Have you experienced deja vu?

Maybe this meeting was very similar to a dream you experienced a long time ago. As for my deja vus, i have had a few, but i won't talk about them here since they are so incredibly nerdy and geeky

I don't know how often, but it would seem there's periods of déjà vu when it'll occur several times in let's say a month. Then there'll be a month(s) without any events. It's rather odd feeling indeed, and when I experience it, I immediately start and try to predict the next sequence of events or visualize the next scene. BTW this never really seems to work, but I still "try"

it is what it is...

Yes. Now when was it? Um, er..........

I experienced a few times, but i believe that it relation with brain activity.

dejavu

As I get older, I experience more and more vuja de's. That when I know I've been here before, but have absolutely no recognition of it....

Sleep walker!

You experience new things more than once too

I'm going to try to avoid the 'funny answer'.

I think it is just a familiar juxtaposition of stimuli.

Often when driving somewhere new one can get that feeling as the scenery unfolds...but you only have to think that the cute bridge over the canal...was built to the same pattern as a thousand other bridges over similar canals...
If you go into just about any town centre in the UK it looks identical.

I think smells is a big trigger too, or just the angle of the light at a certain time of year...or maybe that first chill in the air as Summer turns to Autumn.

Having mentioned the word pattern...we all have patterns of speech and behaviour and our brain tends to recognise these things.

Del

Yes I have, I think everyone does sometime in their lives. When it happens, I seem to know what will happen depending on a certain action or decision, as if we have gone through the same situation before. This time I had better get it right.

I have also had a premonition of 9/11 almost 10 years prior to the event as we walked past the building. My buddy dismissed it as not likely to ever happen. But when it did, It made me rethink my understanding of premonition and time.

Putting the two together, plus other predictions by many prophets etc. I think we have to rethink the concept of time. It seems that any significant event will echo through time in both directions + or -.

I think that the deja-vu and premonitions are an echos in time, and when the harmonics add together, they are strong enough that we can actually perceive them.

We are also probably more sensitive to events that affect ourselves.

On the lighter side..

We could also all have a mild case of Alzheimer's. 'Deja vu' (already seen) is actually 'deja faite' (already done)

We are all in an alien science experience doing the same maze over and over until we get the big cheese - testing our learning ability

Yes I have, I think everyone does sometime in their lives. When it happens, I seem to know what will happen depending on a certain action or decision, as if we have gone through the same situation before. This time I had better get it right.

Have you ever had it occur simultaneously with another individual nearby? Happened to me twice. As a friend and I looked at each other my friend said: "What the hell just happened?" Another occasion was with a complete stranger. I said deja vu!! The guy said: "I know. I don't want to talk about it"... and walked away. Very strange.

I think the answer is, "sure, many (or all) have experienced it at one time or another".

For the scientific community, it is often passed off as being some 'mix up' between short-term and long-term memory. We are currently experiencing 'something', and the information is somehow passed from our short-term memory to our long-term memory, and we 'think' / 'feel' like this happened 'before'. Indeed it is a strange feeling.

I tend to believe this, because our memories are a mysterious collection of information, and we can't always know what is 'correct'. Consider that in contemporary surgical or invasive procedures, we are given a drug that makes us 'forget' the process or procedure. Been there and done that [I think ], but it was most revealing when I saw it happen to a close friend who underwent a scope procedure on his lungs ... meeting him later in the hall, when he was being discharged from the outpatient procedure, he was angry that he came all that way and they never did the procedure ... memory totally erased. There have been many times when, upon waking, I knew the elements and details of an interesting dream, yet as I lay there, half awake, the details slipped slowly away, like sand slipping through my fingers, and no matter how I tried, I could not hold onto the memory of that dream ... nothing ... just the memory that there was a dream, but no details.

Consider also, on the 'flip side', sci-fi concepts of 'planting' memories, such as in Total Recall, where those who couldn't afford or take time for a vacation, simply had the memory of an adventure 'planted'. Sci-fi for sure, but an interesting concept.

Deja vu and premonitions exist, but maybe a larger consideration, at least for me, is, "what, if anything, am I supposed to do with this information?" I don't believe in 'accidents', so if something 'happens', I believe it is for a reason, so ... what am I supposed to do with this?

