What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?
When I was seven or eight, I genuinely believed I’d already lived another life as a boy called Toby who was a few years older than me. I would occasionally tell my family about him as if it were simply a fact.
Looking back, I suspect I was experiencing episodes of déjà vu and inventing an explanation. But once I’d invented it, I became remarkably good at defending the idea. I would construct arguments and gather “evidence” to convince other people it was true.
My mother was uneasy about it because the timing seemed to connect with a miscarriage she’d had between my older sisters and me. Whether I somehow absorbed fragments of family conversation or whether that connection was made afterwards, I have no idea.
Today it seems rather ridiculous that I was so certain about having been another person. Yet what fascinates me is not the belief itself but the determination with which I defended it. Even then, I was less interested in being right than in finding an explanation for strange experiences.
The story has one final twist. Fifty years later, my own son is called Toby. I liked the name.
Leave a Reply