Deja vu
Hindsight always seems to arrive a little to late.
In a discussion in a recent thread I found myself questioning somone that had beliefs in something without being able to clearly define it.
In the moment I found this made little sense, after stepping away for a little and pondering what I had questioned and tried to think of thing I undoubtedly believe exist with little more than experience and assumptions to go on.
One of these thing which has through different moments in my life had a strong presence is dejavu. (Funny enough I did experience dejavu whilst engaged in said discussion however missed what I think may have been a nudge to think more about what I was saying)
Me experiencing dejavu might attract people deducting that I'm crazy or deluded, and honestly I couldn't decisively say that you are wrong. My theories however tend to point more towards either different dimensions, past lives or that we may all be one in the same. (MysticMonist please joint me in a cynical laught at my expense for the 'one in the same')
If there are others that have experienced dejavu I'm very interested in your theories for what is happening here.
In a discussion in a recent thread I found myself questioning somone that had beliefs in something without being able to clearly define it.
In the moment I found this made little sense, after stepping away for a little and pondering what I had questioned and tried to think of thing I undoubtedly believe exist with little more than experience and assumptions to go on.
One of these thing which has through different moments in my life had a strong presence is dejavu. (Funny enough I did experience dejavu whilst engaged in said discussion however missed what I think may have been a nudge to think more about what I was saying)
Me experiencing dejavu might attract people deducting that I'm crazy or deluded, and honestly I couldn't decisively say that you are wrong. My theories however tend to point more towards either different dimensions, past lives or that we may all be one in the same. (MysticMonist please joint me in a cynical laught at my expense for the 'one in the same')
If there are others that have experienced dejavu I'm very interested in your theories for what is happening here.
Comments (54)
Spinoza and Mahayana Buddhism both talk about how intution can give use understanding into God (Spinoza) or Universal Mind (Buddhism). Both of these ideas of God of Spinoza and Mahayana are totally different from western religious God.
Do you ever get a sense of something that you just know you know, but you’re not sure how? What about feelings of conscious or sudden insight or “calling”? I think religious and non-religious people get these experiences. For me, that’s where it’s at.
So back to deja vu. Is that God/Universal Mind/your soul directly communicating with you? Maybe. Even if it’s not it’s your mind creating meaning out of the experience. Even that’s intuition, like a Jackson Polluck painting can be moving even though it’s just dribbled paint. Basically if it’s meaningful to you, then it’s meaningful. Of course we need discernment so we don’t think God is calling us to murder people. Like he does in the Torah... uh oh. But that’s a different can of worms.
Yes it seems you understand where I'm coming from quite well.
Quoting MysticMonist
Always a good idea to shave with Ockham's Razor.
Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the simpler one is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is.
Now wash your hair with Suave Daily Clarifying Shampoo to keep your thinking sharp and clear.
Here are other "vu" you can talk about when you get tired of Déjà.
Jamais vu is a term in psychology which is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. You arrive at your house, but do not recognize it.
Presque vu is the intense feeling of being on the very brink of a powerful epiphany, insight, or revelation, without actually achieving the revelation. The feeling is often therefore associated with a frustrating, tantalizing sense of incompleteness or near-completeness. Happens to me all the time.
Déjà rêvé is the feeling of having already dreamed something that you are now experiencing. Life is just a living nightmare.
Déjà entendu is the experience of feeling sure about having already heard something, even though the exact details are uncertain or were perhaps imagined. Typical.
Your comment have certainly inspire thought and study, Thank you.
I have experienced deja vu, but not often. It's a neat feeling. I enjoy feelings I can't explain (Not anxiety). I always think "what the fuck is going on in there." Like BitterCrank, I've read it's a perceptual thing - a little loop the loop inside your brain.
Quoting MysticMonist
I guess I'm what you would call a rational person. I'm an engineer. I told my wife it was ok to raise our children Catholic as long as they each took physics in high school. Before I became a bit more sophisticated intellectually, I couldn't imagine how anyone could not believe in materialism. I pride myself on being able to know what I know and how I know it. That's a skill I really need for my job.
