When talking about past lives you are actually talking about parallel experiences that your soul is having simultaneously with the person who is sitting there now reading this.

We process time is linear but that enables us to experience emotions. In truth everything is a Simulation in which we vicariously experience to study emotions.

We basically look to the past - or even the future - to help explain what is going on in our lives in this timeline.

Some see themselves as famous and others in any number of situations some of which are relatable to today and others that make no sense.

Your brain (streaming consciousness) will show you a parallel experience to help you understand that we live in the illusion of time to understand that we are projections in the illusion of time which is now coming to its closure.