Past Lives, Or Crazy Dreams?

Lately I have been having a series of reoccurring dreams. They are all different stories, but they are in the same place with the same people. It is always around 1590's or so, in I think France, Spain, or Italy, in a palace that belongs to my "family". I am an only child, but I my dreams I have an older brother, James, and a little sister, Coralynn. There is also a boy named Alexander, but I can't figure out yet if he was my brother, or my betrothed. The first dream was a set of three different stories. The first was: I was sitting in an old fashioned music room, the kind that they had back then with the instruments and old games, and I was teaching my little sister piano. I am fifteen now, but in my dreams I am around seventeen. In this dream I could see myself from outside of my body, like I was watching from the corner or mid air. Then the next was, I was in a huge ballroom that had checkered marble floors, and a big platform at the front. On the wall above the platform, a building sized portrait hung of my "family". Alexander flickered in and out of it too. In front of the portrait stood my "family". But they were dead. They looked like the strong-channeling spirits that I see, only they looked a bit more solid. Their ball gowns and suits were tattered and torn, and my "mother" looked at me, and I heard clear as day in real life, "don't you remember us, my darling?" then I was warped to the third, which was the creepiest. I stood once again in the music room, but it had been almost destroyed looking. The torn curtains blew in on a breeze from the broken windows, and the tile floor was cracked in places. Where the walls used to be a pinkish orange, they were now almost gray. I stood above the old piano, and when I looked down, bloody fingerprints played 'Mary had a little lamb'. Then that dream ended. I have a keyboard in my room, but I have no clue how to play, but I sat down at it and played the keys that I had seen in my dream, and sure enough note for note, it played Mary had a little lamb. Then I had another dream the other day. I was running with my brother and Alexander through our garden maze. We were laughing, and they were trying to catch me. We exited the maze and came out by a stream, on a path that led to a beautiful marble and bronze gazebo. James caught me around the waist and swung me around to face Alexander, who caught me in a hug. We were all laughing and having fun. I stepped back towards the gazebo, but then, out of the bush of the maze, right behind xander (I called Alexander that for short) came a man, dressed in all black with a hood over his face. He thrust a sword through Alexander's chest, and I watched in horror as he crumpled to the ground. I tried to run forward, but James had a hold of my elbows and was dragging me back to the castle so that we would be safe from the attacker. I was screaming xander's name, and crying, and struggling against my brother, who was also crying. The murderer got away, and then I was brought back to reality. Certain songs bring up these horrid but beautiful memories, and they are always old songs. Since I was little, I have always gotten these memories, that are mine, but not mine. Sometimes they come in short flashes of images, or they come in full blown movie type memories. But the thing is, I am empathetic, and I can also see spirits. I can't communicate with them yet, but I don't know if it's their memories that they're trying to show me, or an overactive imagination. But every day I find myself thinking of Alexander, and of little things that I know about him. He's being pieced together bit by bit, but I don't know who he was to me, or if he was even real. But I miss him. Dreadfully so. I don't know yet if I believe in past lives, because I was raised a devout Baptist, but I almost hope that they do exist, so that I can have some closure of who Alexander was. Please share your thoughts on this, all of them would be helpful. I'm confused, is it past life, spirit's life, or my imagination? Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry that it was so long.