And yet, when I look closely inside myself, all I see is intuition. Consciousness always seems like a paint job - something added at the end to make things pretty. I know everything I know just because I know it. I love that feeling. It makes me feel like I am one undivided thing. At home in myself and in the world.
It has always seemed strange to me, inconsistent, that even with that feeling, I've mostly been unhappy in my life. We are all so odd.
I didn’t know there are other kinds of vu’s that’s funny, thanks.
So yeah I’m on the verge of falling into complete absurdity. You’ll often find this type of stuff online. People who make a big deal out of seeing 3s on their call list, on the clock (every 10 mins too!!) and make it into being spiritually significant. Any numbers of likely coincidences or self induced feelings become deeply significant. That’s the realm of self absorbed spiritual immaturity or worse delusion and maybe even schizophrenia.
So clearly not every instance of deja vu is telling us something. Another seemed to think it was significant though. Perhaps there’s a reason.
Take an example. St Augustine was famously sitting in a room and was having a spiritual crisis of faith. He heard a child outside singing a common song at the time “Tolle Legge” or take and read. He felt moved to pick up the Bible and was transformed by the experience. Ockham’s Razor would say this wasn’t God but a child being bored waiting on their parents.
That’s a very theistic example. What about pangs of conscious or just a “sense” of something you should do? Maybe a Christian God doesn’t exist but Augustine was sensing/tapping into a world consciousness, a zietgiest, or collective conciousness that called towards a life of theology rather than unchaste living. Maybe there was nothing outside of him was there at all, but his own human spirit (in a non-literal sense) came to a point that he realized devoting his life to seeking Truth (as he conceived of it) was better than seeking to get laid.
Assuming we aren’t total nihilists, we think there is meaning or we can create meaning. Most of the time we don’t perceive or make this meaning thru sitting still and thinking really hard deductively about it. That’s why we can’t prove or disprove God, it’s not a deductive thing. We discover this meaning thru intution possibly even sparked by a singing child or by deja vu. Why not?
The trick is discernment. But I’d rather be free to follow my own intuitions (and risk being delusional) than relying on someone else like a priest or a rabbi tell me about their intuitions or what some guy thousands of years ago had a intution about.
Indeed.
People do have moments of great insight, conversion, doubt, and so on--experiences on the road to Damascus. Not often, but sometimes. Our intuitional "bolts out of the blue" have to arise from what we already know. We owe a lot to very persistent persons and their congeries far into the night that finally led to "Eureka!" moments.
How our brains/minds process, reprocess, shuffle, reappraise... takes place at a level we can't get down to. There are way too many neurons, way too many connections, way too many processes, way too much opaque organization in the brain that just isn't observable.
One of the insights coming out of neurological studies is that memories aren't static. When you remember something, anything, trivial or important, it isn't like calling something out of "read-only- memory". Computers have read-only-memory, we don't. A memory becomes a sort of 'live experience' which after being remembered is put back into memory, (probably among the same neurons) but slightly changed.
So, one day you happen to remember sitting in English class, and the teacher was talking about... oh, let's say Emily Dickinson's poem, A narrow Fellow in the Grass. It is about a snake. Since high school English class, long ago, you have developed a little fear about snakes. The memory of the moment in English class will be colored by your more recent snake experiences, which are also memories being called up and re-stored. So now, in this moment, the memory of English class and A narrow Fellow in the Grass 15 years ago gets colored by that snake experience in the swamp two years ago.
I don't want to exaggerate here -- even though memories get called up and re-stored, and are affected by the process of recall, they still seem reasonably stable--especially when the emotional content isn't too loaded, which is most of the time.
There are explanations for these types of thing.
