What is Deja Vu?

[Money]

i kno wat it is but what causes it

like how it is possible to see your self in a place

or situation then actually being in that place or situation

in the future ????? i have a theory but i want to hear yours

thnx

[YT2095]

it`s when the brian "stops" (passes into another state of consciousnes) for a split second, then when it "comes back" it recognises the situation again and it seems familiar.

 

a bit like when you go to sleep at night and wake up unsure of how much time has passed.

 

and yes, it`s in the wrong section, I`ll move it to the Psych area.

 

another way to think about is that it like the Brain equiv of a cardiac palpitation.

[Money]

i understand that but does that theory apply

to the situation that i hear about all the time which is

how somebody supposedly had a breif dream about a place

or pictured themselves ina a place they've never been to before

in some kind of event or situation like a dinner party etc then like 7 days later

they are some how in that eaxct situation in that exact place

does what you are saying apply to this

[Glider]

There is a theory that deja vu results from information being 'accidentally' (or prematurely) encoded from short-term memory (STM) to long-term memory (LTM). As YT says, a bit like a cardiac palpitation, but this happens in the hippocampus (which is assocaited with the laying down of long term memories).

 

When this happens, the information is not 'logged' correctly and becomes associated with memories already resident in LTM and not relevant to the current situation. When the information is recalled from LTM, which it is immediately as one is still in the relevant situation, it carries with it something akin to a time-stamp 'cookie', telling your brain that this information is from the LTM, which is translated as "I've experienced this before, longer ago than now". It also carries the traces to the other information already resident in the LTM that it became associated with, which translates as "and I first experienced this under different circumstances" (e.g. a dream or another memory).

[ajb]

I used to get Deja Vu now and again. Mostly about visiting places and talking to people. However, I think it was "real deja vu", in the sense that once in a routine things were bound to repeat themselves!

[Royston]

I remember experiencing acute deja vu when I visited 'Isla del Sol' in Bolivia...when I say acute, I just couldn't shake the feeling off, even when I went into other environments e.g like one of the tiny restaurants, I was convinced I'd been there before, it was very strange and unique to that place.

[swansont]

I could have sworn we've done this thread before.

[YT2095]

yes, it`s Amazing how frequently some peoples brains just "Stop"

[Phi for All]

yes, it`s Amazing how frequently some peoples brains just "Stop"

... just short of using the Search function.

[Taq_is_hot]

I could have sworn we've done this thread before.

 

HAHAHA! That is so funny! Nice one, swansont! Get it? déjà vu - done this before? LOL. Well at least my brain didn't stop just short of using the search function. I swear it was ready to stop, but luckily it didn't. How many déjà vu threads have been made? Are you sure the other ones have been made or are you having déjà vu???LOL LOL LOL. Well, I'll just reply on this one I guess as long as its the first one that showed up when my brain decided not to stop and hit the search button.

 

I am extremely interested in this phenomenon. I always find myself looking up articles about it. Or have I only look them up once? lol. There is a new thing they are working on at Leeds. A man named Chris Moulin has discovered what he calls "Chronic déjà vu"...or at least I think he was the one who discovered it. Don't take my word for it. There are some really interesting articles on it. He had a patient at his memory clinic who felt like he didn't need to go there because he had already been there. These people who are said to have Chronic déjà vu actually think they have really experienced it. They don't watch the news because they think they have already seen it. This differs from regular déjà vu because its not a weird feeling - its that they actually believe it!

 

Here are some links for the info

http://chris.moulin.googlepages.com/

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=2c4f7afd-5a3a-4e52-a2fb-bc729692bfb4

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060130_dejavufrm.htm

[foursixand2]

i love deja vu. The theory ive heard was similar to gliders, but it was that one side of the brain is lagging, or the other was processing faster, so the otherside sees the information a fraction of a second later and realizes this has been seen before (a fraction of a second ago). i wonder if there is a seperate term for the phenomon of having dreamed an occurance and it later happening. Or to be more scientific the sensation that this has occured, since you cant honestly say you are sure you are really reliving a dream or if its some strange trick of the brain. I have experienced that feeling for hours at a time under the influence of THC. Believing to the point of 'knowing' that i dreamed a sequence of events the night before, the week before, or that i have transcended time and am IN that dream. i have heard of only a few other cases of people experiencing this highly extended type of deja vu during altered states.

[iNow]

I've experienced the "reliving of a dream" feeling multiple times, and when quite young too. THC was not a factor for me when I had these "I've dreamt this before" experiences.

[Taq_is_hot]

Yes! Indeed. I have had more than several experiences where I actually DID relive a dream or I saw something that I dreamed about.

 

I'll give you a few examples and I swear on the holy bible or by anything that this is true. I don't lie.

 

It began when I was little. The first experience I had was when I was about 9 or so. I knew my family was going to a beach on Lk Michigan the next day. That night I had a dream that we went to the beach and there was a big thunderstorm. I saw this oddly shaped dark cloud. Strange enough, a few hours after we got to the beach the next day, there was a thunderstorm and I saw the cloud and it looked almost exactly like the one in my dream.

