You've no doubt heard of the near death experience — an individual is declared dead or has a brush with death, revives and later reports an encounter with dead relatives, an angel or bright lights. Less familiar to many, however, is the pre-birth experience (not to be confused with past life-recall). The pre-birth experience is a claim by various individuals to remember an existence before birth, often described as a world of spirits or beings that are separate from life on Earth but are aware of Earth. In this place, one may have the ability to choose his or her next life or his or her parents.

Pre-birth experiences have been studied and grouped by their characteristics and the majority of the claims fall into several general types. Curiously enough, some pre-birth experiences come from children who offer their stories unexpectedly to parents or relatives. Many pre-birth experiences are reported by pregnant women or women who later become pregnant following the experience. The most common type of pre-birth experience comes in the form of communication from the pre-born in a dream — a parent dreams about a child that has yet to be born and later gives birth to the same child. Or, an unborn child communicates directly with a parent during a dream and is later born to that parent. Other pre-birth experiences occur while an individual is awake and receives a vision. The individual becomes aware of a distinctly male or female presence and may receive communication from him or her.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss relayed this kind of experience on "20/20" with Barbara Walters in 1996. He described a 20 year portion of his life that was lost to addictions with drugs and alcohol. After that time, Dreyfuss found himself in the hospital again. As he recovered alone in a hospital room, a three-year old entered his doorway and said "Daddy, I can't come to you until you come to me. Please straighten out your life so I can come." Then the girl disappeared. Dreyfuss was unable to rid his mind of the girl and her message. He used her image and words as motivation to put his life back together, believing that if he did, this girl would come to him again as his daughter. Three years later, after becoming sober and getting remarried, his daughter was born and according to Dreyfuss, she was the very same girl who confronted him in the hospital room.

[photo courtesy of David Carter]