In the case of deja vu, regardless of the reason, I can't find a purpose other than to intrigue me with the 'feeling'. In the case of a suspected premonition, I have taken action before, but thankfully (very thankfully in some cases), 99% have been false.

I can't and won't discount the multi-dimensional, prior-life, "echos in time" possibilities, because, last time I checked, I don't know everything , but in my own experience, based on the fact that this 'information' seems of either no purpose or value, or the 'information' proved to be false, I will categorized these just an interesting phenomena of the mind, and little more.

Good post ... thanks.

Yes, I have experienced this on numerous occasions and always wondered where it originated from. Well I'm still not clear on that one, but I have began to notice how I am connected to the next person in so far as experiencing something of their feelings when I get "tuned" closely in to them.

In my experience this is not something the brain is doing, it is more likely the "body" bringing up this feeling... of perhaps an earlier experience (maybe even a past life experience???)

I would love to hear more on this...

Deja vu is a feeling that something you've just experienced is something you've experienced before, but your mind tells you what you just experienced is something you've never experienced before. This conflict leaves you with a weird sensation.

If you tend to follow logic and reasoning in your thinking, you will be inclined to think this is a trick your emotions are playing on you, you dismiss the issue and move on to other things.

If you tend to follow your emotions, then the more you think about the incident, the more convinced you become that you remember the incident happening twice, or that you had a "preview" of the event.

I do not dismiss the possibility of the preview coming through a dream, vision, or your imagination. Generally, when a "message" comes through a dream or vision, it is something of great importance.

But then, Yogi Berra once said, "It's like daja vu all over again." He also said, "It's tough making predictions, especially about the future."

Hello julie:,

I have had several lots of deja vu, especially when driving through places I have not been before. It is so real on several occasions I can predict what is round the corner and the way out of the Town.

I am not sure if it is deja vu but, on three occasions I have watched myself walk downstairs from my bedroom when I was already downstairs. This happens always after an Epileptic attack. I had just come down stairs. Stopped to open the kitchen door and noticed myself walking downstairs. I do not know what 'caused' it. And it may well be a crossed link between my short term and long term memory, I don't know. I do know it scared the hell out of me. And, after calling the doctor as I sometimes do after a serious Epilepsy attack, the Doctor had me in hospital in 20 minutes and I went through a weeks intensive tests. They could not say why this had happened either.

I was worried it would be shunned as just a dream but, it was more serious than that judging by the time and effort put my way by psychologist etc. It was the single most frightening thing ever to happen to me.

babybear

Weeks before the disaster, I heard that a civilian, a teacher, Crista McAuliffe, was going to ride in the space shuttle, Challenger. I told myself that something disastrous was going to happen during the flight. Then, when I heard the report that my premonition had been confirmed by the explosion, I told myself, "I told you so."

I, immediately, was overwhelmed by a wave of guilt for not having called NASA before the launch to tell them of my premonition . But, if I had called, what would they have done other than say thank you and laugh?

I used to have similar experiences as a kid.. till 10-12 yrs old.. I clearly remember one incident when my aunt visited us and i knew I had seen that scene or snap shot before - like what she was doing , what she was gonna say.. n it happened! I was not nothing I could have anticipated, like a similar event occured before. I would say I have experienced deja vu 3-4 times as a kid.

Yes. About once every 10 or 15 years. Somehow I have the impression that about half of those experiences were somehow related to mental telepathy (whatever that is), and the other half were not.

Yes, many times in my life...Really good, weird feeling of sorts...I find myself waiting with intensified senses to see how the rest of episode falls into place..Often left feeling dissapointed that something wonderful didn't happen......Is this a good or bad thing?

Hi all,

I think most people have experienced that. It can be (according I've read) by that already mismatch between short and long term memory as well as for a delay in the signal processing between two brain hemispheres: One send the information quicker than other, so when the second information becomes "perception", it seems it was the same as sometime before (dejà vu).

Some of you have spoke about premonitions. I think this is a different thing and I've heard no scientific serious explanation. But it seems to exist too.

I've had a couple of that. The first when my elder daughter was a child. I dreamt one night I was called to see my daughter who had fallen and hit her forehead against the cement ground. I could see her on my dream and suddenly awake sweating and upset. I dreamt the same thing several times over the whole night. After wake up, I went to the job and when I came back home in the evening I found my daughter with her forehead distorted by bump and hematoma produced when she fell down and hit against the cement ground. I was so impressed that start crying, my wife asked me about the cause and after explain her my dream, from this day when the clock buzzer awakes me she turns and ask me: What have you dreamt this night?