Your example of seeing certain number constantly for instance is one which I have spent quite some time looking into and there are many explinations. The better of which I found to be a scientific one which in short leant towards our predisposition to recognise patterns not unlike our tenancy to recognise faces in inanimate objects.
Although these explanations made a lot of sense they did not explain every instance and did not satisfy the sensation that came with the experiences.
Just like these theories with Dejavu, I see that they make sense and I think it would be arrogant of me to rule out as BC said the endured and tireless efforts people have put into studying this subject and the theories their efforts have led the to.
I still find however that these theories don't satisfy my curiosity, One because I don't believe I have epilepsy two because the strongest experiences I have had with dejavu was at quite young ages and I had yet to experience recreational drug and was not on any medication in most instances of dejavu. Three during a handful of my experiences of dejavu I was not only accompanied with the feeling that I had done this before but I also had memory of the imminent future which on different occasions I have both watch that memory play out and gone about issuing change. These experiences are often more than just vision but accompanied by sound, smell, emotion and a strong feelings of intuition.
I understand the fact that these explanations don't satisfy me does not in any way mean that these theories are wrong.
I'm simply saying that don't work perfectly for me, I have had other experience in my life which could not be explained by science or study. And from the way I see it they could only be explained by theories that most would quickly laugh at and I would almost certainly be labeled crazy, For that reason I keep the details of these experiences and my theories mostly to myself.
The Theories that I have been lead to read about dejavu (Thankyou for pointing me in this direction BC) have me wondering still about different dimensions or matrix if you may. Is it crazy to think that epileptic episodes or seizures and the interruption of neuron firing could be caused be interference from another dimension.
With the explanation the dejavu is often brought about by drug usage, I've read many articles and listened to many accounts where drug usage has supposedly opened up a gateway for people into what could be described as a different dimension/paradigm. Use of drugs in the history in a more primitive time was widely know to be used solely for the means of reaching these enlightened states.
As always I am not saying anyone is wrong and quite the opposite, your answers have provided me with more prices to my puzzle, unfortunately I still need a few more prices before this puzzle is complete. I am so excited to see the whole picture.
Thankyou for your help.
Certainly a thought which hold substance for me , Cheers
I'm new to this forum and must have missed it sorry. In your recollection what did you take from previous said thread?
Please
I don't despite that some of these experiences and sensations could simply be a manifestation of misfiring in my brain I just find it hard to take as explanation in all situations, I have previously had a very strong onset of undefined sensations well before an event has occured.
Interesting please do.
I think you're being a bit uncharitable here. As Another discusses below, humans seek patterns. It's my understanding it's built in, human nature. That pattern seeking keeps running when it has what we might consider nothing to operate on. You see a lot of that on this forum (he said with a smirk). Seeing what numerologists and Bible code believers come up with can be amusing, but also interesting as an indication of how our minds work.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It's always seemed to me that what people call enlightenment is someone becoming aware of levels below those we normally have access to.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I remember 11 grade English class. Eleventy-seven years ago. Mrs. Keopcke. One of the best teachers I ever had. She showed me what it feels like to write. We had to write an essay about a poem or some poems. I chose to write about the use of grass as a symbol in three poems. One of them was by Emily Dickenson. I think it was The Grass (so little has to do). I remember she said nice things about the paper but indicated that I had a tendency to go off in directions that weren't really related to the theme. A problem I still suffer from mumble mumble years later. I still think about her comment when I'm writing and I fall victim to that malady.
Quoting Another
A theme I come back and back to in my posts - One of the characteristics of a mature intellect is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in the mind at the same time without distress.
One would have to test out this theory in the psych lab, with observers, structured memory and recall experiments, and many repetitions on many subjects to determine that memories were changed by being recalled.
Since Déjà vu isn't something that can be induced for research purposes (at least as far as I know) it would be hard to study this in a lab.
I didn't take it that way at all.
I took your the comments with appreciation and looked into what you were saying. The information I found I now use as evidence to build a better understanding of this subject because I think the information holds substance.
