What are your thoughts on Deja Vu?

[StevenM]

The strangest thing just happened. I looked at a picture that I've never seen before, and had a strong deja vu. It lasted relatively longer than usual, as I kept gazing at the picture, I was able to 'see' some things that I am sure are yet to happen. Finally, it got too uncomfortable, and I forced my focus on something else. The feeling drifted away, and I have some amnesia of what I perceived in that moment. All I remember is that there seemed to be some kind of conflict. And I had a strong feeling that I have "dreamed" this before in the past.

I think I read somewhere that deja vu is some minor and benign type of seizure in the brain. Don't quote me on that, I just think I have read that somewhere.

What do you think of deja vus? Is there anything you have read that could share some insight in what is happening during deja vu? Is it crazy to assume that there is a disturbance in space-time? :P

 

[Hawkeye]

I've had two really weird experiences of Deja Vu.

• I've prevented a camera from smashing based on an episode of Deja Vu.

The scenario wasn't quite the same as I had visioned it in a dream; however, both the person who dropped it and the position they were in were practically identical. I caught it just before it hit the ground to the surprise of the people around me.

• I refused to say my part in a Deja Vu conversation.

This one was really odd because as I was talking with my friends, I suddenly felt a strong sense of Deja Vu. It took place in the same spot I had visioned it. When it came to my chance to speak, which I had visioned, I decided not to. What happened next was weird: the entire conversation stopped with everyone looking at me as if to say something. Now, this conversation we were having did not require me to speak, but the fact that everyone stopped and waited for me to say something freaked me out. I just said something off topic and then everyone carried on. I remember thinking "WTF?!"



There is probably a perfectly logical explanation for both, but these were very strange when they happened.

 

[Jennywocky]

I've had it before, and I'll have It Again.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

This is just off the cuff but it probably has to do with memory encoded somewhere that gets triggered when we're in a similar place. What's interesting is if it's a shared experience. That would be an interesting to look into. @Hawkeye did you ask your friends what was happening for them to all turn to you?

 

[Pizzabeak]

There was an arbitrary thing I planned on sharing a few months ago on the topic of deja vu but I saved it in a notepad somewhere since it got too blocky, for one. I kinda wanted to see more about it, though. Wait, I think I did actually end up posting it. Can't remember.

Not too long after though someone posted something vaguely similar, with some of the same not so much words, but phrase (a particular one) in the same thread, so I didn't want to post mine anymore because it would probably have seemed like I was trying to refer to him/her and get his or her attention, when I pretty much wasn't.. But I was just trying to say I wasn't sure if I've experienced "deja vu", as I had always told people that claimed to have experienced it that I never have so I couldn't really know what they were being ecstatic about, necessarily.

But there was this kind of weird thing that seems related to deja vu that happens sometimes, it's probably easier for it to happen if you're stoned though. It should be noted that it's fairly common to mis-identify someone (usually when they're far away, speaking somewhat too soon/getting excited) or hearing someone say something but they actually said something else (probably mostly my fault for not paying attention or having somewhat less than average auditory perception, listening to music too loud for some reason/ 'you're stuck in my mind, all the time' ) while stoned, so it's probably easy to lump them all together in the category of just being inebriated. One possible reason is, while stoned, I (can't speak for everyone, I don't think) seem to overtly focus more inwardly.. So sometimes, of course, I'll begin to, unintentionally, concentrate on a word or idea that seems more or less arbitrary and then someone will express it and all it does is snap me out of it. The differences, if any, are that it always happens almost immediately and that it builds up toward that moment. It gets more and more intense until it finally just pops. It's too easy to see how it can be arbitrary, plus it's not even weird at this point, more like a normal thing that happens sometimes which can be explained by familiar processes like a lot of things maybe, but for some reason I don't think it's the same thing yet.

It also seems related to another idea, which is timing things... Essentially leaving your house at a particular time, but that time had to be heavily considered. Such as, should I eat lunch now or later? Say you have it now, that's an additional 30 or so minutes before you leave while randomness is occurring everywhere still. I mean, you can leave then and go about your day but if you left sans the lunch (thus 30 or so mins earlier) you would have come across slightly different information, probably. Not that it matters, of course.

The point is, you would come across things you wouldn't have otherwise and be confronted by a potential choice mediated by whether it is feasible or not since it only seemed partially random. I'd attempt to operate on an odd mix of the two, which again can be manmade and arbitrary, not like it probably matters. I don't know what deja vu is but people make it seem like it has to do with destiny or something until someone explains it to be the brain doing what it normally does.

 

[Variform]

The strangest thing just happened. I looked at a picture that I've never seen before, and had a strong deja vu. It lasted relatively longer than usual, as I kept gazing at the picture, I was able to 'see' some things that I am sure are yet to happen. Finally, it got too uncomfortable, and I forced my focus on something else. The feeling drifted away, and I have some amnesia of what I perceived in that moment. All I remember is that there seemed to be some kind of conflict. And I had a strong feeling that I have "dreamed" this before in the past.

