Deja Vu

[SomethingToPonder]

So i Was recently reading a thread on here titled real dreams asking if 2 people have the same dream at the same time is it real.
Well it lead me to comment about my experiences with deja vu, and im wondering if there is something more to it than has ever been researched or thought of scientifically.

First il explain about my experiences. I am sure you all know that every human has dreams every night that we don't remember, Some stick with us until we reach consciousness but that is a very small percentage. (not to say that a dream that had a powerful effect on you mentally would be forgotten. Hence nightmares ) Now that's what happens to me, Il have a dream, and not be able to remember it until part of it comes true.

Il have a dream and not remember it, and it could be months and months later, I'l see something that triggers it, and it'l all come flooding back to me,I will then say " Iv seen this before" and for anything upto 10 seconds il know what's going to happen next everything from speech to physical actions. It is not necessarily a major event that this happens for, quite usually it's something daft and pointless.

So i started doing some basic research, And what I've come up with certainly intrigues a second look or at least some input from someone in my opinion.

It turns out that your subconscious in your brain stores facts and memory's that you have completely forgotten, and until someone reminds you of them or you see something that directly relates to the memory in your subconscious the information is lost forever. This is how your brain only uses a certain percentage of your brain (Part of the reason Not a full explanation) if you remembered everything the chances are your brain couldn't cope with the strain, so it has a a sort of memory bank where it stores ideas until they are needed , which is when you are reminded or think of them and the idea is plucked out of there.

Now that must be where the dreams go in my opinion, and If i have had these deja vu moments for years since i was young, there must be a reason how it keeps happening.

And if my brain could somehow predict minor segments of the future, This in my opinion must imply that there is some sort of cosmic plan, i cant quite grasp this idea yet, But if the future is predictable, it must be somehow written or there must be some sort of reason that things that have not happened yet are seen prior to it happening, Not via the eyes but via the brain when it goes into a deep sleep.

I have genuinely been having these sequences of deja vu since i was very young, i have never had an instance yet where i have seen something bad happen and managed to save someone; or seen the lottery numbers before they were drawn (One of my mum's favorite answers when i told her about it years ago)

But a fascinating part of it is that i could go somewhere i have never been before and still get the deja vu from a dream that i had years ago, Which means the place wasn't in my subconscious already as i had never been there or seen photos of it ever. Yet i just get that feeling of iv seen this all before and know someone is about to walk round a corner wearing all black, or il know a certain color car is about to drive down the street . it's always different things.

I would really be interested to see what anyone thinks of this and welcome all input

[cladking]

There's no such thing as "a subconscious". This isn't to say we are aware of every function occurring within the brain/body merely that there is only one of us inside each person. Dreams are most probably just partially processed random firings of neurons in the brain. These random firings are not very important when we are awake because they'll tend to fire outside of our current processing but while asleep they form the basius of our dreams. Watch a dog dream and chase rabbits in his sleep. The memory center works in our sleep so some of these dreams are remembered. Some people are relatively adept at predicting the future by the extension of trends and logic and might even get these insights as they sleep. But the fine detail as experienced by the sensation of deja vu is without scientific or logical basis and is probably impossible.

 

The world is a big complicated place and I wouldn't want to claim any of it is actually figured out or to dismiss any idea out of hand but some beliefs are highly detrimental to the human race and no belief may be more detrimental than the "subconscious". It is much more likely that the brain somehow gets out of sequence in processing information that causes the sensation described. There is another sensation which I've experienced that might be relevant. Once when giving my order I saw the waitress write it down immediately before I said it. I asked and she said she hadn't. If all my sensory input other than merely my vision had undergone this for a short time rather than merely instantaneously, I believe I would have experienced "deja vu".

[iNow]

I will repeat here the answer I provided you in that other thread:

 

The most likely explanation is not that you can see the future in your dreams, but instead when that experience actually takes place there is an encoding error and the stimuli are mistakenly transcribed into the parts of your brain more associated with long-term memory. As the event takes place, it's mistakenly perceived as a memory from a dream. This is much more likely than you actually dreamed the future and it then actually happened. We do not know for certain, but this strikes me as the most likely and plausible explanation.

[SomethingToPonder]

I will repeat here the answer I provided you in that other thread:

 

The most likely explanation is not that you can see the future in your dreams, but instead when that experience actually takes place there is an encoding error and the stimuli are mistakenly transcribed into the parts of your brain more associated with long-term memory. As the event takes place, it's mistakenly perceived as a memory from a dream. This is much more likely than you actually dreamed the future and it then actually happened. We do not know for certain, but this strikes me as the most likely and plausible explanation.

I can understand your point of view and respect it entirely, But in order for it to be right, my brain would have to be playing tricks on me in a sense, and still wouldn't explain how i can tell exactly whats going to happen when one of these moments occurs.

 

Now dont get me wrong this is rare, when it does happen as i said it is short lived and happens for anything up to around 10 seconds.

 

when you say it like that as "you dreamed the future" it seems highly unlikely, it just occurred to me that even though i am 100% genuine here even if someone else said it i would be skeptical but i really have nothing to gain by lying, And am honestly looking for some valuable input.

 

cladking, Your definition of deja vu at the end there would have technically been true although much different from mine. i would just like to say im not religious in any way, I don't make this deja,vu thing a big part of my life, I don't even pay attention to it or tell many people unless it comes up in conversation. I also have a dog, and frequently see him chasing things in his sleep, making noises and even running after them etc, So i know what you mean, However it is much different, I don't remember the dreams at all until the moment of deja vu has passed. i could have had 10 last night for all i know. Chances are i didn't though seeing as how un-frequent they are,

 

look iv seen a load of bullshit posts in my time, this honestly isn't one, i don't know if there is a scientific explanation , well available to us at the moment. i was looking at it in a more philosophical way. I am interested in helping myself with this, So please take what im saying as real, and tell me what you think i should do from here.

