Déjà Vu - Your Explanation.
 

Have you ever had this happen? How do you think it happens? I personally believe it has nothing to do with a brain misinterpreting signals from the senses or a memory malfunction. I had this happen a load of times when I was a child, and even though some of them may have been possibly just my brain falsely telling me that I "recall" the scene, the most vivid one I can remember was having a dream about riding a bike near my home, to the side of a parking lot next to it. There was a family coming from a walk in the park in front of me. There was a girl in a yellow raincoat and when I was passing around her, she sticked out her tongue at me. I woke up and was like what the hell?

That day I was riding a bike and when I got to the parking lot, I saw exactly that - man and woman with a little girl in a yellow raincoat, I could tell it was totally them. My jaw dropped so I began staring at them like wtf :D so when I was passing around her she stuck out her tongue at me for staring and at that moment I finally got it lol. :xD:
I know for sure I knew she was gonna do that before she did, because I remember thinking to myself something like "right and now she's gonna stick out her tongue" :) So that's it, scientific evidence! :awesome:

So why do you think it happens?

I have experienced déjà vu on a fairly regular basis, although never quite so vividly as yourself. In my case, it often comes about as I'm physically manipulating or assembling something. I'll have a sudden sense that I've done the same thing before even though, when I pause and think about it, I'm usually able to rule that out as impossible. The memories are usually just images of objects, although there have been one or two "event" memories.

I think there are definitely multiple types of déjà vu. Yours seems like a psychic experience! My own are probably just a short-circuit between my short- and long-term memory. My neurons must not be particularly well-insulated from one another. :)

Déjà Vu... hmm. Good subject, Rasomaso, very good subject :)

I have déjà vu's very often, most of them are with cats or with things and events that I "saw" coming. It happens the second day, I anticipate it the previous day(s) and remind it when doing it. Just like yesterday when I was going downtown with a friend of mine and I saw the House of People coloured by the light of the setting Sun, and it all happened like two flashes in one. At that moment I remembered that on Sunday I had the same image while daydreaming and it happened the same ! If you don't know what the House of People is, here it is :

http://www.hdtimelapse.net/content/H...0396_hirez.jpg

I had the same Déjà Vu when my dad came to Bucharest so we could hang around a little, and I saw this happening one day before, eventhough he called me for a meeting after "seeing" the event... I was kinda shocked.

I believe that Déjà Vu's are reminiscences from another life about seeing things, which can be connected with prediction and stuff like that... Here is a better explanation on Déjà Vu's :

http://mb-soft.com/public/dejavu.html

I like to think that in the future, I become a professional time traveler and my experiences then are somehow altering my life now by giving me Deja Vu. Not sure how that would work, but soon enough I will...

That is what is called precognitive dreaming. I have had several instances of it as well. Most people don't remember having the dream and only have the incident happen and think 'I've had this happen before.' Those of us who have this 'talent' are lucky that we remember the dream.
I can count on on hand the number of precog dreams that I have had, and even my kids have inherited some of that talent. When faced with that kind of experience and evidence, it's hard not to believe in esp and all other abilities in sci fi that have been written about.
I did a paper in English about past life regression and most of the time it's children who bring it up and are silenced by adults who think they're only making it up. A child's mind is not closed off to the possibilities we're capable of, adults don't believe it because they've either never had it or don't remember.
It's there. 'You just have to open your mind and believe.'

It's confirmation bias. People remember unusual moments, where they did have something with similar elements (often, a dream, I think) but they forget the 99.9% of the time where they didn't. It's just like the old thing where you phone someone and they say 'I just thought of you', then they don't mention the 99.9% of times where they think of you and you don't coincidentally phone them.

but it's so improbable to happen in such detail, I don't think that's a coincidence. I'd say the reason is it already happened before, if the time is slowing down in the universe, I think it's just gonna reverse and go back to the point 0 and history will repeat itself endlessly. I know it's a crazy idea but I'm right hahaha :war: :xD:

I have them all the time. I dream a lot too.

Usually I feel that I have experienced something from another persons body. Weird stuff.

