Help me understand "Past Lives" experiences

[Blight]

I have a good friend, a reasonable person who doesn't believe in mediums/psychics/etc... And her field of work is not related in any way to woowoo activities.

She tells me that a few years back that she had a past-life experience where she could see where she lives, get the names of previous-life family members, etc...

She told me that she later on went through historic records and managed to find her previous life death certificate (by name and date of death she saw in her past-life experience) and the death certificates of other people she knew from her past life experience.

This person is not a liar, neither is she looking for attention or trying to make any money off this.

Being skeptical myself, I feel I am missing something here, what can explain this (beyond her being delusional which I don't feel is the case)?

[logical muse]

This could be an interesting story if there were some specific details.

[Z]

Unfortunately, even honest people who aren't scamming, looking for attention, etc. sometimes make up interesting things, and even delude themselves into believing them. I don't know why, but I've seen it time and time again... basically honest, decent people who still come up with wild stories about themselves, and seem to actually believe them.

[Rasmus]

I have a good friend, a reasonable person who doesn't believe in mediums/psychics/etc... And her field of work is not related in any way to woowoo activities.

She tells me that a few years back that she had a past-life experience where she could see where she lives, get the names of previous-life family members, etc...

How should I imagine such an experience?
I know what it's like to experience going out for a burger or to catch a movie. I know how I experience my own memories, too - but I wouldn't call that experiencing again that which I remember. To my knowledge I've never hallucinated, but I guess one could count that as a form of experience.

Where does this event fit in?

She told me that she later on went through historic records and managed to find her previous life death certificate (by name and date of death she saw in her past-life experience) and the death certificates of other people she knew from her past life experience.

How long ago was this, how much time did pass between the experience and the looking up of the information? Did she write down the actual information before she went looking and did she find anything that matched what she found, or did she just go and look up records and noted all those that seemed somehow familiar?

This person is not a liar, neither is she looking for attention or trying to make any money off this.

Why did she tell you?

If I tell other people interesting stories I am usually doing it for the attention on at least some level.

I am probably very biased, but I noticed that people telling about the ghosts they've seen appear to also enjoy the attention it gets them.

Being skeptical myself, I feel I am missing something here, what can explain this (beyond her being delusional which I don't feel is the case)?

A person may somehow get the idea that they used to be someone else in a former live. I don't know how they come to believe it, but they do.

It is not stated, let alone recorded, what it is that they believe precisely. I could tell you precisely who I am now. I can give you my full name, my birthdate and place of birth. I can give you my current address and I could come up with old addresses, too. With a bit of work I could probably compile a complete history of all my prior addresses including dates. (I couldn't do this just from memory, so I wouldn't expect that one could remember that much detail from their past lives.)

I could give you my parents full names, their birthrates, their current address, I know their employers as I do my own.

Even many years from now, you could at least confirm that the person I describe to you did exist. (Wether I am telling you who I am, or who my next door neighbour is, however, will not be apparent to you.)

I can also give you the names of my friends. Not necessarily all their full names, but I know more than "a guy called John or Joss or something".

I could write down all this information and *then* anyone could go and verify that the people I speak of exist.

I doubt that this would even be remotely possibly in the situation you describe. (Not anymore, anyways, since she went out and did research and knows a lot more know than what she claims she experienced...)