As our north west people use to say " I don't believe in witches, but there are some of them"

Kind regards

Yes several times in exact detail nothing hit or miss about it...

Hi, there's a lot of weird manifestations out there, only until we get the knowledge that explains it. I found the book "The Field" by Lynne Mc Taggart very informative to explain the unseen. Hope this will put you on the track of "knowing". Enjoy life, we can make it such fun for ourselves.From B.

Are they really thinking about making "Groundhog day 2".

Sparkstation, sounds good to me....Can these occurances be manually manipulated to re-occur????? Bewilderment can be fun......

I think we all have feeling of deja vu. I certainly do, at least once a week I suppose.

But in meetings I usually sleep.

I have no idea what the brain triggers are for either.

Yes. In spurts. I will go a long time between events, then for some reason, a series of events will occur over several days. Then the effect fades for a while...

Rarely do I remember my dreams. About eight years ago, I was wakened during a very intense and detailed dream. It was startling enough that I knew at that time that I HAD to make an effort to burn into my memory every minute detail and spent at least two hours that night and often after that, reviewing the dream. It was about a specific future event, the time of which I will be able to set up at my will. I expect this opportunity to occur at least a year or so from now. At the time that I attempt to initiate the sequence, I am anticipating that every detail will fall into place. If it all does, after I pick myself up off of the ground, I will know that, like the radio signals we are emitting out into space, events in time are flowing past us and deja vu is a state of consciousness that allows us to sense/receive past information that is occurring to us presently, and dreams are a state of consciousness that allow us to sense/receive future information as well as review past experiences. In other words, past, present and future are occurring simultaneously, and we occasionally, or in the case of psychics, at will (that third eye stuff), are able to sense it. I feel dizzy.

Ok all this serious talk about deja vu is weirding me out.... again

I think it's just the matrix reloading.

Seriously I always wondered what could be considered deja vu and what is really a brain mix of reality.

I find myself remembering events that haven't occurred yet quite often but always just as it's happening. On a flight to the UK about 3 years ago it happened several times and I had never been there before. Throughout the entire trip I would say it happened to me about a dozen time over the course of the 7 days I was there. Events occurring as if I had done them before people I met and even while driving on the M5.

I was quite fascinating, but after the trip was over and I got back home the episodes subsided and things got back to normal. I still experience deja vu at least once or twice a month but it seems that I have always been that way. Geeky and weird I know but it's better than my wifes problem with premonitions. She seems to have them alot and it almost always involves family. Consequently she worries about everything.

I've had experiences that have come up that seem to remember dreaming about it a long time before.

Then I've had experiences where I arrive someplace and remember seeing it before. One time it was visiting one of my Dad's old friends and recognizing the house and furniture because it was exactly the same as when I saw it as a baby sixteen years earlier.

I've read articles about Deja vu being a result of the information perceived by one eye being processed slower than the information perceived by the other eye to be the cause the cause of a deja vu experience.

I'm inclined to believe in the dreams. Even though some dreams are complete non-sense and fantasy, I believe some of our dreams are forwarnings of things to come and we don't realize it until it happens and you weren't prepared because you didn't take the dream seriously but when it happens you somehow knew it was going to happen.

It's the parallel (sp?) universe!

I have a theory on this, although I have no medical or psychological degrees. Since medicine and psychology seem unable to answer the question I figure my theory is just as valid as anyone else's at this point.

I think it is possible for thoughts and experiences to occasionally be "routed" via memory cortex. When this happens, it triggers the sensation that one "remembers" them. Another possibility is that when they are encoded into memory once in a while they are instantly "played back" in what I call mnomic echoes. Again these experiences, played back immediately, leave the same impresion that they are being "remembered" - possibly because that is the closest experience type that the mind can associate with otherwise paradoxical temporal data.

That's my thought on it anyway.

Have I posted this before? (jk)

The optic nerve which is connected to the brain is "seeing" first what you are about to experience and register in your brain. Typically this happens in real time, at the same time. On occasion, when deja vu occurs there is a slight disconnect and your eyes actually see and store what your brain is about to register. You know you have never been in the same place at the same time doing the exact same thing.

deja vu?