Most of my deja vu experiences deal with dialogue.

I also experience deja vu fairly frequently, but I think it's to do with my dreams. Most of the time when I get the feeling, I can usually place a dream having happened in a similar way and it makes me feel in an almost dreamlike state when I realise. It's quite a profound sensation, like seeing things more clearly. I do tend to have a really good memory of my dreams though. I've always thought I should write a book since there's that many I can remember!

On a slightly different note, I had a dream about two weeks ago that a wisdom tooth on the top rightside of my mouth started coming through, and guess what, it started to come through two days ago! I love life's little coincidences!

Déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.



...On a serious note, it's just all coincidence to me. Gonna have to fully agree with HNM on this, especially on the "99.9% of the time" argument (an excellent way of putting it).

Nope. It's time travel. Trust me.

^^^

I like your idea of what it is...however I have to side with HNM and Woodsprite on this one. 99.9%...

I think deja vu is a manifestation of the quantum mechanics' nature of the Universe, if the probability of an event is not zero, then it's plausible to happen. After all, we are susceptible to energetic processes.

Is there any event where the probability of it happening is 0...

What do you mean by "energetic processes"? I suppose it is possible that using quantum mechanics you could explain/predict everything that could/has happened... however I don't think that we will ever possess the knowledge to understand that.

However for deja vu, I still think that it is a random event that has no relation to "precognitive abilities" or alternate realities...

Yes, probably... :glol:. Really, I'm not trying to pull a prank on you. That's the nature of quantum mechanics and Co.: Probability Theory. A simple example is, if you have a box with a red and a blue ball and you take out the red ball, the probability of finding the red ball inside the box becomes zero.
Anything that has to do with Energy and any of its forms, heat, electricity, etc.
That's why Quantum Statistical Models have been developed: to try and quantify the probability of events, as weird as they seem to be.

Just like how the probability of something being created out of nothing is not equal to 0 (which is why we're all here). I like this explanation.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YNS9O56ONg...f_Approval.jpg

This reminded me about that famous phrase of Albert Einstein about Probability in Quantum Mechanics: " [...] He does not throw dice". Unfortunately for Einstein, God really likes to throw dice, and in a way, it makes perfect sense to live in a Universe which is neutral in probability.

That's out of context - the 'god' is not a being as most people today use the term, but something that most people would refer more closely to as the laws of physics, or 'nature'.

Einstein wasn't an atheist, though. So no one can really say what he meant.

Warning! Warning! Flame war imminent! Please evacuate.

That is true and Einstein would get a little annoyed when atheists would use his words to support atheism. When Einstein talked about "god," he would use the term metaphorically to denote nature. Einstein wasn't a theist, either. Some people say that his views are closely related to pantheism in that he seemed to view god as the laws and wonders of nature.

Well, if the Universe behaves in a probabilist manner, in which events don't necessarily need to be correlated to occur (as the classic model proposes: for every action, there's a reaction equal and opposed in magnitude, and the favorite part of thermodynamics: you can't get something from nothing), then we can easily infer that, if the probability of no-god is not zero, then, well, you can make your own conclusions. The universe seems to have several levels, with things behaving differently in two different planes belonging the same reality. That said, there's a slight possibility that "paranormal" phenomena could be the most natural thing in the Universe. The only way of knowing is to study it. Skeptics, please open your minds, quantum theory was regarded as madness and now it's changing all the Physics Books in the World.

I think that one day, when we know more about the brain, we'll be able to pinpoint exactly how and where Deja vu occurs.

And upon that day this quantum mechanics stuff will be as relevant to this question as it is to, say, "which parts of the brain are associated with memory"

There's a funny thing about the brain and the assumptions we make of how it works, read this: Hydrocephalus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Note, a source is The Lancet.
And regarding the relevance of quantum theory, well, it's the new paradigm in Science. Quantum Mechanics has successfully explained Huygens' Principle (considering that Huygens - Fresnel Principle was thought to be a "lucky guess").

