This happened about 12 years ago when my son was 3. We took him to Mevagissey in cornwall, down to the harbor. He was pretty smart, with a good vocabulary for his age, but this startled us all. We had no tv and we never talked about this kind of thing, so I have no idea where he got his ideas or descriptions from.
He suddenly announced that before he was in my tummy he had been a man with 3 sons and a wife, and he pointed up ahead at a boat in the harbor and said Right there, there is a big rock just under the water at high tide and I got drunk and fell in, banged my head and I drowned. He described swallowing water into his lungs and everything. He also described his job as a fisherman, his boat and his wife and sons in amazing detail.
Well, we walked up to where he said and sure enough right there was a rock just under the water with a jagged top just like he described.
The hairs on the back of our necks were up I can tell you.
Now, I've never been one to believe in re-incarnation, but does anybody have a better explanation?
Does anybody else have a similar story to tell?

Wow! That has to be a true recollection of a past life as 3 year olds just wouldn't have the 'know how' to invent such a tale with evidence to back it up.

I did have a TV when my kids were growing up, but when my son was a similar age he recognised a place on the TV that he could describe and share snippets of his previous life and I really wished I'd taken more notice at the time but the only thing I can remember was that he had been male, and the country was very yellow, sandy and dusty.

I believe I have some past memories of my own too, but I prefer to keep them to myself although they do have some bearing on my life in the 'here and now' like being the source of seemingly 'irrational fears' and other things that have a bearing on my purpose in life.

Maybe more people will have experiences to share on such a controversial subject, also there are some interesting books about people's recollections of previoous lives and the evidence that appears to support them.

erm this similar thing happened to this kid in india...as for past lives...i don't remember anything that far back but I do remember being born (no im not joking)

I'm stil in two minds if it was a personal memory or summat else. Not 25 yards away is a Maritime Museum with lots about his father's ancestors cuz they virtually owned Meva until around C1900. We took the boys in there not long after and the little one rushed right over to a board with B&W photos and announced "Oh look, there's Nicholas!" Now, his much older half-brother is called Nicholas (after half the peeps in those B&W photos) but we called him Nichol, and even his 7 yrs old brother didnt know it was a nick-name. I could tell you lots of things about how he knew what parts of the boat were called, the names of fish etc. Really, really spooky. As he got older, he knew less and less and now he's 15 he only knows what we tell him about this weird story! So perhaps you are right about what you said off-board, we forget as we forge our new lives here and now. Or did he pick up someone else's memories from the museum?
I'd love to know what everyone else thinks, and tell us your stories too!!