BTW this is an age old question and is not basic by any means. You assume you lose your sense of self when you pass. I don't know that. that's true. I've communicated with friends, my mom and dad and they seem to have the same personality / ego when then pass.

My sense is this: We have ego or sense of self which includes likes and dislikes etc. and we have essence - the core of who we are. Essence lives from life to life and in your current world is often forgotten or left undeveloped. But we never lose that. We often forget our most previous life and that in-part is part of the design and focus of our current world. At some point - on the other side ego is shed and essence shines forth. A new life is selected by essence and the old ego is forgotten, but not always.

I used to assume that once a person has passed that there was no contact. And I assumed that I could not work on healing a person once they had passed. I work on my mother offering healing to her because of the hard life she had and chose to bear. She is slowly regaining her sense of self. She had severe dementia when she passed. She was very fragmented here and on the other side too.