Deja Vu in almost every dream!

[Ashyne]

For the past year or so, I've been having dreams where I get a deja vu sensation while dreaming, as if I had dreamed that dream before.

For example, I dreamed that I was executing a prisoner as a member of a firing squad, and suddenly, in the middle of the dream, I thought, "Didn't I kill this prisoner already, a long time ago?" And I couldn't remember if I had the same dream before.

It happens with almost every dream I've had.

I ought to start a dream journal so I can be sure if I had the dream twice or more, or if I only dreamed that I had that dream before.

I'm not sure if you understand what I mean...

[eight bits]

Yes, anybody who is interested in dreams should journal theirs.

My guess as to how it will cash out is as follows. Some dreams do recur, and some images, situations, or characters recur in different dreams.

Also, medium and long-term memory are funny. I have had the experience of remembering an unjournaled dream element late the next day, when something in real life reminds me of a dream image. I am confident that the memory is genuine when I can also remember resolving to journal the dream element (but not recalling the resolution at the time I made the journal entry).

That means that the memory was lying around inside me, without my awareness, until the fragment got activated by association with whatever "got through to it." That feels like there is a "filing cabinet" in there, and this piece was not forgotten so much as placed in the "wrong folder," intact but not readily retrievable.

So, you may indeed be genuinely remembering these dream elements, or some of them.

False recollection is also a possibility, as a device to make the waking you remember the dream. For example, this bout of deja vu has called your waking attention to the merits of a dream journal. That may have been the purpose of introducing deja vu into the dreams. Our ideas in waking life advocate for themselves (Hey! I'm a good idea, gimme the ball!), why shouldn't dream ideas do likewise?

Finally, deja vu itself is a cognitive phenomenon. It happens to our waking apparatus, so it probably happens sometimes to our sleeping apparatus, too.

Best wishes for the journal project.

[Set the Fallen]

I know the feeling.

Though mostly I feel it when I'm awake and the dream comes true.