So I also believe in reincarnation. But I don't think it happens in quite the way you are saying, because I don't believe that there is any "real" separation of souls and consciousness.

I believe we are all one consciousness, or rather nondual. We are all "I Am" having a unique experience localised to where we are.

I explain more about my theory of reincarnation here: https://medium.com/@ladyreverie/overlapping-re-incarnations-dcd852698228

In short, I believe that past life memories are passed from mind to mind through communication between living minds and art. And that the patterns of familiarity (recognition) between people who have never met before in this life, is due to the fact that the universe is like an immense fractal, and fractals have repeating patterns so of course we recognise each other again and again, on an individual level as well as a collective level.

I do not believe that souls "split". Because I don't believe the individual self is a separate "thing" that stays the same across time. However the patterns of thought that make up the self, the ideas, the feelings etc - these can diffuse into the minds of everyone who came into contact with that person, imprinting onto them and becoming part of them. So in that sense, there is a diffusion from one into many. But that doesn't just happen on death. That's happening constantly all the time. In a small way it's happening between me and you right now. We're imprinting ideas and imagery onto each other's consciousness, which then affect our life in a meaningful way, and what we perceive ourselves to be, forever after.

These patterns, memes, ideas, coalesce into personalities and what we feel to be our individual selves. And sometimes as they are being passed through the collective consciousness through chains of causality that are hidden to our individual perspectives, they can coalesce in roughly the same ways in disparate locations and different times. So you could meet someone who is almost identical to you in terms of personality and you could feel that they are your twin soul, or your sensate or whatever word you like.

And yes, they are "the same" as you, that sense of recognition is real. But they're actually no more (or less) "one" with you than anything is, even your worst enemy. It's just because you have similar personalities and beliefs you can see the connection between yourselves easier.

I believe that's the case for soulmates as well. I feel that I am one with my husband. And in a way that's true. And I feel it more strongly with him because of the love that we have built together. But I don't think that in *actuality* anything is less "one" with me than he is. Everything is nondual. Separation is an illusion/construct.