 

Now, I'm not under the influence of anything!

 

In high school, I dreamed that this one friend of mine wasn't in school. That was rare because I had never seen her miss a day of school in the two years that I knew her! Guess what! The next day, she wasn't there!

 

This didn't happen to me, but to my mom. She had a dream one night that she got to work and realized she wasn't scheduled that day. Guess what happened when she woke up and went to work! This could have been that her subconscious already knew she wasn't on the schedule that day. But as for the other incidents, the only way I can come up with an explaination is that there was some sort of glitch in time or possibly even something to do with parallel universes.

[foursixand2]

Yes! Indeed. I have had more than several experiences where I actually DID relive a dream or I saw something that I dreamed about.

 

Now, I'm not under the influence of anything!

 

i was about to chastize you about your certainty here, but after reading through your stories i dont think i can honestly make a judgment in that direction.

I am probably more skeptical about the things i want to believe.

 

Your witness pehaps carries a truer value than mine given the fact of your sobriety.

 

I wish there was more documentation and research done on this phenomenon. It seems that despite being relatively widespread it is a sacred occurance that few ever discuss or give much thought. It appears to be quite common, but apparently so strange that we generally forget about it and move on. There isnt even (to my knowledge) a name for said phenomenon.

[poolsharkmjr]

hi ime mike, I have also had dejavoo on many occasions, once when i was sleaping and dreampt ide gone to the asda store to buy a cassette-tape on arrival i walked along an aisle looking at electrical items then on turning the corner saw a lady kneeling and stacking a shelf i enquired about the cassette she then walked to the music section looked for the tape and found it on the third shelf. /three months later whilst walking through asda under very warm lighting a cold column of air fell over me and a sudden feeling of familiarity:(daja-voo)came over me it scared me at first and i stayed very still the cold lifted of me, it was over. I decided that if i were actualy experiencing daja-voo then to see a lady in the next aisle kneeling and stacking shelves would conferm it. I turned the corner there she was same woman same voice i asked for the cassette she turned and walked over to the music section then i ran past her to reach for the cassette before she could and sure enough there it was. she asked how i new were it was but i didnt tell her just saying i could see it from were i was.

 

hi, just thought ide give my theory about daja-voo, its (sub-concious time travel), after many experiances ive had it seems very logical to me ive been involved in a major motor way crash seing it first hand by daja-voo then overting it by observation .

[iNow]

Your witness pehaps carries a truer value than mine given the fact of your sobriety.

THC does effect our perception of time. Here's an interesting link discussing the issue of various drugs and perception of time.

 

 

http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_987.html

 

As the marijuana user becomes moderately intoxicated, the space/time matrix of experience seems to change; distances he moves around in change in size, time slows down, and sound begins to have some structuring effect on the space/time matrix. [...] He may sometimes become so lost in inner thoughts and fantasies that it takes some time to reorient to where he is. At the highest levels, time may seem to stop, actions to be out of the framework of physicalistic time, and he may also completely lose touch with the ordinary space/time continuum and experience floating in limitless space.

 

 

That is, however, a bit off topic.

 

 

 

 

 

I wish there was more documentation and research done on this phenomenon. It seems that despite being relatively widespread it is a sacred occurance that few ever discuss or give much thought.

 

If you had to choose one or the other, where would you spend your research dollars:

 

1) Exploring the nature of time perception and the neural mechanics of that phenomenon?

 

or

 

2) Exploring the nature of the time concept itself and the physics and mathematics which underlies it?

 

 

 

I ask, because this deja vu thing may go beyond a simple neural blip.

[Mr Skeptic]

A similar thing has happened to me also.

 

Once I dreamed about a plaque at a special creative maths camp that I had never heard of before but went to later. I just had this flash of the plaque in my dream, then I saw the same one at the camp. But that could be my mind playing tricks on me.

 

It happened a second time too, and this time it was even weirder than before. I dreamed that I was walking in an unfamiliar place with my two brothers and a friend from school's little sister, Gabriella. Then I said, "This is a mighty long block." and she replied "Don't worry, I didn't bring you here to kill you." That was all.

 

Later, I was going to my friend Guillermo's birthday party with my brothers. When I got there, he was at his dad's office, but his mom told us we should go there and it was just a block away, and his sister would show us the way. So my brothers and Gabriella headed for his dad's office. After walking a couple of blocks, was feeling uneasy (due to the location being strangely familiar and the number of blocks not being one) and I said, "This is a mighty long block." and as soon as the words were out of my mouth I remembered my dream and her reply in it. Then she replied "Don't worry, I didn't bring you here to kill you."

 

I'd never been in that particular group (I never went anywhere with my friend's little sister anywhere other than school before or since. In fact, Guillermo was more a schoolmate than a friend.) If ever I had been in that place, it would have been years ago when I was doing gymnastics somewhat nearby, but I may have never actually been there before. And I don't dream very often (yes, I know that everyone actually does dream every night but forgets it). I'm talking maybe once a month or less, though I used to dream more when I was a kid.

 

Anyhow, if another dream like the second I described happened, I would believe in metaphysics, but the scientist in me says it has to have been a coincidence. A few billion people dreaming, eventually one will dream the future.

