at the last session of my buddhist theory and mediation course, my teacher talked about rebirth and living hundreds, thousands, millions of incarnations. he had a really specific details about the death and rebirth process. to his understanding, we can be incarnated as humans, animals, ghosts... i forget the other one or two.
anyways, say someone is experiencing human incarnations - the literal actions are be born, live until you die, spend about a year as a ghost, and then be born into a new incarnation. he went on about how we are incarnated relatively close to where our last incarnation ended.
he also explained retained memories of previous lives when we are very young - and depending on the reception of those qualities when they first appear, they may be vanquished early on, never to be thought of again in that lifetime. for example, a young child may ask their parent about a memory, and the parent tells the child that that memory is not real because it never happened (in this child's brief lifetime). it's not that the parent is necessarily judging the child for misunderstanding reality or blatantly lying - the parent is most likely just trying to be factually correct with the child.
when i was a small child, i remember mentioning or asking my mom about certain memories, and she would say whatever i was thinking of was just a dream because, to her knowledge, whatever i was talking about didn't happen or didn't even make sense. i wonder if my mom remembers that, and if so, what i was remembering or talking about.
i can think of one inexplicable quirk i had in particular as a child that we all remember - when i was very young i would tie any two loose ends of anything stringlike together, over and over until there was no more material left to tie. i would take my long hair ribbons and tie a few ends together to make a long chain, then tie one end about my stuffed animal's neck to signify a collar, and the other end to the leg of a large piece of furniture to signify a leash.
i recall having a helium balloon on a string, and even though my bedroom had especially low ceilings, i was very intent on keeping it tied to my bedpost.
my mom has mentioned a few times that when i was a baby in a car seat - i would take off my shoes and socks, and if i had hood strings available, i would tie those strings together over and over until there was no string left.
i'm not sure why my behavior stopped - but it wouldn't be much of a stretch that my parenting taught me to stop doing that. the funny thing is, i don't think i was doing any special or intricate knots (well maybe i was, who knows) but it didn't matter, i remember tying knots making me feel pleased as punch.
what about tying knots could have been significant in any of my previous lives - maybe even a more recent incarnation? you always think of special knot tying as associated with sailing or ships or the boy scouts of america. did i sail the mississippi river in my previous life, to end up being born on the banks of that river in this life?
i felt somewhat adverse to the notion that reincarnation is so literal as to happen a year after the death of your most recent life, within 50 miles of the death place give or take a few - but maybe i can become comfortable with that idea if i take a second look at the signs in my life.