 

I dont try and predict anything, I wouldn't call it a prediction , its just literally i'l see something, a color an animal a person anything and it'l set it in motion il get a slight feeling of i know whats going to happen next and literally a couple seconds after that i am back to normal. when it happens i can Literally know things no one else would, I once told my mum that a pot was going to fall of a shelf because i had the dream. I am not insane, Im far from it.

if you can predict what will happen then it isn't your brain out of sequence.

if anything it could be the universe out of sequence which allows my brain to skip a second or 2 as the universe "lags" maybe.

it might not be something so big as a cosmological plan which is highly unlikely, i just have no idea what.

 

[iNow]

Or, the encoding error happens in real-time...

[SomethingToPonder]

Or, the encoding error happens in real-time...

could well be......it is very strange, but the fact that it's me so i know it's genuine combined with the fact that people much more intelligent that me think its possible has really got me thinking.

say there is something going on, something much bigger than us, and only 1 person every thousand years gets it, maybe its humanitys chance to do something with it , perhaps there is something we are missing.

Who knows perhaps 100 years from now they will study it

[cladking]

I can understand your point of view and respect it entirely, But in order for it to be right, my brain would have to be playing tricks on me in a sense, and still wouldn't explain how i can tell exactly whats going to happen when one of these moments occurs.

 

Now dont get me wrong this is rare, when it does happen as i said it is short lived and happens for anything up to around 10 seconds.

 

when you say it like that as "you dreamed the future" it seems highly unlikely, it just occurred to me that even though i am 100% genuine here even if someone else said it i would be skeptical but i really have nothing to gain by lying, And am honestly looking for some valuable input.

 

cladking, Your definition of deja vu at the end there would have technically been true although much different from mine. i would just like to say im not religious in any way, I don't make this deja,vu thing a big part of my life, I don't even pay attention to it or tell many people unless it comes up in conversation. I also have a dog, and frequently see him chasing things in his sleep, making noises and even running after them etc, So i know what you mean, However it is much different, I don't remember the dreams at all until the moment of deja vu has passed. i could have had 10 last night for all i know. Chances are i didn't though seeing as how un-frequent they are,

 

look iv seen a load of bullshit posts in my time, this honestly isn't one, i don't know if there is a scientific explanation , well available to us at the moment. i was looking at it in a more philosophical way. I am interested in helping myself with this, So please take what im saying as real, and tell me what you think i should do from here.

 

I dont try and predict anything, I wouldn't call it a prediction , its just literally i'l see something, a color an animal a person anything and it'l set it in motion il get a slight feeling of i know whats going to happen next and literally a couple seconds after that i am back to normal. when it happens i can Literally know things no one else would, I once told my mum that a pot was going to fall of a shelf because i had the dream. I am not insane, Im far from it.

if you can predict what will happen then it isn't your brain out of sequence.

if anything it could be the universe out of sequence which allows my brain to skip a second or 2 as the universe "lags" maybe.

it might not be something so big as a cosmological plan which is highly unlikely, i just have no idea what.

 

 

There's nothing wrong with your experience and as nearly as I can tell it is a common human experience that I've had several times as well. There does seem to be one difference and that is that you remember it as a dream after the fact. I can't account for this without speculating so I won't try.

 

I've had dreams that came true essentially as they happened in the dream. The details were mostly all different but the emotional response and the general nature of the facts were identical and did remind me of the dream after the fact. I did not experience this as exactly the same thing as what I consider "deja vu" so perhaps this is similar to your experience and you haven't actually experienced what is called deja vu. I would be slightly concerned if the details of the event are the same as the dream largely because it flies in the face of what I believe is the nature of time one of whose aspects is that it can't be predicted or foreseen in any meaningful way. The next time try to pay attention to the details and the nature of the memory. This might help shed light on the experience.

[cladking]

 

It actually is Exact moments exact sequences and exact colours items things and so on. It is actual deja vu. i just really am shocked to find out how rare actual deja vu is.

 

 

I suspect it's more common in youth. Certainly most kids/ young adults said they had experienced this 50 years ago. I suspect most people experience it at least once. It can last for some time and be intense or it can be fleeting and hardly noticed. Perhaps there is more than the single processing error occuring and the experience is being written into memory as well.

 

It would certainly be of great interest if you could describe one of these events before it occurred.

Edited January 13, 2013 by cladking

[SomethingToPonder]

 

I suspect it's more common in youth. Certainly most kids/ young adults said they had experienced this 50 years ago. I suspect most people experience it at least once. It can last for some time and be intense or it can be fleeting and hardly noticed.

I know and being honest you cant believe reports you hear, unless they can prove it somehow. although im not doubting anyone as if it's possible with me it could be possible with anyone...

mine has been around as long as i can remember and is with me until now and im 18, so still fairly young.

I wonder if i can have the equivalent of a lucid dream with it, that would be the next level. then i could prove it when prompted too,

[Ceasium]

To start, I have 'de ja vu's' as well, although I do not believe in forecasting the future. They occour almost once every month, ranging from 10-30 seconds, they consist of unimportant random things like (my last one): I was walking towards the garbadge can outside, to throw leftovers from the dinner away, I remember looking up to see snow falling down. It lasted for almost 30 seconds.

 

-Recently I've read the results of a study:

 

They showed one group of people photo's of buildings and furniture in the morning, asked 50 % of the group to remember the buildings, and the other 50% of the group to remember as much as possible from the furniture photo's. After this they went to work, and took the test in the evening. (14H later)

 

The other group of people saw the photo's of buildings and furniture in the evening, 50% of the group was told that they only had to remember the buildings, the other 50% was told only to remember the furniture. After this they went to sleep, to be tested the next morning. (14H later)

 

Just before the test, they told all people that the test was about both (furniture & buildings).

