Just some inane philosophizing here without any real direction:

Thinking about the metaphor known as reincarnation makes me wonder at what an unlikely thing it is to constitute the consciousness one particular organism. Can you imagine a form of reincarnation where everytime you went to sleep you woke up as a different person? This would mesh with reality because, having taken on the new structural substrate (ie brain) for consciousness in its entirely, you would wake up with those new memories and other inertias. You would be this consciousness for the day, thinking you had been at it since birth, and during that day you would make your own contribution to that organisms inertia.

What if the pool included all consciousness-bearing organisms in the universe?