Alternate Timelines with Ian Vogel

Is Reincarnation Real? | Children Who Remember Past Lives

• Ian Vogel • Episode 3

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Can a child’s impossible memories, a musician’s sudden genius, and thousands of near‑death accounts all point to the same truth? 

In this episode we examine the most persuasive evidence that reincarnation is more than myth—and what that means for the way we live now.

What you’ll discover:
• Why your body’s atoms completely recycle every 7–10 years yet your memories persist.  
• How the brain may act like a radio receiver for consciousness.  
• How head injuries can unlock new talents overnight.  
• Academic research on children who recall verifiable past lives.  
• How near‑death experiences fit into a larger story of consciousness.  
• Why skeptics’ double‑blind demands may miss the point entirely.  

If you’re curious about karma, life between lives, or the mechanics of awakening, this deep‑dive delivers grounded insight without the dogma.

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Hey, I’m Ian Vogel—host of Alternate Timelines. My journey started on a small farm in the midwest, where I always felt a little out of place. After years of skepticism and even a stint as an atheist, a near-death experience changed my perspective on everything. Since then, I’ve explored plant medicine, past life memories, and the mysteries of consciousness. Now, I’m sharing those experiences to help others navigate their own awakening. Through real stories, deep conversations, and wild explorations of the unknown, we’re building a community where it’s okay to question reality. You’re not alone in the unknown. 👽✨