 

These were the results:

 

The group which went to bed could remember more about what them was told to be importand, and less about what was not importand for them.

The group which wen to work remembered more about the unimportand than the importand, and remembered less in general than the group that went to bed.

 

The conlusion: Sleeping ensures that you will remember specific memories better, and that they are processed somehow whilst sleeping.-

 

So now comes the reasoning, you process some of your memories during sleep. Some memories (some of them actions you did during the day) get stored/processed somewhere, and alter slightly because you're dreaming. So in my last Dé ja vû a simple action about which I dreamt got somehow mixed with a snowy surrounding (Maybe because I really like snow), and got stored. Upon encountering a similair situation I suddenly remembered this part of my dream, and unconsciously/instinctionally did the same thing I did in my dream. So what I'd say is that you act in a way to make the 'future' come true, and experience this as a Dé ja vû. Because you dream every night and process a lot of things it is quite likely that one just pops up that has all the right ingredients to become a 'dé ja vû'.

[iNow]

Out of curiosity, do you ever smoke pot or trip on mushrooms or acid? They all cause issues in memory, and the encoding error I referenced above is likely more common in people who enjoy psychogenics such as those. This issue is also more common when the individual lives in traumatic circumstances, again because memory is impacted and often repressed which can lead to experiences like these.

[Ceasium]

I've smoked pot three times in my life, and didn't really like it. I only use alcohol as a drug, but I don't get drunk too often (max. once a month). I think I'm psychological normal as well, the last more or less traumatic experience, a broken heart, I got was months ago.

 

- I did not have any problems during my childhood that I know of

Edited January 13, 2013 by Ceasium

[SomethingToPonder]

Hi ceasium , Thanks for the input it intrigued me. The way you described your deja vu sounded familiar to the way mine happen, and your logic seems to actually be quite accurate about people acting upon impulse to "make" the future come true, And also seems like the most logical explanation. However in my case it just wouldn't work and here's why.
In my deja vu "moments" it is mainly other things that happen, i am merely there at that moment in time and see something that triggers it , then il just be able to tell you whats going to happen, almost like when you watch a film you'v seen a hundred times before. You just know what's going to happen next.
Also the surroundings are the same as in my dream. So i am in the right place for it to happen at the right time.

But lets say that something or the universe or my brain or whatever your theory is on what causes it, was choosing moments to "highlight" for me to see, something that would make it stand out from the rest maybe? because how did whatever created the dream in the first place Know that i was ever going to be in the right place to even see the moment that would trigger the deja vu? And then why would it give me deja vu of that particular moment?

Hi Inow, like everyone else sure Iv smoked pot, but no im not into psychedelics heavily or anything like that.I wouldn't call my circumstances traumatic really either though I've not had the easiest of times. But my deja vu experiences have been happening since long before i even thought of smoking and long before anything traumatic ever occurred.

Thanks to All For the input, It is fascinating.

[Ceasium]

Could you describe one or two of your de ja vu's? So I can see if we have more or less the same one's.

 

And could you tell me why the universe highlights seemingly unimportant moments for the both of us?, I've only had two or three on some more 'important' moments in my life.

 

Yesterday I've been digging trough my mind to remember more of them and to look for similarities between them. And what turns out, one of the first memories of the world that I have is a de ja vu, I was around 6 or 7 years old at that time (I am currently 18). I can also devide them into two categories. I'll describe my 'worst'/most intense de ja vu moment to you later tonight, when I have more time to write

[menageriemanor]

Just a suggestion...

 

In a situation like knowing a pot was going to fall from a shelf, there is always the chance that you have registered it is not in a safe position, that it is in a precarious position, cannot remain stable, and in the moment your brain is processing that, it is projecting the likely outcome AS VISION, and in that process, you are registering the projection as a memory, rather than a likely outcome, as you aren't thinking "That will fall..." but actually visualising it, pre word formation. So, an error in recognition of source of 'vision'? If it is something you have experienced regularly, you may have a quirk in processing a logical future prediction, as a memory, which would explain your repeated experience.

 

Remember false memory can easily be implanted, by suggesting a link to an actual event experienced... You know A happened, so when someone with no known agenda, adds details about B, and perhaps repeats it, naturally, adding more actual occurances, it soon often becomes part of one's truth. You say you expect these things to happen,and no one says you are deliberately embroidering your memory,but it is a possible answer. You are clearly intrigued by the possibility, it does interest you, does make you feel doubtfully special... There is a psychological pay off for you, even if you would never see it as such. As soon as you experience that moment of 'recognition of a scene' feeling, you are waiting to confirm the expected feeling. You could well be feeding that experience with your own internal dialogue, without registering.

 

Just as when you go to a new place, perhaps you are registering the first microsecond of vision as a memory, before you actually register taking in the vision, so it registers as already seen? You now expect to feel the recognition, so mentally collect visions, and then register them as familiar. If it is a moment when you seem to falter and think, "Ah! That feeling! Another deja vu," It may be a momentary 'splutter,' a double print of a scene, part of your brain functioning just slower than another part, left side/right side, perhaps? so you are, in part of your brain, registering first sight, whilst another part of your brain is confirming that is already registered. You do imply there is a rather mystical moment in the vision and recognition of your experience. Maybe the odd moment of slower recognition is the part of your brain registering at your inner voice/recognition, which is not keeping up with the split, faster registering vision register? Possibly the tiniest falter, misfire of brain cells that don't affect you, in normal life? Only happen occasionally, when tired, overcome, excited?

