American and European studies have shown that people with the inclination to believe in the supernatural, such as reincarnation and alien abductions, are more likely to have memory problems than their non-believing counterparts.

Scientists say that the reason behind this may very well be the dilution of memories as those who believe in past lives are more often endowed with the ability to create "false memories" because they have above-average imagery skills. When they get caught up with the fantasies, they have trouble stopping themselves from convincing their own psyche that things aren't always deja vu.

Separate studies in the Haamstricht University in The Netherlands and Harvard University proved the theory by testing respondents in two phases designed to simulate how they would perform normally in everyday activities that require short-term memory.

First, the respondent would be treated with hypnosis, then made to read a list of 20 names which was divided into two subsets. First was a list of popular people's names while the other half was a list of non-popular people's names. After reading the names, the respondents were asked to read the same list again, which was shuffled randomly along with ten new non-popular names.

The task for the respondents was now to classify the names into three - the popular names, the non-popular names they already read and the non-popular names which were added late. The results revealed that the group that had beliefs in reincarnation was twice as likely to make mistakes.

"We suspect that this might be kind of a psychological buffering mechanism against the fear of death," says Richard McNally of Harvard. McNally, a clinical psychologist, also said that the people who have this type of belief sets were also more likely to be depressed and suffer from insomnia. That compounds the problem as sleep loss has been considered a factor in memory loss.