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At just two years old little James Leininger started having nightmares of being shot down in an airplane. He later named the exact type of aircraft he flew, the ship he served on, and even the name of a fellow copilot. This information was all later verified through historical records. When she was just four years old, Shanti, Devi insisted she had a husband and a child in a town she'd never been to. She eventually led a group of adults there and accurately identified her past life, husband, their home, and even private details of her previous death that the child should not have known a five-year-old boy in Oklahoma remembered being a Hollywood agent. He was able to identify people in old photos and even recognize his daughter from that past life. His memories were eventually matched to a man who died decades earlier, and nearly every detail that that little boy described checkout to be verifiably true. Across the world, countless children have shared memories of past lives that they should have seemingly never known down to names, addresses, and even details surrounding the person's death. Think about that. If even one of these stories is true, what does that mean about consciousness, about death, and about the possibility of living more than one life? If you're seeking answers and want to have a better understanding of the cycle of life and death. You're in the right place. This video is gonna give you a whole new perspective on life after death and the prospects of being born into a new body. If this topic fascinates you as much as it does me. I dive deeper into past life regression and many other consciousness expanding topics in my newsletter. It's totally free, full of juicy nuggets of wisdom and a great way to stay connected to a growing community of like-minded truth seekers. So make sure you follow the link in the description and sign up and don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel. Your support means a lot and leave a comment. I love to hear people's perspectives on these kinds of topics. The first thing that we need to address is the idea that our consciousness is inextricably attached to our bodies. If that were true, then the idea of reincarnation wouldn't make sense, but is that really the case? Consider this. Our bodies are in a constant state of regeneration. Every few days, we replace the lining of our gut. Our skin cells renew every few weeks, and our red blood cells regenerate after about four months, according to many biologists, within seven to 10 years, nearly every cell in our body has been replaced. Even the atoms that make up the molecules of our body like carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, are constantly being exchanged with the outside world through what we eat, through our breathing and what we touch. So in a very real sense, you're not the same physical person you were a decade ago. Not a single atom remains from the body you had when you were a child. And yet we can all still remember being a child. We remember our favorite toys, our friends from grade school, and our first kiss. So if your consciousness, which is your sense of self, your memories and your personality, were purely a product of your body, how could it possibly persist when every physical component of your body has changed? The fact that memory endures, despite that you're an entirely different body, suggests that consciousness is not stored in the body, but operates through the body like water flowing through a changing riverbed, your awareness continues. Even as the physical structures are constantly changing. And this brings up an important question. If your consciousness isn't fixed to your current body. Then is it really a stretch to imagine it could continue on through another body? Scientists have never been able to pinpoint where memories are stored in the brain. For hundreds of years, researchers have dissected human brains bit by bit, hoping to find the mechanism of memory storage. Yet, there's still no conclusive evidence that any one part of that 3.5 pound mass of gray matter in between our ears actually houses memory. What the mystics masters and sages have known for millennia is that consciousness is like a frequency and the brain acts as a receiver. Much like a radio picks up a broadcast signal when your radio plays. Here comes the Sun by the Beatles. It's not creating that music internally. There's no miniature Paul McCartney or John Lennon inside of your car dashboard composing their famous tune on the spot. The radio. Simply receives a specific energetic signal or frequency, and uses its speakers and other physical components to manifest that signal into audible sound. In the same manner the human brain receives a specific energetic signal or frequency, AKA consciousness. And uses its physical components, AKA, the body to manifest that signal into your personality, desires and actions. We can look at examples of people who experience traumatic brain injury to demonstrate that damaging a person's physical receiver can impact the brain's ability to pick up its original signal. It's not uncommon for those who experience head injuries to demonstrate significant shifts in personality. As a result of those incidents, people have also been reported to mysteriously and miraculously gain new skills and abilities as a result of head trauma. One well-documented example of that is a gentleman named Derek Amato Who became a musical savant after hitting his head during a driving accident. He had had no formal training yet. Shortly after the injury, he was able to sit down at a piano and play complex compositions, almost as if the ability had always been there. His case has been studied by neurologists and featured in various medical journals and documentaries. What's especially strange is that his musical knowledge was never learned. It suddenly appeared after his accident without explanation. This phenomena is known as acquired Savant Syndrome, and it's been reported in dozens of similar cases. People suddenly gaining artistic, mathematical or mechanical abilities after a stroke, head trauma or even lightning strikes. These stories challenge the idea that all knowledge must be learned through experience. They support the idea that consciousness, memory, and skill may not originate from the brain, but are accessed through it, like a radio picking up a signal that's already out there. It's like smacking your radio and then suddenly the song gets louder or fades out. The signal is always there, but what changes is the radio's ability to pick up that specific frequency. When it comes to psychic phenomena like telepathy. Those who have experienced it often report that what they perceive feels more like a sharing of consciousness. Those people also say that it can be challenging to distinguish where one person's thoughts end and where another's begin. This is something that I've experienced myself. It's the reason I personally don't like sleeping next to other people, not even my partner. I find that I can become far more aware of that person's thoughts and emotions than I want to be. I'm naturally a very sensitive person and have been my whole life. And when the boundaries between my experience and that of the people around me start to overlap too much, it can become distracting and confusing. That all makes perfect sense. When looking at the radio analogy, we've all heard how two different songs can be played at the same time on the same station when reaching the outer limits of the range of that radio transmitter tower. Our human consciousness receivers aren't biased or selective in which frequencies they pick up. The body simply plays the station it's tuned into. So if consciousness is a signal, then it would make sense that the song doesn't stop when the radio receiver fails. The frequency still exists, even though it's no longer being played through the old radio anymore. And when we die, our consciousness still exists, even though it's not being expressed through the old body anymore. At this point, there