I heard it explained one time (of course just a theory) however it seemed legit. You have two spots in the brain, one for interpreting the present and one for assessing the past. Sometimes, like when you have a dejavu, these two areas get confused with one another and so you think you are assessing something from the past when you are truly witnessing the present. This is the dumbed down version, as I understand it, because I have no education in the field. However to me... It sounds completely reasonable. I am not diminishing the idea of extrasensory dejavu, but I do not think that it aplies to all people.

like in The Matrix, eh? ;)

"What is real? Things you can see, smell or touch? These are neuronal impulses interpreted by your brain. If you don't know where these impulses are coming from... how can you tell what's real and what's not?"
(I am not sure I remember the exact quote)

I have dejá vú's regularly, & I learnt to pay attention to them rather than to brush them off as a "neuronal disorder".

One of the best: I was about 12, & one auntie said, that according to some prejudice (or sign?) I would find a husband in a far away place. And I saw - I swear, I SAW it! - a scene in an Eastern set-up: evening, white flat-roofed houses, palm-trees, I heard the call to prayer from the mosques... I even felt the smell: warm, a bit spicy, a bit salty & definitely exotic. I wondered what it was: since the country I lived in was the Soviet Union (which doesn't even exist anymore) and any travel abroad was a next to "0" probability, rationally speaking - I thought it was maybe Uzbekistan or smth there. Then with time I forgot about the vision.

10 years later when the iron curtain went down & the mighty Soviet Union was rapidly collapsing, I got a job as an secretary-interpreter with some New Ruskies that wanted to set up a business in Dubai. I went with them. We land daytime, it was very hot, but the smell - desert, sea, spices & some tropical plants - seemed familiar, altho I couldn't figure why. When the evening came, the sun was setting & the mosques started singing--- then it hit me! The vision was suddenly back in my head. I think I stopped breathing :) & then thought: "I am HERE!"
I stayed there for 10 years & wasn't sorry :) well, only sometimes. But the saldo was in the favour of : "It was worth the fight".

Anyway... What are déjá vús? Erm... thought internet? Some kind of a huge network of knowledge, of all that happened, is happening and might happen. When you accidentally hit a "probability link", one out of many, and then it turns out that this very probability materialized, you say: "I knew it!":D

The explanation for Deja Vu is actually quite simple. The reality we know to be happening now, already happened. We just perceive it to be happening now. We are always a few steps behind perceiving what is actually happening at the moment. All of our actions are simply instinctive reactions to what already happened, since our mind is not actually set in what is presently happening(slightly in the past, thus making all of our actions purely instinctive, though we view them as freely made choices). As we get older, the amount of time that passes between what is actually happening at the moment and when we perceive it increases. This is explains why time seems to go faster as we get older. When deja vu occurs, it is simply our mind making a short jump into the 'future'(what is actually happening in the present, though we do not yet perceive it). Then our mind returns to its original state, which allows us to re-experience the event.

You say that like it's an accepted fact, when in reality that is just one of the theories.

Here's what wikipedia says on the matter, for what it's worth-

"The most likely explanation of déjà vu is not that it is an act of "precognition" or "prophecy," but rather that it is an anomaly of memory, giving the impression that an experience is "being recalled." "

lmao, I was just BSing :P

That makes a lot more sense than most purported explanations :)

I am starting to think that there may be several types of phenomenon called "deja vu"

- this could be when you have a vague feeling of "I think I've done it before but don't remember, where or when" - it probably falls in the category of "neurons playing up". I am not a neurologist, but it could be.

However, if one knows for a fact that one saw/felt/experienced a situation in a dream (flash, waking dream, etc.), like Rasomaso with the girl in a yellow raincoat, or Tsawke Iheyu with the House of People, and then sees this situation "materialized"... then I would say "it's a precognition deja vu".

Several people I know had pre-Avatar dreams, visions etc., and some even "materialized" them in drawings, writings, etc. - years before seeing the movie. And then they saw "their dream" on the screen... It was not a "vague feeling of sort of remembering it", i.e. a memory trick - imho "it's something else". Spontaneous time travel :)

In any case I doubt that the human race already has a perfect explanation for every single phenomenon that is happening in the world! The world is just a wee bit older than the humans... :P