Study Examines Link Between Reincarnation Claims and Sudden Death

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — A new study has found a relationship between the cause of a person’s death and the time before a reincarnation, or rebirth, claim emerges. It found that after an unnatural death, the interval before someone claimed to remember a past life tended to be shorter.

The study, conducted by a team from the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia in the United States, analysed 2,254 case reports associated with past-life memories. In 74% of the cases, researchers judged that details of the life described by a person matched the identity of someone who had died.

The study found that the median time between a person’s death and a rebirth claim was 16 months. In cases involving an unexpected death, however, the interval was 40% shorter.

Lead author Saeedeh Sadeghi said the team wanted to test the findings of earlier research using a larger dataset.

“We wanted to test the relationship more systematically and see whether it could be explained by cultural or psychological influences. To our surprise, the relationship persisted when we tested it across a much larger number of cases, and the social and psychological factors we examined could not explain it,” Sadeghi said, as quoted by IFL Science on Wednesday (21 October 2026).

The researchers nevertheless emphasised that the relationship was relatively small. It explained only around 2%–3% of the variation in the time between a death and a reincarnation claim.

The study also does not prove that reincarnation actually occurs. The researchers acknowledged that it remains difficult to rule out the possibility of information passing between families and communities, cultural influences, and bias in identifying matches between past-life accounts and people who have died.

The findings are therefore not strong enough to constitute scientific evidence of reincarnation.

Marieta Pehlivanova, one of the researchers, said she hoped the study would encourage further research into broader patterns rather than relying only on individual cases.

“The mechanisms underlying this finding are currently unclear, but that gives us more reason to keep investigating, not to dismiss it,” Pehlivanova said.