[23234]

I will often dream of someone I haven't seen in a while and sure enough, I will see them the next day.

[Mag]

but the scientist in me says it has to have been a coincidence. A few billion people dreaming, eventually one will dream the future.

 

I agree, out of all the dreams people have, and even less that they remember, its still alot.

its bound to happen that they come true, even if its not exactly like the dream - its certainly possible that they could come quite close.

 

What I find interesting is Multiple Dejavu (as I call it)

its when something happens, and you say "gee, this is familiar" (dejavu #1)

then a few days/weeks later the same thing happens (as #1) and you think "huh, this is familiar... hey wait, this was familiar before!" (dejavu #2, same as #1) lol

 

its really strange.

[swansont]

I will often dream of someone I haven't seen in a while and sure enough, I will see them the next day.

 

I often dream of many monkeys typing, and then there's a new "reality show" on TV.

 

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?! You stupid monkey!"

[Daecon]

The only time I ate, um... herb-flavoured cookies, I got repetitive deja vu that lasted for, well... I wasn't able to keep track of time, but I also had a kind of anti-deja vu on a 5 second cycle - my mind was constant 5 seconds into the future, and when my consciousness caught up, a feedback loop would give me a split-second headache, and it would start all over again.

 

If I wasn't feeling nauseous from the cookies (they weren't very nice cookies) then I'd have concentrated more on studying what I was experiencing. Ah well.

[falcon9393]

hmmm deja vu well i heard that it is related to frontal-lobe epilepcy so u may possibly be desiscion impared if u get deja vu sucks fer u!!!!!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That's a nice set of logical leaps right there. You have deja-vu, so you're probably decision impaired.

 

Nice one.

[lalala]

please pardon me for my abyssmal english =( i'm not very gd in writing.

 

false recognition is extremely common in schizophrenic patients, and is probably, in my opinion, responsible for the feeling of deja vu. different parts of the brain are responsible for different parts of the 'event' so remembered. when we remember past events, we tend to not only remember the different components of the event, 'item memory', but also the relationships between those components. an example would be the recall of the word 'golf' might bring forth the recollection of the entire paragraph of golf-related discussion you had with your buddy during the dinner last night, as well as what you ate during dinner, what time is was and so on. this can be classified as semantic (what happened), spatial (where), perceptual (feelings) and temporal-order (sequence of events). Also, there are different levels of cognitive processing; a quick glance of the room might not register much when you are involved in another activity but a repeat focus of any object within that glance might generate a false feeling of deja vu when you have actually processed the 'glance' on another cognitive level.

 

Furthermore, in schizophrenic patients, their hippocampus, frontal lobes and temporal lobes exhibit abnormal activity, that results in the generation of false memories to account for the existence of 'perceived events'. for example, the 'revisiting' of novel places in a dream that had occured in the past. in actual fact, the dream was created to 'believe' that the 'revisitation' occured, in conjunction with basic episodic memory processes, to make the 'dream' seem real. this accounts for some people's 'consciousness' in a dream which they draw upon to substantiate their claims of deja vu. 'I remember asking myself in the dream why my backpack was so heavy and why i was walking along this unfamiliar path, and days after, i find myself now walking on the exact same walkway carrying a backpack full of assessment books'

 

It is very important to realise that the feeling of deja vu happened just as the event is occuring, not before, for which it would have been a prediction of the future. what actually happened was that there was a mix-up/malfunction of the subject's cognitive processes (hippocampus?) that what he 'saw' was being registered by the brain as 'having seen', i.e short term memory being registered as long term memory, but because the brain has to justify the existence of the long term memory, impressions of events that never happened were created by the brain based on past events (dreams) and they were all linked together by episodic memory processes to make the entire perception seem real, thus creating the feeling of deja vu, also the feeling of familarity that results from false memory traces that were created when items were automatically linked to other items not-linked-to in reality because of lures of familarity. for example, adverts of toys are generally linked to feminine voices/children voices, especially toys for girls. False memories of 'repeat adverts' in a tv program might be created.

 

To almost eliminate the feeling of deja vu, keep a diary of your daily schedule - who you met, what was memorable for you. often, one feels surprised on how two separate events occuring at two different locations can be so similiar.

 

No matter the case, deja vu is definitely not an example of the paranormal. Might also be of interest to you would be the effect of drugs on the human brain, albeit the absence of 'deja vu' in drug abusers. Read up on schizophrenia too.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

 

False recognition - http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/uploads/SteveDewhurst20040622T155848.pdf

 

Effects of Drugs on Perception of Reality - http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_987.html

Edited July 3, 2008 by lalala
readproofing =(

[dichotomy]

I’ve had precognition via dreams at least 4 or 5 times. They generally lasted a few seconds at best (3 to 6sec). They were not helpful, as in enabling me to change the course of history, or save the world . I haven’t experienced any for over 15 years at least. I now put them down to extremely low probability coincidence. Sort of like meeting someone from your old home town in an overseas city. They where, never the less, unsettling at the time. As I’m sure a solar eclipse would have been to primitive folk.