Division of Perceptual Studies
University of Virginia School of Medicine · 2024 · University of Virginia
This source is used as context evidence across 6 linked claims and 8 related evidence hubs. Its citation record is marked verified; that verifies the source trail, not the truth of any linked claim.
Summary
Academic research unit founded by Ian Stevenson studying claimed past-life memories, near-death experiences, and related cases.
How this source is used on the map
The leading academic group publishing on cases of children claiming past-life memories and on Greyson's NDE work.
Citation record
- Authors
- University of Virginia School of Medicine
- Year
- 2024
- Publication
- University of Virginia
- Source type
- Institution page
- Map role
- context
- Credibility level
- primary
- Citation status
- Verified
- DOI
- Not recorded
- PubMed
- Not recorded
- Not recorded
Linked claims
A subset of past-life cases include birthmarks or birth defects whose location matches reported wounds — sometimes with autopsy verification.
A consistent core experience — peace, light, life review, OBE — reported across cultures and prospective hospital studies.
Decades of cases of young children making specific, verifiable claims about a deceased stranger's life — across many cultures, with reproducible sub-patterns (≈70% violent deaths, family-rebirth clusters).
If past-life cases are taken seriously, reincarnation is the most economical narrative — but several other models also fit the data.
NDEs, past-life cases, terminal lucidity and mediumship cluster suggestively. Each line is contested; together they earn a hearing.
Brief return of clear cognition shortly before death in patients with severe dementia or brain injury — observed across hospice care.
Related evidence hubs
Children's past-life memories, birthmark cases, and the rebirth interpretation.
Past-life memories, karma, soul contracts.
Evidence around dying, near-death experience, and what (if anything) continues.
The nature of subjective experience.
Whether anything of mind continues.
Structured experiences during cardiac arrest and crisis.
World religions and traditions, scored as systems.
Brief return of clear cognition before death.
Related research reports
A comparative guide to the strongest survival-adjacent evidence: NDEs, terminal lucidity, deathbed visions, past-life memories, mediumship, and after-death communication.
A source-linked synthesis of past-life memory cases, birthmark claims, reincarnation interpretations, and skeptical alternatives.
A balanced synthesis of the strongest and weakest evidence across afterlife, consciousness, reincarnation, mystical, psi, and practice claims.
What NDE studies support, what they do not prove, and why the phenomenon remains one of the strongest spiritual-adjacent evidence clusters.
Related sources
Standard reference body for NDE-related claims; archives many first-person accounts and links to peer-reviewed work.
Direct background for any claim about whether something of the person survives death, and a useful guardrail against treating survival as a single simple proposition.
Reference for claims about postmortem destinations within Christian frameworks; it clarifies the conceptual options before any evidential claim is assessed.
Any claim about surviving death or being reincarnated presupposes a theory of personal identity. This entry sets the terms.
The reference for what mind-body dualism means and why most contemporary philosophers reject it.
Companion to the UVa DOPS institutional page; covers the case-study methodology and the major sceptical objections.