These are exactly the things I was hoping for when starting this thread.
I really mean it when I say Thank you.
You can to a degree, people like to call it the Mandela effect sometimes. Go to a place you were years ago, watch a movie you saw years ago, or read a book or something, you will find that both detailed recollection, and whole picture apprehension to be distinctly different now than you remember. I'm sure you've experienced that.
Yes this is a fantastic point.
I do find it peculiar that with the Mandela effect and if it is a change our memory that in a lot of situation the change in what we remember is shared by many.
For example the dash in 'KitKat' or 'Kit-Kat'. There are so many examples like this where many people have experienced an identical alteration of memory.
That's because we tell stories, piece things together algorithmicly and heuristically, all falling back on the same kinds of principles for thought and action. There are only so many different ways it would make sense to reconstruct a coherent memory of something, the monopoly man having a monocle, rich fancy dudes often do, a dash or not in kitkat. No one remembers a little drawing of a dinosaur in there though, or remembers the monopoly man being a red neck, or indian chief.
I thinks it's hard to say what one person to another does or doesn't retain in their memories.
I agree with your point about us telling stories, piecing things together and filling in gaps with what we assimilate, So in some situations I think this would be an accurate explanation.
At the risk again of sounding crazy, When there is a situation where I have two conflicting memories of the same event. Both memories being my own, and I seem unable to decifer which one is correct to what would I attribute this? And if one was a correction of the other why has my mind not overwritten the first memory with the corrected one, But instead left traces of both despite their contradiction.
Don't have much of a choice on that most of the time, can't be too uncertain of our thoughts and recollections, or we wouldn't be able to operate in the world, but shouldn't be too sure either, or we won't be as willing to update, and reevaluate them. Somewhere in the middle is usually best.
I think our memories can do whatever they "want." Nothing seems inconsistent. I sometimes have memories but I'm not sure whether they really happened or whether they were dreams. I also sometimes have memories of things that happened a long time ago. When I talk about them with someone who was there, they say "oh, no, that's not what happened, here's what really happened ...." As soon as I hear their description, I know they're right. Their memory makes a lot more sense than mine does in context, but that doesn't change my original memory.
Quoting Another
From what I've heard about false memories and also unreliable confessions, if I were on a jury, I don't know if I could vote to convict someone if there wasn't some other more reliable evidence in addition to those.
This is awesome.
When I start a statement with 'at the risk of sounding crazy' it because I envision a percentage of people writing off what I say as nonsense, I accept that and I wish to make the statement despite this.
I don't take offense to anyone thinking I'm crazy, in honesty I question my own sanity at time's.
This is not something I'm embarrassed of.
It seems in this forum I'm not completely alone with that and I've heard more rational conversations here than I have for most of my life.
I'm willing to take all of the credit for that. People, including ourselves, can write of accuracy and sense as fallacious nonsense sometimes too. The risks we take.
You haven't said anything even remotely crazy that I've read. When you say what you say, it makes you seem unconfident and I think it undermines your credibility. I know from where I speak - I've always put qualifications, jokes, and little asides in my personal writing, including what I write here. The more I pay attention, the more I understand that it puts a distance between me and what I say. It deflects responsibility. I have been working hard to remove that stuff from my writing. I always reread what I've written to correct punctuation, spelling, grammar, and word usage, but also to make sure that I say things directly. To make sure people know that the ideas are mine and I stand behind them.
That said, you should write the way you want.
Fair call, Something I'll keep in mind in future.
Maybe you’re right. One man’s life changing ephainy is another nonsensical fantasy. I went camping this weekend and it was a delightful dose of perspective.
I had deeply profound moments doing and experiencing nothing more than walking across and field or listening to rain during a storm. These are everyday things, just like numbers reoccurring or deja vu. Yet for me they were deeply meaningful. The point of my “philosophy” (if can call it that) is to get away from letting others dictate what forms of experiences is meaningful.