I think I read somewhere that deja vu is some minor and benign type of seizure in the brain. Don't quote me on that, I just think I have read that somewhere.

What do you think of deja vus? Is there anything you have read that could share some insight in what is happening during deja vu? Is it crazy to assume that there is a disturbance in space-time? :P

I would not believe scientists and their reductionist arrogance too quickly. I have had what they would dismiss as deja vu. Even as a kid. Rephrase it and it could be clairvoyance.

We don't know what time is. How is it possible that people go on vacation to a city they never saw and feel deja vu and can actually predict what lies around the corner.

In grade school we would sit in a circle. At some point I look to the right to a girl with a notebook in her lap, that fell to the floor and I had seen this happen before. I also looked at the clock behind her on the wall and remembered that view. She had net stockings on. I had seen all that before.

I also have had occurrences where the feeling continued and I felt amazed by it and thinking surely it must stop now, for it only to continue a few more moments. And so you get this awareness of the passage of time, where you feel you experienced that moment before, INCLUDING the next moment of feeling amazed by it. And then it stacks up and if it would continue you would lose your mind I bet, because it is a constant feedback loop, a complete double experience of the world.

What are we in time going by?

 

[StevenM]

Interesting responses.

While not in a deja vu, and things go on as normal, the subject does seem very trivial. But when it strikes, and holds you for more than a couple of moments, and there is a sense of mishap up ahead, it really gets your attention.

@Variform + Hawkeye
Your responses seem to affirm one of my speculations, that there is a mess up with the relationship between our consciousness, and the dimension of time during a deja vu. Perhaps there could be a clairvoyant aspect to it. My friend also told me that when he was younger, he would be able to prolong the deja vu, and predict things just coming up ahead. Yet, in my point of view, that's considered hearsay, and I'm still going to leave this assumption debatable in my belief. I'm also speculating another theory.

Apon recollecting the feeling of deja vu, I started to wonder if perhaps it just feels like it happened before. Perhaps, the feeling of familiarity is just a result of a certain neuro-chemical process in the brain, and/or electrical activity.

I have remembered dreams, where an unknown place and setting in the dream had a lot of familiarity (contained in the dream itself), but while awake, realizing that there was never such a place that I have ever observed. Again, this could affirm that clairvoyance is real, or that this feeling of familiarity could be a result of brain activity. Perhaps, a little of both?

I find it weird, and thus interesting, and frightening at the same time.

 

[Rook]

I've seen this thread before....

Now and again I attain a mental state akin to deja-vu.
For me it is, as had been said here, a strong feeling of familiarity.
It holds for a short peroid of time, as if drifting on a timeless cloud, and then it's gone.
Along with feeling familiar with the event, I also feel slightly detached, as if I am observing my life from the outside.

I kind of like that feeling, but I attach no mystical properties to it.
It is, simply, something strange and a-typical that happens within my brain once in a while.


*Side note: Anybody read Catch22? Funny discourse on deja-vu within it's pages.

 

[Variform]

I have remembered dreams, where an unknown place and setting in the dream had a lot of familiarity (contained in the dream itself), but while awake, realizing that there was never such a place that I have ever observed. Again, this could affirm that clairvoyance is real, or that this feeling of familiarity could be a result of brain activity. Perhaps, a little of both?

I find it weird, and thus interesting, and frightening at the same time.

Had dreams like that as well. You know what familiarity feels like, so your subconscious can take that from the memory shelf and make it part of the dream world.
I can still remember some dreams I had a few times as a child. There was a sense of familiarity. A house I never seen. Memories of another life? If I use my own TOE I can explain it. And so it isn't so scary anymore, just fascinating.

Whatever it is, it is both reductionist crap as well as more paranormal explanation. For me, as I explained before in some posts, things need not be either...or but are both...and. It makes little difference what model of explanation you choose. As long as your reasoning about it is consistent. And whatever conclusion you reach needs to be able to be coupled with that reasoning. So the conclusion must support the reasoning. And reasoning does not have to be logical.

SO it is fine to reduce it or to enhance it. As long as you experience it, it is real. An explanation NEVER has ANY sort of connection to what is experienced. The phenomenon IS NOT the explanation and people forget that.

 

[tvrgvryen]

Well, I learned in my psychology class that deja vu is merely a mental and visual illusion. You're just seeing or experiencing a combination of elements deriving from different memories.

 

[scorpiomover]

Here's a way of looking at déjà vu:

[Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]

Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.

[Everyone freezes right in their tracks]

Trinity: What did you just say?

Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.

Trinity: What did you see?

Cypher: What happened?

Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.

Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat?

Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.

Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!

Neo: What is it?

Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

 

[Variform]

Well, I learned in my psychology class that deja vu is merely a mental and visual illusion. You're just seeing or experiencing a combination of elements deriving from different memories.

But do realize that all psychology is theory in the eyes of science. The psyche is not measurable and cannot be held by the scientific method. There is no psychological or psychiatric science, only theory.

So, always remember to take it with a grain of salt and that goes for science too.