consider this:

tabula rasa (i think)... blank slate. we are born empty, experiencing through our senses. everything we have recorded has created "us". there is only one moment, no past or future, which are only created in our mind. memories are just logs of sensory experience.

if you want to approach it assuming reincarnation is true, i would be swayed to believe that we have a small consciousness that moves from body to body, and the brain records experience and memory. reincarnation maybe isn't so personal. it's a scoop of the river moved from cup to cup. you're nobody. we are all purely identical, only our vessels and environment creates the "individual".