What I think I did is I forgot this freedom needs to go both ways A person need to be affirm or deny meaning, for themselves, but can’t do so for other people. It’s not that there isn’t objective meaning, we just can’t know with certainty much about it. So we search and discern for myself. If you think 3:33 means something to you, then great but I don’t. That’s okay. I think rain means something to me, but you don’t have to.
Now maybe you're being too charitable. The point I was trying to make is that numerologists et. al. are just following an impulse that is built into us all. I'm not afraid to say they are using it in an inappropriate way from a philosophical perspective and that their results are absurd, but they still deserve our good wishes. In my experience, many of them are intelligent and perceptive in other aspects of their intellectual and personal lives.
Hmm.. so how do we allow truth to be truth, to speak for itself? I love being overdramitic and say to free God but it’s poetic language. Truth isn’t necessarily God.
If we are too heavy handed then we are just another religion and making more idols.
If we are too lenient, any fanciful idea becomes “your truth”. The individual becomes infallible and real truth is ignored.
I don’t know if there is a perfect middle.
I’ve said this before, but I’d rather be to lenient so that I’m responsible for my own delusions rather than be forced someone else’s.
Oh the conversations with evangelicals isn’t going so well so far. I think the best route maybe to just not care what they think.
I wasn't really criticizing you. Giving people and their ideas the benefit of the doubt is not a bad way to go.
People tend to see patterns where none exist. I was a psych major once and took one class where we conditioned rats. When scientists condition rats in different ways, you get different behaviors. If you give them regular rewards/punishments for the target behavior and then stop, their behavior extinguishes quickly. If you give them erratic or random reinforcement, it takes much longer for the behavior to extinguish. I think humans are similar in some ways and that explains how, once a response behavior is established, random reinforcement can be more effective than regular. That can mean that a phenomenon which is irregular or random can be more persistent than one that has some regularity, i.e. truth, relation to reality.
I was thinking, how different is numerology from Platonism? It's at least the same impulse, if not the same results.
The impulse being seeking or expressing truth? I suppose then you’re right. But they both BS at least in the sense that they don’t tell us the whole story, just a distorted piece at best or meaningless jumble at worst. There are a lot of people, the majority I think, to whom Plato is a meaningless jumble.
I was thinking they are similar in that they understand (misunderstand?) the world as an abstract pattern rather than as an independent phenomenon with it's own existence.
I personally don't see a lot of specific value in both of these. What I see is is a need for ones personal perception to make meaning of them, I often think that this may be by design.
I think one may be inclined to subconsciously assimilate/attach a broad statement or idea to a part of their life which somewhat subconsciously requires more thought or attention.
My opinion - A nudge to reconsider or take a different view on ones role in a certain situations is certainly something which holds value. For that reason I would not want to discourage someone who wishes follow them.
Just to make sure we're still talking about the same thing, when you say "both of these," you're still talking about numerology and Platonism, correct?
I disagree that they are both bullshit. I don't hold any truck with numerology, but Platonism is different. Numerology is saying that a regularity exists in the world when none does. It generates incorrect predictions of the future. Platonism, on the other hand, is metaphysics. It describes a way to think about the world and how it behaves. Metaphysics is not right or wrong, it is useful or not useful. Many people have found Platonism usefull for centuries. There are many today, including respected scientists, who think about the world in this way.
I often see people jumping to the defence of others and suggesting that we should be more charitable/sensitive to others feeling and I think this is an honourable trait and these types of comments have on occasion helped me to re evaluate my position.
I do believe however that it is very difficult to predict or control how someone perceives even the most benign comment. Especially without intimately knowing another history and emotional status.
I do think to a degree unless asked for it one should keep their opinions to themself (obviously there are moment where advise should be given without request). I think in a forum like this 'forum' and especially when someone has engaged in a conversation that they should be willing to listen to another unbridled opinion. As much as another opinion would often be misunderstood I think if one holds back and try to hard to dress up an opinion this would only add to the chance for misinterpretation.
