Deja Vu Dreams

[Guest Lucid]

I know this is a fairly known topic, deja vu dreams. It's happened to me a couple times when I was a child. I often just ignored it, not really caring about it, as I heard it is common. Memories, I suppose, can also be very vague from a dream so my mind could have "tweaked" it to fit into a relation with an experience. That was my reasoning for ignoring it. However, a bit ago, something really odd came up. I was dreaming one day about this particularly set up gymnasim. The day after, I woke up and thought wow that would be a really cool idea for video game level or 3d architecture, as I believe the most unique creativity comes from dreaming. I eventually blew off the idea because I had very little time with a lot of work going on. Later, with a couple of my friends we visited a college. When we walked to the area of the gym, that is when it hit me. I had an odd feeling that I can't describe. The dream that I had before, which was still fresh in my memory since I was mapping everything out in my head earlier, look extremely familiar to this gym. Same architecture, same window slant, vending machine, running cource, and lower cource. It makes me wish I would have not been lazy and actually made a 3d model of what I dreamed of because it would have looked pretty close to this gym, having never visited it before and not seeing pictures before. So I am wondering, if I am putting this into words right, is this an example of creativity possibly being the same in humanity? I have to apolygize, I can't come up with a good statement to put it in words. I guess what I am trying to say is, instead of our dreams predicting the future, could it be that our creativity follows the same form as most people around our enviroment so that somewhere a guy is coming up with a design plan for a building, and having the same genes and all for an odd reason we dream of the same thing in an environment we haven't been in, as a result creating these deja vu dreams? I am not trying to make an arrogant statement; I admit I know absolutely nothing about Psychology to my knowledge. I am just curious what any of you think about this. If there is already a book or resource avaliable that explains probable reasons we have these dreams, could you point in the right dirrection, or give me a title of a book. This topic is interesting to me.

[Chatha]

I'm not a psychologist or spiritual expert but I think de javu dreams are a result of the brains temporary shut down. When the brain shuts down and reactivates again we have a sence of slight uphoria and refreshment, which may ultimately make the affiliated person feel they have experienced the current envirment previously. Kind of like turning on your computer and turning it off again. Whenever I have a de javu its always when I am relaxed and spaced out so I came to this conclusion

[mooeypoo]

I'm not a psychologist or spiritual expert but I think de javu dreams are a result of the brains temporary shut down. When the brain shuts down and reactivates again we have a sence of slight uphoria and refreshment, which may ultimately make the affiliated person feel they have experienced the current envirment previously. Kind of like turning on your computer and turning it off again. Whenever I have a de javu its always when I am relaxed and spaced out so I came to this conclusion

 

First of all, The brain doesn't Shut Down. When it does, you die.

The brain is always active. Perhaps you meant that your "higher functions" shut down? as in.. R.E.M in sleep? or hypnosis? or.. subconscious thoughts rising to the surface? I didn't really understand waht you meant.

 

The brain never shuts down though. That is a fact.

 

Second, about Deja Vu, there are so many theories revolving that, it is very hard to keep track Personally, I do believe it has to do with our brain recieving many images we dont always remember. Specific locations and events trigger those memories and get that "deja vu" feeling.

 

Beyond that, I tend to think also that people don't "think the same" but rather have similar trails of thought. I am a writer, and I adore movies. When i watch a series I like, I have ideas for episodes in it, scenarios, plotline ideas and such. Sometimes (to my great horror, it can be quite scary ) I see an episode, a short while after I thought of a plot idea, with the same idea.

My mother once told me something very logical: I'm watching so many movies, and I read so many "how-to-write-screenplays" books, and am interrested in the subject in such a way, that I "got into the minds" of the writers of a series. I can expect what will come next, because I know the subject. I am not sure if it's true or not, but it can certainly explain it better than me thinking someone's reading my mind

 

Keep dreaming

 

~moo

[reor]

Mooeypoo, think about that "logic". Ask your mother about "weird things" happening in your family.