is so much evidence for reincarnation that it's hard to argue against it, and I get that there are people out there who have certain religious beliefs and adhere to a specific interpretation of religious texts. That's totally cool with me. I respect everyone's model of reality and objective. Observable truth doesn't require one's belief to be true. Another source of compelling evidence comes from numerous accounts of people who have had near death experiences. These experiences often include leaving the body, encountering deceased, loved ones, entering realms of peace and light, and sometimes even receiving knowledge about their soul's journey past and future. Researchers like Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term near death experience. And Dr. Bruce Grayson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, have spent decades studying and categorizing these accounts. Dr. Grayson's book called After presents peer reviewed research showing that consciousness appears to persist after physical death. And while NDEs are most often described as journeys beyond this life, many experiencers also report insights that tie directly into the concept of reincarnation. Some describe a life review, not just of their current life, but of prior ones as well. Others recount being shown their next incarnation or sensing that they're taking part in a longer journey across multiple lifetimes. Both doctors Moody and Grayson have noted that these experiences often include elements that suggest a cyclical model of the soul. One where consciousness evolves through many lives, learning and maturing with each return into a physical incarnation. These aren't fringe theories or isolated anecdotes. The consistency of these experiences across cultures, belief systems, and even time periods, points to something profound that death is not the end, but a transition between lifetimes in an ongoing process of a soul's evolution. Perhaps the most compelling evidence for reincarnation comes from the field research of Dr. Ian Stevenson and his successor, Dr. Jim Tucker, both of whom worked at the University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual studies, one of the only academic institutions in the world dedicated to the scientific study of consciousness beyond the brain. Over the course of four decades, Dr. Stevenson documented more than 2,500 cases of children who spontaneously recall details from previous lives, often with verifiable names, locations, and even the cause of death. His work was so rigorous that he's published in peer reviewed journals and authored the popular book"20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation". Which is still referenced today in academic studies. Dr. Jim Tucker has continued this work into the modern day and has published two books of his own life before Life and returned to Life where he details extraordinary cases of children whose memories match real historical individuals. And in almost all those cases, there's no possible way the child in question could have learned the information through normal means. These aren't fringe conspiracy theories or random internet stories. This is academically reviewed research from credentialed scientists using meticulous documentation and methods of verification. The stories I shared earlier of James Leininger, Shanti, Devi and Ryan Hammonds are some of the most famous examples. They've been independently researched and cited by both Stevenson and Tucker, and when you read these cases, it becomes really difficult to dismiss them as coincidence or fabrication. And while some memories of past lives emerged spontaneously, as in the case with most of the children, many people access them through guided hypnosis techniques. Past life regression sessions often reveal emotionally potent scenes relationships or traumas from previous lives that feel authentic and deeply real to the individual being regressed. In many cases, accessing and resolving these past life traumas can lead to healing in the present. Hypnotherapist like Dr. Brian Weiss, who's a Yale trained psychiatrist, had brought past life regression into the mainstream with books like Many Lives, many masters, which recounts the breakthrough journey of one patient who began recalling vivid past life scenes during regression therapy. Many lives, many Masters was a really eye-opening book for me, and I highly recommend it. Another well-known modality is QHHT, quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, which was developed by Dolores Cannon. She conducted thousands of sessions over her 40 year career. Her work documented not only past life memories, but also in between life experiences and soul level insights that deeply resonate with people seeking understanding of their life's purpose. I've also experienced QHHT sessions, both of which were extremely profound. While skeptics might dismiss hypnosis as imaginative storytelling, the emotional intensity often verifiable historical details and psychological breakthroughs experienced by participants suggest something much deeper is happening. Sure. There are always going to be people who make up sensational stories to get attention. But in the majority of cases, especially with the children, these are regular people who are just looking for answers and don't have a reason to lie for attention. Anecdotal. Evidence is evidence, and it's certainly not reliable 100% of the time, but there are no sources of data that are reliable 100% of the time. Even the most rigorous scientific studies have margins of error. Reincarnation. Skeptics often talk about double-blind placebo controlled experiments as the gold standard when it comes to collecting unbiased, high quality experimental data. Those same people often make this faulty assumption. That because double-blind placebo controlled studies are not used to gather the evidence for reincarnation, it means that the evidence is invalid or irrelevant. And that assumption could not be further from the truth. It's impossible to create a double-blind, placebo controlled experiment that will work to collect the kind of evidence we encounter in instances where people report remembering past lives. The double blind is simply not an adequate tool for that job. If you take a closer look at the results of double-blind placebo controlled experiments, you might be surprised that the results are often very unimpressive. Trust me, I went to college for an undergrad in microbiology and chemistry, and spent a couple of years working in labs doing various forms of scientific research. Which included analyzing penguin poop from Antarctica and bovine tuberculosis, among other things, the truth is double-blind, placebo controlled experiments are only as good as the researchers conducting them. As of 2024, there have been an average of 1,284 drugs recalled every year by the FDA since 2012. Nearly a third of the drugs approved by the FDA in that timeframe were ultimately recalled due to excessive adverse events or a lack of efficacy. And guess what? Each of those thousands of recall drugs had to undergo numerous double-blind placebo controlled studies in order to get the FDA's approval for release to the public. The, doubleblind has its place, but it's not the end all be all. Besides, there's an enormous amount of solid, impactful research across many fields of study that don't rely on a double-blind to gather data. So we must ask ourselves, is it really necessary for evidence to be gathered via double-blind placebo experiment to be real and valid? I think we all know the answer to that question. when a skeptic says that there's no scientific evidence for reincarnation. What they really mean is that there's no scientific evidence that was gathered exactly the way that they would prefer it to be gathered At its core denying reincarnation comes down to belief, not evidence. It would be like me trying to argue against the existence of a place that I've never been to. And that conversation would probably go something like this.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera-2:

Yeah, man. So I'm getting all geared up from my big trip to Madagascar.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera:

Bro, I hate to break it to you, but Madagascar isn't a real place. It was just made up in a Disney movie. Madagascar is as real as Feng Gully or Shrek.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera-2:

What exactly makes you think that Madagascar doesn't exist?

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera:

You expect me to believe in a place that I've never been to. Not only that, I don't even know anybody who's been to Madagascar. I just don't see any evidence for it.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera-2:

Have you tried looking it up online? Yeah. It's a Disney movie, but it's also a real place. And you realize you can buy a plane ticket and go there, right?

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera:

Oh, okay. And now I'm supposed to trust everything I see on the internet. I am not falling for that. I've done my fair share of traveling and I've never once seen a flight going to or coming from Madagascar.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera-2:

Yeah. Okay. So there probably aren't many domestic one-way flights to Madagascar, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real place. You would probably have to take a week off work and spend a couple grand on flights. But you could definitely get there and find out for yourself.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera:

Those pictures could be from literally anywhere, and your evidence is probably just made up by people who are trying to get attention. You expect me to invest my time and energy to try to find a place that I don't even believe exists, even if it was a real place. I have no desire or reason to go there, bro. You loco. What else are you gonna try to tell me that aliens exist? Just to be clear, I am not a Madagascar denier, but what you just saw demonstrates the logic used to negate the existence of reincarnation. If the Madagascar denier put in the time and effort to play in the trip, buy the plane tickets, get their passport, take time off work, get to the different flights, they could actually go there and experience it for themselves if they had a desire to do it. In the same way, if a reincarnation denier were to put in the time and effort to look into the well-established research, if they were to read the numerous books and multitude of verified case studies around children, all those children who remember things that they shouldn't know, then maybe they would look at things differently. It's very easy to find a qualified hypnotherapist or QHHT practitioner who will conduct a past life regression session with someone if they really wanted to know. So as of today, reincarnation does remain a topic that's up for debate and. That's not for lack of evidence, but for lack of effort put forth by the skeptics. I am not saying that we should take every story or potential piece of evidence at face value. It's important to espouse a healthy degree of skepticism when looking into phenomena that conventional science hasn't fully accepted. But there's a fine line between skepticism and closed-mindedness. At what point do we take a step back, look at the mountain of data from the myriad of different sources, and consider the broader implications. When will we acknowledge that the lack of replicable experiments might just be evidence of a deficiency in our current scientific understanding and not proof that reincarnation is a hoax? I get, how reincarnation might be a tough pill for some people to swallow, because believing in reincarnation has some pretty profound implications To believe in reincarnation means that certain popular religious beliefs have to be discarded, and many religious teachings must be brought into question. To question one's own faith and entire worldview can be really challenging, especially if that person doesn't have a direct experience to contradict their current perspective, which is the case for every reincarnation denier I've ever met. It also means that the consequences of our actions in this life will remain with us. Karma and the law of balance are real. What we do will come back to us in this life or the next. If reincarnation is real, then death is like getting out of an old vehicle, and just because the car is parked doesn't mean that you're outstanding. Speeding. Tickets go away. And if our consciousness really does survive death and we reincarnate. The next question is, what the hell have I been doing in my past lives? That is where things get really interesting. If you wanna hear a crazy story from one of my past lives, click this video right here.