Personally if I'm offended by anothers comments I can quickly detach myself from any offence in understanding we are all very different hold different truths and it is only me that give another thoughts any bearing on my own.
I often see people jumping to the defence of others and suggesting that we should be more charitable/sensitive to others feeling and I think this is an honourable trait and these types of comments have on occasion helped me to re evaluate my position.
I do believe however that it is very difficult to predict or control how someone perceives even the most benign comment. Especially without intimately knowing another history and emotional status.
I do think to a degree unless asked for it one should keep their opinions to themself (obviously there are moment where advise should be given without request). I think in a forum like this 'forum' and especially when someone has engaged in a conversation that they should be willing to listen to another unbridled opinion. As much as another opinion would often be misunderstood I think if one holds back and try to hard to dress up an opinion this would only add to the chance for misinterpretation.
Personally if I'm offended by anothers comments I can quickly detach myself from any offence in understanding we are all very different hold different truths and it is only me that give another thoughts any bearing on my own.
OK my comment were mostly aimed at numerology.
And I didn't say I thought it was BS but that it doesn't hold value for me.
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying we shouldn't express disagreement, even strong disagreement, with others opinions? That we shouldn't expect someone who puts their beliefs out onto the forum shouldn't expect to have to defend them? I certainly disagree with that. I do endorse civility and open-mindedness - a willingness to be convinced.
By the way, you posted this twice.
Not sure what happened with it getting posted twice.
Yes you did misunderstand me, this may be my fault.
I meant the exact opposite, as much as I think an amount of care should be taken with how we word thing I don't think we should allow this to impede the ways in which we deceive our views.
To a degree I think in this forum we should be able to give our unbridled opinions.
Describe our views
I have had very strong disagreements on this forum, to the point of offending someone. I've also been angry and harsh. I generally try to resolve these situations either on the main forum or as a PM. I've generally been successful with that, in some cases keeping a good relationship with someone I strongly disagree with. It's even better when I can express my thoughts and feelings directly and strongly but in a way that shows respect. I have yet to encounter anyone on this forum who doesn't deserve respect, even when their ideas seem wrongheaded or even morally wrong.
I think you generally meet that standard pretty well. We're all allowed to be imperfect.
I hope I haven't contributed to your reluctance. A wise person on this forum advised me to let er rip and assume the person you are addressing can take it. That's fine as long as you are comfortable when they let er rip back at you. I have to tell you I don't really think it's the best way, although letting er rip can be fun and satisfying. I've threatened this before - Starting a thread on kindness as a rhetorical strategy.
Like I said being mindful of others feeling is an honourable trait, I just think 'tippy toeing' around something could remove meaning from a comment or discussion.
I’ve spent too much time with Zen teachers who make a point of being shocking and uncouth intentionally. Socrates is also very unkind to his critics views. I agree with you another, as long as the statement is made in good faith of not insulting persons we don’t have to too self censoring.
I didn’t take T Clark’s remarks about charity literally but in an intellectualy charitable sense of perhaps I should be open intellectualy to their point of view. It’s a key aspect in our worldviews we share of respecting and valuing diverse views. As he often says one should be able to hold opposing views simultaneously in your mind without loosing it.
Also I think there’s a difference after you’ve talked for a while for a person and get to know them better. Clark and I have talked a lot about a lot of issues so there’s a general understanding there. I think Another we’ve gotten to that point as well and less likely to accidentally offend and can speak more openly.
What would not be cool is this:
Hypothetical New member: I think numerology is so cool and I believe it’s key to understanding the universe. I saw 3:33 and it change my life.
Me: that’s BS and you are an idiot.
That would be beyond decency.
I would think those on this thread so far have been more or less decent. Right?
A statement lime this in my opinion would not be decent.
Saying - "I think that's BS" and following it up with your reasoning.
I think that would be fine, if someone takes out of that you implying they are an idiot, that is on them and out of your control.