Have you ever experienced deja vu?

[Raveness]

I think I have deja vu about every few months. Sometimes I just get an eerie feeling like "I know this" or this happened already. But I don't remember it UNTIL it happens. So it’s not like being psychic, more like the opposite of being psychic. I've read up on how cognition scientists/neuroanatomists are trying to figure out what causes deja vu and they're trying to duplicate it within the applicable lobes of the brain.

One group of scientists say it may be 'glitch' in your memory making think you're remembering something when you're really not.

Another potential explanation involves a glitch in the exquisitely timed processes of perception and cognition. This theory proposes that sensory impressions of a current experience get detoured in the brain and are not immediately perceived. The information is, however, stored as a memory. This split-second delay in cognition creates the unsettling impression that the event is being experienced and recalled simultaneously.

Whether it's a slippage of timing, a mental hologram or something else entirely, deja vu will remain one of the mind's most tantalizing and elusive tricks.

[Rapture_Survivalist]

Dude, that happens to me like once a week!

[splicer]

Weirdest deja vu I've ever had was when I saw Speed at the cinema,For the entire movie i just couldnt shake the feeling I'd been there before,stuff was happening around me too,I had this vision of someone throwing a coke bottle,then moments later it happened..I didnt enjoy the movie,so I went and saw it again and things were cool.

[Hatesink]

It's something to do with mental processes. Your consciousness is momentarily aware of things you've already subconsciously processed, giving you the feeling that you've already seen what's 'around you'.

Since I learned what caused it I've not experienced it (I think the change in my perception with regards deja vu has actually altered the way I respond to it at a very fundamental level, but of course that's just conjecture).

[Nias Wolf]

I used to have deja cu durring conversations. (I posted this on the "nightmare" thread too...) I liked it, as it made me feel like I was experiencing a higher state of consciousness. Anyway, the last time It happened to me was 9 months ago at school (I haven't been to school since... or for 9 months before that... cfids) A good friend was saying how nice it was to see me. She went on about how long I had been gone, ect. Durring the whole conversation, I had deja vu, and I think I know why! Like Hatesink suggested, I had run through this entire conversation in my head, months ahead of time. I had given much thought to what I would say to her (I had a crush for a while), and would say to anybody. I believe that some deja vu can be triggered by mapping out possible scenarios in your subconscious, forgetting that you ever maped them out, and then experiencing said scenario... but then again, it hasn't happened to me since then, so.......

[splicer]

Thats as good a theory as any that Ive heard-I used to treat someone who was convinced he knew the details of his entire life and would scibble for hours in notebooks..some of it was pretty creepy.Also theres a tribe in Africa who believe that dreams and deja vu are portents from the future,many of them attempt to re-enact what they have seen.

[501105]

Mostly by dreaming I feel like I experience something I have already dreamed about before.

[Poison17]

Yes I do experience Deja Vu.

[Raveness]

Don't mistake deja vu with any level of precognition, they are separate mental phenomena.

I've been finding some stuff that mentions deja vu is a brief input failure of sensory information, where your occipital or temporal lobe or both do not finish processing the information before it is sent to the parietal lobe for integration and analysis. Basically your brain is already deciphering what it sees/hears/smells/feels before the front of your brain is fully done bringing all sensory information in. Therefore you experience this brief feeling of repetition that your long-term memory shrugs its shoulders at.

Whether it's a slippage of timing, a mental hologram or something else entirely, deja vu will remain one of the mind's most tantalizing and elusive tricks.

[Nias Wolf]

Well, whatever it is... I miss it.

[Poison17]

Mine is usually like a Mental Hologram, I feel like I experienced it before alot of times.

[Raveness]

Well, whatever it is... I miss it.

That's inevitable. If you think more about the phenomena, you condition yourself (your mind actually) to downplay its significance. The more you think about it, the less it will happen, because you'd now have a conscious trigger in your parietal lobe telling yourself that the information coming in may be falsely applicable to the rest of your conscious. Or so I think

[Jeff]

I've always had deja-vu explained as a short-term or immediate memory being accidentally transferred to the area of your brain which stores long term memories. Always made sense to me.

[Raveness]

I've always had deja-vu explained as a short-term or immediate memory being accidentally transferred to the area of your brain which stores long term memories. Always made sense to me.

That's not technically right, though it falls along the same way of thinking how it works. Short-term to long-term does not transfer at a distinct point like a harddrive.

There's another, more outlandish idea posited by quantum physicists that deja vu occurs when you're duplicating an activity or conversation that a parallel universe version of yourself has already done in their recent past. The stronger the feeling, the more recent they probably did it

That theory opens up a can of worms, the obvious one being where do physicists fit in theorizing about perceptual and cognitive activities of the cerebrum. Another being that there exists some form of energy link between universes and persons, possibly lending scientific credence to something akin to a soul.

