The Mystery of the Soul: Can Science Decode Past Lives?

 Imagine this: a little girl barely old enough to read starts describing, in vivid detail, a family she’s never met in a town she’s never been to—insisting that they are her “real” parents. Or a young man travels across borders, convinced he has found the woman who was once his wife… in another life.

Stories like these, blending the mystical with the everyday, are surprisingly common across cultures. They spark wonder, skepticism, and a big question: could reincarnation be more than a myth? And if so, how does science even begin to explain it?

A Strange Tale from Vietnam

In the late 1990s, a five-year-old boy named N.P.Q.T. tragically drowned in Nam Dinh, Vietnam. His grieving parents never had another child. But five years later, in a village in Hoa Binh province, a boy named B.L.B. was born into a Muong family.

At just three years old, B. began saying unusual things. He claimed he wasn’t Muong but Kinh, that his true home wasn’t in Hoa Binh but Nam Dinh, and that his real parents weren’t the ones raising him. Even stranger, he spoke fluent Vietnamese Kinh dialect despite being raised in a Muong household.

When B.’s story reached the ears of N.P.Q.T.’s parents, they visited him. To their shock, the boy not only resembled their lost son but also recognized their home, neighbors, and even his old toys. Eventually, he returned to live with them and was renamed with the very name of their deceased child.

Coincidence? Fabrication? Or something beyond explanation?

A Village of Past Lives in China

Similar accounts appear elsewhere. In Hunan province, China, the village of Luyiyangzhai became famous for having more than 100 residents who claimed memories of previous lives. One woman recalled being a different person who had died decades earlier; her “previous” family even confirmed many of the details she described. Another young woman insisted she was not her father’s daughter but rather the reincarnated younger sister he had lost years before.

The Famous Indian Case

In India, the story of Shanti Devi drew nationwide attention. At six years old, she insisted she had a husband in another city. She described him as a fabric merchant with pale skin, glasses, and a mole on his cheek. When her family tracked him down, he turned out to be real—and he had lost his wife, Lugdi Devi, nine years earlier. Shanti Devi even revealed private family secrets no outsider could have known.

Can Science Explain It?

Skeptics point to psychology: some suggest these are cases of “cryptomnesia”—hidden memories of stories or details overheard and later misremembered as personal experience. Others propose a form of “social imitation,” where suggestible individuals adopt and believe stories that mirror cultural or religious narratives.

But science has also dipped its toes into deeper waters. A 2013 neuroscience study showed that mice conditioned to fear a certain smell passed that aversion on to their offspring, even without direct exposure. Could human memories—or at least fragments of experience—be encoded and inherited through genes?

The Unanswered Question

For now, reincarnation remains an enigma. Science has explanations for parts of the puzzle, but not the whole picture. The boundary between biology, psychology, and something greater—the soul, consciousness, or whatever we call it—remains blurry.

In a world dominated by numbers, data, and lab coats, the idea of past lives feels like it belongs to religion or folklore. But what if, one day, science pulls back the curtain—revealing that the soul is not just a myth, but a mystery waiting to be solved?