Many people sense having known someone before or having been somewhere before when their short-term memory would beg to differ.  Some people even think their imaginations are playing tricks on them.  What sorts of reasons would help explain your dream-like flashbacks and sense of 'deja-vu?'  Consider four perspectives:

1) Consciousness is 'superliminal.' The energy that drives it moves faster than the speed of light.  Energy is so powerful, it can reach out into the infinite universe and bring back whatever information your subconscious is seeking.  This goes beyond the reach of your earthly senses, but connects you to abilities you forgot you have.

2) You retain insight into past lives.  You have known shadows of these people in other forms.  Something twigs your memory about their personality, behaviors or, on a higher level, their aura and energy vibration.  You have visited places that seem vaguely familiar. It has all influenced your growth and healing.  Even your current mental state stems from what you have done in your view of the past.  Glimpses of who you were reward your progress toward reaching higher awareness. 

3) Your intuitive systems are blocked.  Awareness is perhaps your deepest sensitivity.  It may become susceptible to emotional mood swings until such time as you recognize "what is."  As you begin to understand you're made of layers of electromagnetic energy, you also learn each layer has a separate frequency, color and vibration.  Each set of frequencies creates an aspect of your identity or clouds your view based on beliefs.  Your consciousness has potential to change the form of matter and to enable travel through your human perception of time and space. 

4) You have become too logical.  External influences redefine what is rational and possible in the physical world.  People will say, "that's not possible," offering explanations like gravity, or laws of Science that have come to be widely accepted standards or authorities. You have chosen to buy into it all which limits who you really are. Make an analogy with teen peer pressure. Why would you choose to do something just because everyone else is doing it? Choose instead to listen to your true self. Redefine a sense of rational. You decide what kind of life you will live.