Any soul wanting an earthly incarnation can only choose a human simply because animals don’t have souls.
Virtually no soul ever achieves all of its objectives in one lifetime.
If there is anything, a book, a piece of fabric, a flower, whatever, that generates that instant, wow, gut-sinking feeling, that is an acid test that it’s extremely likely to have come from a past-life experience.
When you get goose bumps all over or an involuntary shiver down the spine, or you feel like somebody has walked over your grave then this is a past life connection.
Birthmarks and freckles or other skin marks come from past life injuries.
Phobias result from past life experiences. Many people have phobias about snakes, about heights or enclosed spaces and all of these absolutely come from past-life experiences which are not necessarily bad experiences.