 

Forced Deja vu

Is there a way to "force" a Deja Vu by tricking the brain? I don't mean repeating some pattern, because that doesn't work. I was thinking more along the lines of optical illusions.

 

P.S.: We have 3 or more Deja Vu threads. Could a mod merge them?

[mooeypoo]

reor, don't scare me, it took me a while to take that tinfoil hat off my head!

 

 

~moo

[Edtharan]

From what I remember (no pun intended) about memory and deja vu, is when we remember something we have a "circuit" in the brain that triggers a feeling of familiarity. In cases of deja vu, this circuit glitches and we get a sens of familiarity, even though there is no actual memory to go with it.

 

So what occures is we experience a feeling of familiarity with the situation when the circuit in the brain glitches, even though there is no familiarity.

 

Another aspect to this is our memories are ver malleable. When we remember something we actually recreate the memory and store that. When this occures the memory can be changed.

 

Your memory of the Gym might have been similar to the Gym that you visited, and when the deja vu glitch occured you searched you memory of Gyms and came up with the one you dreamed about. By remembering this dreamed Gym you then opened up the posability that the memory of it could be changed and the new Gym was inserted into that memory.

[mimefan599]

Beyond that, I tend to think also that people don't "think the same" but rather have similar trails of thought. ~moo

 

This is a very beautiful Jungian theory. According to Jung, there is a part of our psyche that is common to everyone but in different ways. This is called the Collective Unconscious that is responsible for insticnts, mythological motifs, common thought, common ideas, ect.

 

The similar trails of thought that you refer to may very well be responsible for deja vu, but that is speculation and i will not divulge.

 

I just wanted to thank you for bringing up such a beautiful idea into the local universe.

[mimefan599]

I doubt that the gym occurence had anything to do with the collective unconsious. I tend to believe that memories are malleable as Edtharan had said and deja vu is just your brain reshaping (or rather distorting for the Freudians) a previous image to such a degree that it arises extrene false familiarity.

 

My bringing up the Collective Unconscios was just my suppport for that mode of thinking.

[1veedo]

God, all of you completely missed his point. It's not necessarily about de ja vu.

I have to apolygize, I can't come up with a good statement to put it in words. I guess what I am trying to say is, instead of our dreams predicting the future, could it be that our creativity follows the same form as most people around our enviroment

There have been times when I thought of something "new" and found latter that somebody "copied" it, had already done it, or was planning to do it.

 

Some guy, like Chris Jung , who mentored Freud came up with this idea maybe 50+ years ago. It's probably the same thing mimefan599 is talking about (Jungian...makes sense if he named it after himself). Because humans are so similar we often think the same way. There are "archetypes" that have recurred in numerous religious, epics, literature, cultures etc, around the world throughout history, that could not have been influenced by each other (via cultural diffusion). For instance Beowulf compared to the Iliad or Odyssey. Both epics were written worlds apart (relatively speaking for that age), have a different story, yet they share many similar themes.

 

Not all archetypes developed this way though. If you look at religions, the Christian Hell is adopted from Greek Hades. Noah's Arch is simply Gilgamesh after years of story telling. Etc. But there are plenty of other examples, for instance dragons were invented around the world in almost every major religion and culture. From the Mayans, to the Christians, to the Chinese. There's a dragon special that shows up on the history channel every now and then, and they note (something to the effect), "dragons appear to be embedded in the human psyche...Inseparable from human nature."

 

I think it's funny when autism was discovered it was discovered simultaneously by two men who had never heard of each other yet both ended up calling it the same thing, from a Latin word which means "to one's self" or something.

[mimefan599]

It is Carl Jung, who was mentored by Frued, not the other way around. THe Iliad and the Oddysey were written by the same person, but that is a good point. THere are in theory common themes of our psyche called archetypes that couldnt have influenced each other.