Happens to me about a year after having dreamed the event and I have never been to these places ever nor have I seen them previous. They invovle real people, places and events.

Sounds like what I talked about in 28, since you remember dreaming it.

I could have sworn that you have asked this question exactly the same way before!

Seriously, I have experienced deja vu a couple of times in my life. I don't recall the details, but each time, I had gone to a place that I could have sworn that I had been to before but knew I had not. Seemed wierd.

The explanation that Sparkstation gave seems plausible, but it also seems that, were that the only explanation for deja vu, it would happen more often.

As a child, I had many dreams that occurred weeks or months later. The activities were usually nothing special, just daily activities such as discussing a certain topic in school. I also used to "pick" my dreams. If I didn't like my dream, I would "change the channel" to a different dream.

When I was 10, I moved to a new house. The deja vu ended at that time. I don't know if it was due to a different sleep schedule, new environment, etc. Now I rarely sleep enough to have any good dreams.

I have told many people, "However, I'm probably the nicest SOB you've ever met," subsequent to them telling me, "You're a[n] SOB!"

In that vein, I can't help but to comment on the first sentence you wrote: "As a child, I had many dreams that occurred weeks or months later."

What the hell does that mean? I have had dreams that occurred weeks or months after some signigicant event, but that's not what you wrote. You kinda left everyone hanging . . .

I'm not trying to give you any grief. This forum is fun as well as serious, and I figure, 'What the heck, if I can't have a little fun from time to time, then why am I breathing your air?'

P. S. I didn't dream for several years, and I merely thought it was 'cause I was getting old. Turns out that I had sleep apnea and I never got to REM sleep (which is when one dreams). I didn't notice anything was wrong until I started having problems with heart arhythmia. Not good! If you don't dream, try to find out why.

Bill,

nice p.s., thanks for the tip. I told my girlfriend that when she's sleeping, her breathing is irregular that sheep may have sleep apnea.

She also said she does'nt dream, until now I never tie the two together.

thanks,

phoenix911

my p.s., I am throwing a GA your way.

phoenix911,

Thanks! I really had some serious problems, and being the stubborn cuss that I am, it took me several years to realize that something was wrong. I noticed that my twin brother wasn't getting old as fast as I, but it still didn't register.

I just happened to go to my doctor (which I do about every ten to fifteen years whether I need to or not) to get treatment for arthritic joint pain, acid reflux and a foot ailment (Dupuytrens Contractures or Dupuytrens Disease of the Foot, whichever you prefer). During my office visit, he mentioned that I seemed to be very hoarse, and I told him that people have complained for years that I snore so loudly that they can't sleep in the same house with me. He questioned me about that, and I revealed that the same people who complained about my snoring also said things like, "By the way, you stop breathing all the time too." Off I went to a sleep clinic, and they kept me overnight and discovered that I stopped breathing about every 30 seconds for up to as long as 10 seconds. Worse case they ever saw. Blood oxygen goes down to a point that it can be lethal.

Anyway, sleep apnea is nothing to be ignored.

Reggie White of the Green Bay Packers Died that way, He was I Believe 42

wow, after I stopped laughing, this stirred a memory . When I was about 10 years old, I dreamed that the cows where out, it was so real that i woke out actually thought it was real. I got out, threw something on and ran out bare footed.....(rarely wore shoes any way given the choice) An the cows were just walking threw the gate. Gate was left open. I thought it was odd how this whole thing unfolded. Then it occurred to me that I was the one that forgot to close the gate, and somehow my mind reminded me.

This happens to me now, at work when something has to get done and I would forget about it. Middle of the night, in a deep sleep, I would bolt awake recalling what has to get done.

One of these times as I get older, I'm going to bolt awake and grab my chest and drop over.

I'm bring this back On-Topic.

Julie,

Very much so, and the feeling can be so strong, one wonders if it was a memory that actual happened.

Another experience, which may not be simuliar. I have a twin sister, and when we were growing up, at times we were separated, we could feel what the other is experiencing. I like to always give an example so here's one.

