If I may pursue my thoughts on instincts/subconsciousness and souls.

To illustrate my thought, in my book, they discover a 12 yeear old boy, hiding in a cardboard box, in an alley, who is experiencing nightmare visions of himself killing an angel; tearing it to pieces. On closer examination of what he is seeing, they realise it cannot just be a dream, for as he tears the angel apart, the inner parts are clearly seen and they are organs and so on, which a street kid with no schooling could not imagine.

They take him home and with time, as he grows to love them, they offer to take him back in time. In the void, where we are souls without the 'blocking' caused by our bodies, they discover a past life as an alien of another solar system. That person has wings like an angel. The 'angel' is told of the problems he is causing his future self and he tells the boy not to worry about him, he died young because he was not a good person.

Now the question occurs, which I doubt I thought of when I was writing the original of the above: if he was such a bad person that he deserved to die young, why would he be 'nice' and care about his future self?

I see our souls as holding all the personalities it has been (not just the memories, as many think). Each life is a distinct layer, yet the layers occupy the same 'space' within the entity that makes up our soul (which is us only for now, while we live). The 'angel' has prompted the idea...could it be that there is a certain 'bleeding' across layers, so that they learn from each other, without losing themselves and becoming an amalgamation of all their experiences?

As for our subconsciousness and instincts - are they perhaps created out of that total mess of past lives? Could it be that the most recent, or, the most strongly felt, 'influence' our subconscious and our instincts to the greatest extent?

What if in a previous life I was a sadistic killer and torturer. Should I trust my subconscious when it tries to lead me in the direction it thinks I should grow?

I hope the above provides some material/ideas for new stories, as it has done for me.

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