 

Even if they are all by chance, surely a brain would register that lottery numbers would be a better survival memory than car colour on a road that has no effect on your life. Trouble is, once you look for patterns, .you can persuade yourself of anything. Look at all those superstitions. Either just common sense, asking for accidents, walking under ladders, to always wearing orange undies for rugby or when watching cricket, or your team won't win.

[SomethingToPonder]

Just a suggestion...

 

In a situation like knowing a pot was going to fall from a shelf, there is always the chance that you have registered it is not in a safe position, that it is in a precarious position, cannot remain stable, and in the moment your brain is processing that, it is projecting the likely outcome AS VISION, and in that process, you are registering the projection as a memory, rather than a likely outcome, as you aren't thinking "That will fall..." but actually visualising it, pre word formation. So, an error in recognition of source of 'vision'? If it is something you have experienced regularly, you may have a quirk in processing a logical future prediction, as a memory, which would explain your repeated experience.

 

Remember false memory can easily be implanted, by suggesting a link to an actual event experienced... You know A happened, so when someone with no known agenda, adds details about B, and perhaps repeats it, naturally, adding more actual occurances, it soon often becomes part of one's truth. You say you expect these things to happen,and no one says you are deliberately embroidering your memory,but it is a possible answer. You are clearly intrigued by the possibility, it does interest you, does make you feel doubtfully special... There is a psychological pay off for you, even if you would never see it as such. As soon as you experience that moment of 'recognition of a scene' feeling, you are waiting to confirm the expected feeling. You could well be feeding that experience with your own internal dialogue, without registering.

 

Just as when you go to a new place, perhaps you are registering the first microsecond of vision as a memory, before you actually register taking in the vision, so it registers as already seen? You now expect to feel the recognition, so mentally collect visions, and then register them as familiar. If it is a moment when you seem to falter and think, "Ah! That feeling! Another deja vu," It may be a momentary 'splutter,' a double print of a scene, part of your brain functioning just slower than another part, left side/right side, perhaps? so you are, in part of your brain, registering first sight, whilst another part of your brain is confirming that is already registered. You do imply there is a rather mystical moment in the vision and recognition of your experience. Maybe the odd moment of slower recognition is the part of your brain registering at your inner voice/recognition, which is not keeping up with the split, faster registering vision register? Possibly the tiniest falter, misfire of brain cells that don't affect you, in normal life? Only happen occasionally, when tired, overcome, excited?

 

Even if they are all by chance, surely a brain would register that lottery numbers would be a better survival memory than car colour on a road that has no effect on your life. Trouble is, once you look for patterns, .you can persuade yourself of anything. Look at all those superstitions. Either just common sense, asking for accidents, walking under ladders, to always wearing orange undies for rugby or when watching cricket, or your team won't win.

 

Hi menageriamanor,

 

 

first of all i would like to thank you for your input and your theory on how my brain might be tricking me is very interesting. However in terms of a psychological payoff, It does interest and intrigue me yes, But i am not obsessed with it, i was trying to make that point in an earlier post, I rarely even talk about it to others or think of it to myself, I have come to just sort of accept it. It is rare as i stated before so i haven't really come to accept it as normal and don't think of it as something that will definitely happen again.

 

In the instance where a pot fell of the shelf, it really was stable, there were another 6 or so pots and various other small things on the shelf which didn't so much as budge, it must have fallen due to being placed there incorrectly. And your theory on when i go to a new place in quite ingenious, however i would have to be technically insane or mentally disabled in some way for it too be true, Im sure you can agree, That if you go somewhere you have never been and your brain starts registering things your seeing out your eyes at that moment. as memory's that have already happened you have a problem. And even if it was true why does this not happen all the time, and if it my brain had somehow gotten into some "cycle" (couldn't think of the exact word) where i get deja vu when i go to new places then it would only occur then. This isn't the case and it happens at random points in random time.

 

of course it would, if i could choose what i "see" then of course it would be the lottery numbers, But i Dont so much as see the future, as when it happens it is the present, I have just seen it all before so i know what happens next for a second. As im writing this i remembered something, I read somewhere that there was a study done on flies, and they can see a millisecond into the future apparently.

 

To be blunt i don't think that there is some sort of issue with my brain playing tricks on me, it does me absolutely fine in every other aspect of life. this is just an anomaly. I dont get any type of relief or sense of accomplishment when it occurs at all and it only happens for a few seconds, and compared to the months apart they happen , there isn't enough time to "feel" much from them. I am almost sure that my brain isn't playing tricks on me. Im now looking for some sort of philosophical explanation i suppose as to why it could happen if it was real, let's say you all believe me, Then what? because otherwise i would be on these forums forever trying to explain that im not some nut who thinks he can see the future.

 

I suppose it could be my subconscious deliberately embroidering my memory, But that is highly unlikely as It does not explain how when my deja vu happens, I really could say anything from, A guy is going to walk round that corner wearing a green hat, to a car goes through a red light here or that pot falls of the shelf. Anything and usually i have just enough time to say it before it happens.

 

you made a good point also that most of the moments have no effect on my life, which makes me wonder why they occur. why did i dream that particular moment if it involves no choices , or anything useful. ? If i have dreamed it though, Must it not imply something?? I mean they are very detailed. REMEMBER it is not a vision or seeing the future. I will be out on a normal day like everyone else walking down the road, Then i will see something, il think, iv seen this before, and tell whoever im with something that will happen next. (everything is still going on around me the exact same as it was) so it is as detailed as if you looked around your room right now, all the things in there are there, My sight isn't limited etc there could be people walking about, dog running, a car driving, A shop door opening, or someone stopping a bus. It is just me that has seen it before in my dream which is weird because how did all the people in the street i dont know, and all the cars or buses that i pictured etc be right there at the same moment in time when i am. ? SOMETHING knew that i would be there at that particular moment. Im also not some person who had a bad childhood or teenage years and tries to make up for it by convincing themselves they are special or anything like that. everything's been fairly average.

