My youngest child often spoke of past lives in specifics, including vivid fantasies of familial abandonment and adoption he desired to roleplay. He attested to many different forms of himself–many identities and lives, some very bad/evil. He related experiences with many other families.

My eldest child told a specific story about a daughter I used to have. I neglected her in some way and she died walking into a fire.

As a child, my spouse alarmed and confused his mother by entering an uncharacteristic trancelike state at a Pearl Harbor museum. He identified names of the dead as friends and “corrected” a model of the battle. He lost all recollection upon leaving.

When I was 23, I went to Vikingeskibmuseet in Roskilde. I was so overwhelmed by relating to stories of thralls sacrificed in noble funerary rites, which I clearly visualized, that I panicked and developed a lasting anger toward ancient Nord groups.

My sibling does not lay claim to any such memories, but also doesn’t remember much of their current life. Clearly, failing to recall something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen–but of course, “remembering” something also doesn’t mean it did happen. Memory is fallible. Humans are imaginative.

• Buddhists believe we are reincarnated into progressively more complex entities as we learn and approach Nirvana.