I agree with FZ+ on this, I don't think you are dead before you are alive, and to back this up one would go to the definition of death:
death Pronunciation Key (dth)
n.
1. The act of dying; termination of life.
2. The state of being dead.
3. The cause of dying: Drugs were the death of him.
4. A manner of dying: a heroine's death.
often Death A personification of the destroyer of life, usually represented as a skeleton holding a scythe.
In the first definition we find the phrase termination of life. I apoligize, but I'm also going to post the definition for termination:
...
1) The end of something in time; the conclusion.
2) An end of something in space; a limit or edge.
3) A result; an outcome.
OK, we find that termination implies the terminating thing has to have been experienced or in existence beforehand. A person, before life, is not exactly dead, because they would first have to have life. Also, the reverse of the situation you described doesn't necessarily imply you also have the literal meaning of life after death, as in, you were born, you die, you live again.
Hi Messiah. I agree in the context of physical life on this planet. All physical life dies. However, I believe that the part of us who we really our, our soul, or higher self, is eternal and lives many different lives here on this planet, in many different historical settings and characters, in addition to lives in dimensions very foreign to this physical life we know, simultaneously. On different levels of awareness. For instance, have you ever wondered where that very strange craving for a particular kind of food comes from? Or, what's up with smelling perfume, or turkey dinner in your living room where you know those scents don't exist. Yet, they are very strong for a few moments, then disappear. What about those strange dreams you have visiting a specific place that you don't know of in waking hours, yet is a very vivid place with relationships in your dreams?
Just some food for thought.
All those memories are stored in the brain. The brain can recall smells, tastes as memories similar to how it can recall what you did last night. Also, multiple dimiensions, etc are just theorized, I wouldn't put too much into their existence. You could think of the dreams as your ability to imagine places you have never seen or imagined before, it is quiet easy. The way of thinking that involves memories of past lives or other lives seems too much like once we die we go to a blank room and wait to be chosen to live again and before we are chosen we have a quick format of our brains, but its not an entire erasing so we still remember some things of past lives, seems a little crazy.