 

Could you describe one or two of your de ja vu's? So I can see if we have more or less the same one's.

 

And could you tell me why the universe highlights seemingly unimportant moments for the both of us?, I've only had two or three on some more 'important' moments in my life.

 

Yesterday I've been digging trough my mind to remember more of them and to look for similarities between them. And what turns out, one of the first memories of the world that I have is a de ja vu, I was around 6 or 7 years old at that time (I am currently 18). I can also devide them into two categories. I'll describe my 'worst'/most intense de ja vu moment to you later tonight, when I have more time to write

One of my deja vu's would be, Im walking down the road with my friend, someone steps out in front of me, coming out of a close or a house, i think i'v seen this before, I looked to the side and noticed just your average everyday things going on around me. end of deja vu.

 

That was a basic one that's happened to me. Nothing happened at all in the deja vu or dream, but i still had seen it before and knew what would happen next, even if it didn't stand out, like everything carrying on as normal.

 

iv had others one being the one i have told you about but il describe it better seeing as i dont think i actually have yet, I was in the kitchen when i was around 15 or 16, my mum was on the computer, there was something to eat cooking and everything was going on as normal, standard day. I looked at my mum, she said something and it just "clicked". i said i have seen this before and then said about the pot falling of the shelf, Literally just as my mum is going "Your crazy, How do you know that?" it fell right off the damn shelf.

 

I have no idea in hell why or how this happens. I think that we would be foolish not to look into it though, I cant even remember some just just fade away as they were not important.

 

BUT if we are not crazy, and you yourself are the same as me, then the universe shows us those moments for a reason i think. I mean why else logically would you be shown something meaningless in a dream, that you dont remember, then when it happens you realise, Oh damn i have seen this before!

i cant stress enough though, these are not visions ,you dont see something then it happens. i dont even know i have had the dreams until i see something and i cant explain it, iv seen it before, so i know what happens next.You just know, there is no mistaking that this has happened before in the moment, you know exactly what will happen, I have seen this before.

 

 

None of mine have been of important things etc, maybe they were important points in history that we dont know, maybe they were markers who knows it could be anything.

 

but am i right in saying that if we have dreamt it then it happens, we must be living in a predetermined universe? I mean i always have been someone who though you have choices, but it could be so limited as to you think you are making a choice but really you were destined to make that decision anyway. why does it let us see these exact moments in advance? are we meant to do something ? i dont understand it, but i intend to find out.

[iNow]

Before you ask about predetermination and the nature of time in our universe, I recommend that it would be wise to first confirm that you really have actually dreamt it BEFORE it actually happened and that you are not simply misinterpreting a memory encoding error such as those I mentioned above.

[Ceasium]

Just to straight things out with the other posters. I do not believe in any form of predestination, paranormal activiy, or that I was put on this earth by a god for a 'reason, or in any form of a god'. I simply believe in chance, randomness and the laws of large numbers, the laws of physics etc. I do not consider myself special in any way, or think that I can see the future. I just happen to have these 'de ja vu' moments where in my head as soon as it starts I just get a very familliar feeling and 'know?' what will happen the comming few seconds. More likely as stated before, I unconsciously/instinctionally act the way I did in my dream to make 'the future' come true. As soon as the de ja vu starts I automatically remember when I 'dreamt' this, so I think there is a very close connection between a 'de ja vu' and dreaming, but that this is NOT a form of forecasting the future.

 

Now to give an example of my most intensive 'de ja vu', which hopefully will give you some more insight on how it works.

 

It was just an ordinary day during summer, and we were discussing the math test, which we had the week prior. My teacher wrote all the equations on the board, and I had around seven or eight minutes to recognize these. But this is the key to a 'de ja vu', and to my story. I did not recognize them at all, had no feeling of having seen them before, there was no link whatsoever. As I stood in line for my teacher to discuss some of his corrections, I chatted with my classmates which stood before me in the line, waiting. As I turned my head, and saw the equations again from just the right distance and angle, this thought popped up in my head: 'waaaaaait, I've seen these before but .....' and I slid in my 'de ja vu'. As soon as this happened I go into my 'autopilot' mode. I knew what the chat with my classmate was about for the coming 45 seconds, and what his answer would be before he answered them, and what I was going to ask next. (I asked him how his test went, his reply: I fucked up question 8 c&d but the rest went alright etc. etc., it was rather boring). Yet I was not able to/capable of ask(ing) him anything else that did not fit the picture of the occouring 'de ja vu' like: 'How's your cat doing?'. So I thought that I could not influence the situation in any way. After this small talk my 'de ja vu' was over, and I 'remembered' dreaming this a few months prior.

 

What I think is, that I reacted instinctionally and therefore was not able to do something that not belonged to my instinct. For me there really seems to be a connection between a 'dream' and the de ja vu, although I do not know what. I'd say it is a combination of factors such as, the dream which rougly scetches a situation and that you yourself contribute to it by acting like in your dream, plus some kind of mindfuck that either gives you the feeling that you know what is going to happen beforehand, and changing the facts later on so that the imput and the output of the brain become the same.

 

My de ja vu's do not change my mind about the fact that people are not able to see the future, but you always get this eerie feeling of familiatiry/recognition that hangs around you as a cloak when it happens. And what I hope most is that I will find out one day what causes them, proven by facts, data and a logcial scientifical theory.