I was setting watching television with my parents, my sister was out on a date. And I had received a crap in my foot,….happens, I tried to stand it off, but it kept getting worse and lasted for about 5 minutes,, hell I was sweating, my mom ask what's the matter I told her. She said stand on it to stretch it out, I told her I that was what I've been doing. It finally subsided, I was wore out from it, never experienced it, My Dad tried to explain it that I was probally dehydrated and the like. And we just wrote it off.

Next morning at the breakfast table, for the heck of it, I asked my sister how's your foot. She ask what are you talking about, I told her your foot, you had a crap in your right foot ant about 9:50 pm. And it wouldn't go away.

Her boyfriend and her got white as a sheet and her boyfriend said; I didn't say nothing, she went on to tell that they went skating last night and she had a crap in her right foot at about that time, but she couldn't do anything it because she had her skates on, and it took a while to get them off. And the look on her boyfriend eyes, she had no patience.

We joked about it and wrote it off as another one.

By the way, what we joke about was if she ever got pregnant, was that they dam well better put her under, or she'll be hearing from me.

I normally don't talk about it, but since I am know as phoenix911, it's ok.

phoenix911

I have a friend, a lady, who I have known for 28 years. She is as truthful as they come. I do not question her integrity.

When she was in Catholic grade school in Scotland, one day she was caught gazing intently out the window at the houses across the street. When asked what she was looking at, she said "Sister, I see fire." The next day, the house across the street burned to the ground.

replace the word crap with the word cramp in my post #38 if you please

Yes I have, but only once or twice in my lifetime and I am 61 years old. I believe though that some people are getting premonition from dreams and deja vu mixed up. I believe true deja vu happens in the conscious state and involves the belief or feeling that what you are experiencing has happened before; not only happened before but you have a very strong feeling that you are living the very exact same moment in time again. This phenomenon may be explained away theoretically by claiming that pathways are crossed or neurons are misfiring in the brain but I have a different theory. It involves time and the fact that it is not as much of a constant as some people believe. Also, maybe when we lived this moment before we were not even who we are now. Think about that one for awhile.

This is a great topic, I rated it so.

Sometimes I think I'm totally crazy, (in a good way), and it appears that I'm not alone.

The mind is such a complex and wonderful thing. I think I have a sharp and analytical mind, with one foot firmly planted in reality and science, and the other foot waging around in a time warped, slippery sloped, surreal world of something I can never really explain.

So here's my story. In February of this year, I went on a hike in the Berkshire Hills, with my 2 dogs, Britney, an 8 yr. old Brittany, a very experienced trail dog, and Lucy, a yearling Springer. There had just been a thaw, and a hard refreeze, so the trail was very slippery. We went up OK, but coming down I slipped, fell down hard, slid into a ravine, and was knocked out cold.

Well Britney pulled a Lassie, and went and got help. The next thing I knew was waking up in the ER, with my family around me.

The next week was hell. I remember little but really bad nightmare's, blurred vision, and lack of equilibrium. In this week's time, I have but one vivid memory.

I was awakened by people coming in my bedroom. They sat down at the end of my bed, and asked me to get up and fix them a drink. I turned the light on. and there sat Alexander the Great, Sir Francis Drake, and Adolf Hitler. We went downstairs, I poured four shots, and we talked about women, gardens, and the weather. After a while, they said it was time for them to go, and I should go back to bed and get some rest.

From that, it seemed like a very long time, I woke up one day completely normal and back in reality. My family tells me they took me to the clinic. They ran a bunch of tests, and determined I had a concussion, and would be OK. I remember little of this.

Well the point is, the memory of this "dream" is as real as anything I've done, actually based in fact. I remember such detail, how they were dressed, how each held their glass, how they pronounced their words. Dam scary.

Anyway, there is a lot more to how our brains work than we will ever know.

Yes I have experienced déjà vu, but it mostly when I was young. I have discussed this with other before, and my theory is that is to do with anticipation. As we go through life we anticipate what is going to happen next, when we think something is going to happen, and does not happen, then shock occurs, like when you say boo to a child, at first there is surprise followed by laughter. I can remember my daughter saying she could predict the future when she was young, I think not, just a strong ability to anticipate? I still get a strong reaction when driving, and a situation that I had not anticipated occurs, I assume that when a situation occurs that fulfils my experience of previous situations an experience of déjà vu occurs.

Regards JD