There are really two parts to this theory. The first question is, why do 3-4 year old children claim in conversation to be someone else? This is actually an extraordinary concept to emerge from anyone's psyche, and yet it is something that happens with surprising frequency. Perhaps there is a space in the developing brain's long term memory that is emergent at that age, and yet empty. So the developing brain either attempts to fill it up with manufactured but plausible memories, or inadvertently confuses imagination and passing information for actual memories. the second question is perhaps more understandable: why do those around them claim that the past lives are identifiable and recognizable? This answer to this question lies more in the suggestibility of the audience, rather than the intentional deception of the child. Like a TV psychic, the child's utterances are treated with the utmost gravity and, once convinced, the adu...