[Adabiviak]

I have it on occasion, and when it occurs to me that it might be déjà vu, I'll start to try to put a date on it and it goes away. For those brief moments while I'm not sure, neat!

[Nias Wolf]

But think about all of the things that had to happen for you, as a person, to be who you are. In a theory of infinite parallel universes, you probably don't exist in most of them, therefore deja vu would happen much less often? I find the other theories easier to believe.

Edit: Or, if you look at it differently, you would experience deja vu way more often, because some of the parallel universes would be so similar? Anyway, I think the brain is such a complicated organ, that mistakes in memory are bound to occure.

[Raveness]

But think about all of the things that had to happen for you, as a person, to be who you are. In a theory of infinite parrallel universes, you probably don't exist in most of them, therefore deja vu would happen much less often? I find the other theories easier to believe.

That was another counterpoint to their idea. If there are infinite parallel universes, then our counterparts would have infinite opportunity to share the exact same experiences, essentially meaning we'd experience deja vu all the time. I believe they countered with quite vague reasons, stating that you'd only match with parallel selves if you led similar lives, or that the time limit for a "recent" experience was nanoseconds. Suffice to say an outlandish idea that forgets Occam's Razor, but nevertheless fires the imagination. What the heck am I doing over in the nth dimension?

[borgdrone89]

the deja vu i get is not true deja vu, as deja vu stems from daydreaming i'm told.

my deja vu stems from dreams i have (as i said in the dreams thread), where something may happen in a dream, it gets stored in my long term memory, and i soon forget i had the dream. then all of a sudden (perhaps a few months later), the events occur, with the exact same scenes (and some stuff is different, based on my choices, as i said in the other thread) and my dream floods back to me. feels weird.

just reading thewikipedia article, i have only experienced Déjà vécu.

so, i know what everybody else is going to say next

I've always had deja-vu explained as a short-term or immediate memory being accidentally transferred to the area of your brain which stores long term memories. Always made sense to me.

this isnt the case for me as after having the dream i can remember some of what happened and then i forget until some time later (days, weeks, months) some scene triggers the memory, and everything just plays like in the dream.

[Adam Nuhfer]

One group of scientists say it may be 'glitch' in your memory making think you're remembering something when you're really not.

deja vu will remain one of the mind's most tantalizing and elusive tricks.

A glitch eh?
Follow any scientific type discussion and you will find most have various theories, ideas, conjuncture, etc..

If it's all in ones mind and so forth why is one able to start the deja vu process and have both your boys with you and you start detailing what is about to happen in detail. Then it does.

Then again what we see isn't what we really see at all is it. Everyone reading this isn't really seeing anything. Your brain cells are bing stimulated by various chemical and electrical impulses. What you see as sight isn't sight at all. You perceive it as sight.

Your body you perceive as one entity is made up of billions of individual cells. Your not one person but a "Body of the many" [Had to throw that in there].

All matter is interconnected [Bells theory]. Multiple dimensions. String theory.
Quantum mechanics. It's all there, always has been since we have come into being.

What holds us back is our own slighted ego. What sets us apart is our ability to let go of logic as we perceive it and to make the leap away from logic and dream.


Back in the early 1900's a person working at the US patent office suggested the patent office be closed. Reason being is that everything that could be invented had been invented. That's the kind of ego that holds us back. It's the ones whom dare to dream outside the norm that lead us into the future.

Best science teacher I ever had told me this back in the late 60's.

"Nothing is impossible! it's just that some things are highly improbable".

Don't close your mind to new ideas because someone out there says they have all the facts as to what makes it happen. Don't be afraid to dream!

If that doesn't work, then try this. A lot of them are just a bunch of old nubs like me.

[Raveness]

Man, and I thought Ayn Rand is didactic, but you take the cake Adam

[reaper114]

I have deja vu all the time, I have dreams about doing certain things and a couple months later I'll be doing them. Its so strange, like I'll dream about bieng in the ghetto and staring at a blue brick house and a couple months later for one reason or another I'll be in that same spot doing the same thing i had in my dream. It's never anything special so I dont know what to make of it.

[CodeMonkey]

There is also a theory that it happes because of the time lag transfering the thoughts between the two hemispheres of the brain.

There is also a theory that it happes because of the time lag transfering the thoughts between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Whoa, Deja Vu...

[Adam Nuhfer]

Man, and I thought Ayn Rand is didactic, but you take the cake Adam

WOW, An old Nub whom takes the cake! YES!

You've made my day




This cake stealing old nub is off on a worldly adventure. I'll check back on Sunday night. I always look forward to your replies/input.

[biohazzard]

well i hated that other deja vu so much once because i had a dream that a big daddy slapped me then when i woke up and went to school a fat girl asked me out and when i turned her down she slapped and i was WTF!!!!!MATE!!!!!11111

[lurchibald]

well how in the hell did you turn her down, were you nice about it or otherwise?

[WakeUpInFlames]

Yea, but not that often. Maybe 3 times a year.