 

@ SomethingToPonder do you ever write down what you dream about? I very very rarely dream, (less than once a year), sometimes I wake up slightly confused when I am still in my dream and go back to sleep, only to remember the next morning that I woke up for a split second, and put no further thought in it. I connect most of my de ja vu's with these moments and then tend to 'remember' what happened or what I dreamt about, although i've had a few that I could not link back to such a moment.

[tomgwyther]

I've had this experience before many times. From a subjective point of view, it is very powerful. A few examples:#

Whilst stripping wallpaper, some loose plaster came off the wall, leaving a random pattern behind, a pattern which appeared to exactly match a dream I'd had some six months earlier.

I bike crash i had when I was a teenager, seemed to exactly match a dream I'd had a few months before, every skib, every bump seemed to match perfectly, in hi-def perfection.

it seems most people have these de ja vu experiences, usually about 10 seconds of what feels like a repeat of a pre-recorded video.

 

Being a man of science, I devised an experiment.

Every time I woke up and could remember a dream, I would write down as many details as possible, including drawing pictures of the scene or scenes which I had dreamt. I wrote the date on each one and kept them in chronological order. I did this for a year.

 

The results were that, none of the dreams I recorded "Came true".

That is, none of the subsequent de ja vu experiences matched observations made at the time of dreaming.

 

I can only conclude that the de ja vu experiences many of us have are indeed tricks of the mind.

As to how these happen; I can speculate that there may be some form of disconnect between left and right hemispheres, or maybe a similar processing error between different lobes of the brain.

[iNow]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201208/the-neuroscience-d-j-vu

Some researchers speculate that déjà vu occurs when there is a mismatch in the brain during its constant attempt to create whole perceptions of our world with very limited input. Think about your memory: it only takes small bits of sensory information (a familiar smell, for instance) to bring forth a very detailed recollection. Déjà vu is suggested to be some sort of "mix-up" between sensory input and memory-recalling output. This vague theory, however, does not explain why the episode we experience is not necessarily from a true past event.

A different but related theory states that déjà vu is a fleeting malfunctioning between the long- and short-term circuits in the brain. Researchers postulate that the information we take in from our surroundings may "leak out" and incorrectly shortcut its way from short- to long-term memory, bypassing typical storage transfer mechanisms. When a new moment is experienced—which is currently in our short-term memory—it feels as though we're drawing upon some memory from our distant past.

A similar hypothesis suggests that déjà vu is an error in timing; while we perceive a moment, sensory information may simultaneously be re-routing its way to long-term storage, causing a delay and, perhaps, the unsettling feeling that we've experienced the moment before.

<snip>

Over the years, researchers have pinpointed disturbances of the medial temporal lobe as the culprit behind déjà vu. Studies of epileptic patients investigated via intracerebral electrodes demonstrate that stimulation of the rhinal cortex (such as the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices—structures involved in episodic memory and sensory processing) can actually induce a déjà vu episode.

<snip>

The researchers found that synchronized neural firing between the rhinal cortices and the hippocampus or amygdala were increased in stimulations that induced déjà vu. This suggests that some sort of coincident occurrence in medial temporal lobe structures may "trigger" activation of the recollection system.

[Mr Monkeybat]

About 12 years ago I was a teenager and had a dream that came true. Since then I have written down the dreams that I remember, which is not very many as I doze allot so I have usually forgotten them by the time I start moving. Of the dreams I noted as being "vivid" the majority have come true to exact detail. Some of the vivid dreams did not come true for me but did for over people I have read about in the news. The rest of the vivid dreams took place in historical settings. As a dyed in the wool atheist, precognition makes no kind of sense to me but there it is. So I have come to accept the existence/possibility of some psi/paranormal phenomenon, but not god(s) and religion.

[SomethingToPonder]

Just to straight things out with the other posters. I do not believe in any form of predestination, paranormal activiy, or that I was put on this earth by a god for a 'reason, or in any form of a god'. I simply believe in chance, randomness and the laws of large numbers, the laws of physics etc. I do not consider myself special in any way, or think that I can see the future. I just happen to have these 'de ja vu' moments where in my head as soon as it starts I just get a very familliar feeling and 'know?' what will happen the comming few seconds. More likely as stated before, I unconsciously/instinctionally act the way I did in my dream to make 'the future' come true. As soon as the de ja vu starts I automatically remember when I 'dreamt' this, so I think there is a very close connection between a 'de ja vu' and dreaming, but that this is NOT a form of forecasting the future.

 

Now to give an example of my most intensive 'de ja vu', which hopefully will give you some more insight on how it works.

 

It was just an ordinary day during summer, and we were discussing the math test, which we had the week prior. My teacher wrote all the equations on the board, and I had around seven or eight minutes to recognize these. But this is the key to a 'de ja vu', and to my story. I did not recognize them at all, had no feeling of having seen them before, there was no link whatsoever. As I stood in line for my teacher to discuss some of his corrections, I chatted with my classmates which stood before me in the line, waiting. As I turned my head, and saw the equations again from just the right distance and angle, this thought popped up in my head: 'waaaaaait, I've seen these before but .....' and I slid in my 'de ja vu'. As soon as this happened I go into my 'autopilot' mode. I knew what the chat with my classmate was about for the coming 45 seconds, and what his answer would be before he answered them, and what I was going to ask next. (I asked him how his test went, his reply: I fucked up question 8 c&d but the rest went alright etc. etc., it was rather boring). Yet I was not able to/capable of ask(ing) him anything else that did not fit the picture of the occouring 'de ja vu' like: 'How's your cat doing?'. So I thought that I could not influence the situation in any way. After this small talk my 'de ja vu' was over, and I 'remembered' dreaming this a few months prior.

