What if We're All the Same Person?

I'm sick today. I left work early due to the constant stream of mucous leaking from my nose. My co-workers weren't appreciative of my "market moving" sneezes, so I decided to leave.

On my way home I had this random thought when I saw a shabby looking homeless lady (whom I see everyday on my way home) and thought: "what if the human race is really just one consciousness that lives out the lives of each person on the planet one at a time?"

What I meant by that was: "What if that old homeless lady is me, or, my consciousness, at a different point in time or development?"

Seriously, as drippy as I feel right now, how much worse (or better?) would my life be as a run-down homeless, shoeless, old lady who struggles for an existence in the desert heat of Tel Aviv? But just think of it: if every human is the same consciousness moving from body to body one by one, as a cocoon for something more important, then what does that say about how we treat each other in the here and now?

How much different would I treat those around me if I understood that those people ARE me at some other phase of conscious evolution?