seems like there are similarities of this kind of thing for some people

Seems to me like there is Experience (at a meta level) and then there are the details of any specific experience. To have undergone an experience (especially if this experience has been consciously processed and assimilated) is to open up the possibility of understanding the experience of another at a deep (meta?) level and without necessarily needing to know (m)any details. Thus a mother - who has experienced childbirth, will have a much deeper emotional understanding than a man, of, for example, the sight of a woman experiencing discomfort during pregnancy. I think @jakeybrown, that it may be possible that we access a level of Experience that is universal, pure and without detail (the meta level) - and as such one that has been accessed by many before. Each instance of Experience is accompanied by a unique set of details that come together in the moment and make up a particular experience. The distilled learning from this particular experience then flows back up and the pool of collective Experience expands. This process makes sense to me. Everything is intricately connected. We have played the game of isolation/alienation and still are playing it; but it is an illusion however touchy-feely and real it may appear :D