 

What I think is, that I reacted instinctionally and therefore was not able to do something that not belonged to my instinct. For me there really seems to be a connection between a 'dream' and the de ja vu, although I do not know what. I'd say it is a combination of factors such as, the dream which rougly scetches a situation and that you yourself contribute to it by acting like in your dream, plus some kind of mindfuck that either gives you the feeling that you know what is going to happen beforehand, and changing the facts later on so that the imput and the output of the brain become the same.

 

My de ja vu's do not change my mind about the fact that people are not able to see the future, but you always get this eerie feeling of familiatiry/recognition that hangs around you as a cloak when it happens. And what I hope most is that I will find out one day what causes them, proven by facts, data and a logcial scientifical theory.

 

@ SomethingToPonder do you ever write down what you dream about? I very very rarely dream, (less than once a year), sometimes I wake up slightly confused when I am still in my dream and go back to sleep, only to remember the next morning that I woke up for a split second, and put no further thought in it. I connect most of my de ja vu's with these moments and then tend to 'remember' what happened or what I dreamt about, although i've had a few that I could not link back to such a moment.

Hi mate, I dont write down my dreams but i am going to start. You see one of the things that strikes me is that people are saying how do you know it was not your brain playing tricks on you, registering vision in your memory banks. Tomgwyther, let me explain a bit mate, the dreams you have that you remember are not your deja vu dreams. You do not remember them untill something happens like ceasium described where he looked at the blackboard from a different angle, and it triggered it. No i cant describe it other than There is a feeling, You just know,it is certain that you had dreamt this before , and now are remembering it because it is coming true.

 

 

Im the same exactly mate, Im not dellusional about being meant for some plot by the universe, I do not believe in god, My views are highly scientific.

when the moment gets set into motion, when you catch something at the right angle or see it the right way, you already know what is going to happen, you couldn't act in a way to make your dream come true, because you are already in the same place as your dream, every single thing in the room or person is there as was the same in your dream, And you just Know, i cant describe this bit, You just know, you have this feeling of knowing, it becomes clear, You almost dont need to understand it at the time because you Know what is going to happen, and you know why, because you dreamt it.

 

Ceasium i too cannot wait for the day when there is some cold hard facts on it, I would be happy to help any scientific study on the subject any way i could, So long as they didn't assume i was this wind up artist or quack.

 

tomgwyther forgot to say earlier, it sounds to me like you had deja vu when you were younger but it's not happened in a while, maybe due to age i dont know, But if every single bump in your dream was correct and when you were stripping wallpaper that had been on the wall for years, yet you knew what was behind it, i would put money on it that when it occured you almost definetly just Knew what would happen, you just knew you had a feeling.

it's just the way it works.

 

Inow i like your information there, lets hypothesise that the sense of smell mentioned is replaced by sight, an when we see something that we have seen before, (in the dream) a very detailed recollection of that moment in time comes flooding back to you even though it is yet to happen, and as a result you Know what will happen for the length of your deja vu, as long as you have that "knowing" feeling, You can just tell what happens next, you dont even think about it, it just hits you, Suddenly.

This is exactly what i described earlier .when i was talking about the brain having a form of "subconscious" that stores all these memorys,but you dont recollect them untill something familiar comes up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 12 years ago I was a teenager and had a dream that came true. Since then I have written down the dreams that I remember, which is not very many as I doze allot so I have usually forgotten them by the time I start moving. Of the dreams I noted as being "vivid" the majority have come true to exact detail. Some of the vivid dreams did not come true for me but did for over people I have read about in the news. The rest of the vivid dreams took place in historical settings. As a dyed in the wool atheist, precognition makes no kind of sense to me but there it is. So I have come to accept the existence/possibility of some psi/paranormal phenomenon, but not god(s) and religion.

 

 

 

your form of "deja vu" sounds different to everyone elses so far mate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just to straight things out with the other posters. I do not believe in any form of predestination, paranormal activiy, or that I was put on this earth by a god for a 'reason, or in any form of a god'. I simply believe in chance, randomness and the laws of large numbers, the laws of physics etc. I do not consider myself special in any way, or think that I can see the future. I just happen to have these 'de ja vu' moments where in my head as soon as it starts I just get a very familliar feeling and 'know?' what will happen the comming few seconds. More likely as stated before, I unconsciously/instinctionally act the way I did in my dream to make 'the future' come true. As soon as the de ja vu starts I automatically remember when I 'dreamt' this, so I think there is a very close connection between a 'de ja vu' and dreaming, but that this is NOT a form of forecasting the future.

 

Now to give an example of my most intensive 'de ja vu', which hopefully will give you some more insight on how it works.

 

It was just an ordinary day during summer, and we were discussing the math test, which we had the week prior. My teacher wrote all the equations on the board, and I had around seven or eight minutes to recognize these. But this is the key to a 'de ja vu', and to my story. I did not recognize them at all, had no feeling of having seen them before, there was no link whatsoever. As I stood in line for my teacher to discuss some of his corrections, I chatted with my classmates which stood before me in the line, waiting. As I turned my head, and saw the equations again from just the right distance and angle, this thought popped up in my head: 'waaaaaait, I've seen these before but .....' and I slid in my 'de ja vu'. As soon as this happened I go into my 'autopilot' mode. I knew what the chat with my classmate was about for the coming 45 seconds, and what his answer would be before he answered them, and what I was going to ask next. (I asked him how his test went, his reply: I fucked up question 8 c&d but the rest went alright etc. etc., it was rather boring). Yet I was not able to/capable of ask(ing) him anything else that did not fit the picture of the occouring 'de ja vu' like: 'How's your cat doing?'. So I thought that I could not influence the situation in any way. After this small talk my 'de ja vu' was over, and I 'remembered' dreaming this a few months prior.

