't have a copy of
my book yet, you can just enter your name and
your email address at the bottom of the website page.
There you can go to Shades ofthe Afterlife dot com
(49:58):
and scrolled through two hundred plus episodes and find episodes
that interest you. I appreciate your time, I appreciate you
being on this journey, and I'll continue to give you
everything I've got to let you know that your loved
ones are alive, you will see them again. They are
part of your life, and that your life matters. It
(50:19):
reminds me of the beautiful words A ship in a
harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are
built for. Your life is that ship. It is meant
for the journey, for the experiences, for the love. Go
live it fully knowing they are always with you. I'm
Sandra Champlain. Thank you for listening to Shades of the
(50:40):
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast, a paranormal
podcast network.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
Host
Sandra Champlain
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