 

What I think is, that I reacted instinctionally and therefore was not able to do something that not belonged to my instinct. For me there really seems to be a connection between a 'dream' and the de ja vu, although I do not know what. I'd say it is a combination of factors such as, the dream which rougly scetches a situation and that you yourself contribute to it by acting like in your dream, plus some kind of mindfuck that either gives you the feeling that you know what is going to happen beforehand, and changing the facts later on so that the imput and the output of the brain become the same.

 

My de ja vu's do not change my mind about the fact that people are not able to see the future, but you always get this eerie feeling of familiatiry/recognition that hangs around you as a cloak when it happens. And what I hope most is that I will find out one day what causes them, proven by facts, data and a logcial scientifical theory.

 

@ SomethingToPonder do you ever write down what you dream about? I very very rarely dream, (less than once a year), sometimes I wake up slightly confused when I am still in my dream and go back to sleep, only to remember the next morning that I woke up for a split second, and put no further thought in it. I connect most of my de ja vu's with these moments and then tend to 'remember' what happened or what I dreamt about, although i've had a few that I could not link back to such a moment.

 

 

Ceasium would you be interested in designing some sort of scientific experiment.?

Im not sure how we could do it, as the dreams are not ones we remember, and we cant realise the moment untill something triggers it, even if we had some sort of data recorders analysing the brain and body in as many ways as we could at the time of a "trigger moment" how would we analyse that they knew what was going to happen or that the person had seen it before?

and even if we managed that how could we prove that the persons brain hadn't registered it as a memory when it actually was just seen there and then, because that seems to be the point people keep making.

Edited January 16, 2013 by SomethingToPonder

[tomgwyther]

 

 

 

Tomgwyther, let me explain a bit mate, the dreams you have that you remember are not your deja vu dreams. You do not remember them untill something happens like ceasium described where he looked at the blackboard from a different angle, and it triggered it. No i cant describe it other than There is a feeling, You just know,it is certain that you had dreamt this before , and now are remembering it because it is coming true

 

tomgwyther forgot to say earlier, it sounds to me like you had deja vu when you were younger but it's not happened in a while, maybe due to age i dont know, But if every single bump in your dream was correct and when you were stripping wallpaper that had been on the wall for years, yet you knew what was behind it, i would put money on it that when it occured you almost definetly just Knew what would happen, you just knew you had a feeling.

it's just the way it works.

 

 

 

My hypothesis was that there are no such things as Deja vu dreams, it only seems that we dreamt some current event in the past. My mentioning the bike accident and the wall-paper stripping, was merely a presentation of what I observed.

I still have Deja vu experiences, they haven't gone away. I now know however that when I experience Deja vu, it isn't because I dreamt it at some earlier time.

 

There is no correlation between dreaming and deja vu. We can rule out the hypothesis that we dream future events.

 

iNow's contribution is by far the most plausible I've seen here.

 

Over the years, researchers have pinpointed disturbances of the medial temporal lobe as the culprit behind déjà vu. Studies of epileptic patients investigated via intracerebral electrodes demonstrate that stimulation of the rhinal cortex (such as the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices—structures involved in episodic memory and sensory processing) can actually induce a déjà vu episode.

[SomethingToPonder]

 

 

 

My hypothesis was that there are no such things as Deja vu dreams, it only seems that we dreamt some current event in the past. My mentioning the bike accident and the wall-paper stripping, was merely a presentation of what I observed.

I still have Deja vu experiences, they haven't gone away. I now know however that when I experience Deja vu, it isn't because I dreamt it at some earlier time.

 

There is no correlation between dreaming and deja vu. We can rule out the hypothesis that we dream future events.

 

iNow's contribution is by far the most plausible I've seen here.

 

Over the years, researchers have pinpointed disturbances of the medial temporal lobe as the culprit behind déjà vu. Studies of epileptic patients investigated via intracerebral electrodes demonstrate that stimulation of the rhinal cortex (such as the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices—structures involved in episodic memory and sensory processing) can actually induce a déjà vu episode.

 

Ahh i see i must have misunderstood what you meant.

Inow's may seem the most plausible, But i can only tell you what i know. If you remember something you forgot a long time ago, You can remember if it was a dream or not, it is similar, you just know it was a dream.

 

To be honest i realize i do sound arrogant here, possibly unwilling to accept other's opinions, However if you were the same i think you too would make the same choice.

 

In the aspect of dreams, recording them wouldn't work etc as Never once have i had one of these dreams and remembered it, until it happened, and even at that it is for a very short few seconds around about 10 i would say from when i realize.But it is a well known fact that the average human dreams hundreds of times per night and we rarely remember even one.

 

may i ask how we can rule out the hypothesis of there being a correlation between Deja vu and dreaming?

It actually seems a very reasonable and plausible explanation. The only other alternatives would require me to be mentally deficient which is not the case. Im most certainly not, and while this condition would not require me to have severe disabilities, i can assure you that there is no problem there.

 

I know that it is possible to basically stimulate someones brain into having an episode of "deja vu" But that isn't the case , all you are doing there really is Mindfucking the person manually , into thinking the present is a memory, Excuse the language. This is far from what happens to me.

[tomgwyther]

may i ask how we can rule out the hypothesis of there being a correlation between Deja vu and dreaming?

It actually seems a very reasonable and plausible explanation.

 

We can rule out that hypothesis because of the hundreds of dreams I made a record of, and of the many de ja vu experiences afterwards, none of them actually correlated with a dream.

 

The claim that it is possible to see into the future in our dreams is an extraordinary claim which would require extraordinary evidence.

 

Whereas disturbances within the sensory and memory parts of the brain is far more likely, and in some cases can be demonstrated.