A scientific explanation for deja vu ?

[UM-Bot]

Most of us will have experienced deja vu at some point in our lives, but what exactly causes this sensation ?

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/335976/is-there-a-scientific-explanation-for-deja-vu

[Gary Meadows]

I feel like I've read this article before...

[Seti42]

I enjoy deja vu, and I like the 'glitch in the matrix' idea. I think it is a glitch, but one in our own minds as opposed to one in the world outside of us. Not that such a distinction matters philosophically or ultimately...

[Jon the frog]

So it's like an elaborate anticipation of something that could happen. Our brain act like a probabilistic system, lol !

[Alchopwn]

4 hours ago, UM-Bot said:

Most of us will have experienced deja vu at some point in our lives, but what exactly causes this sensation ?

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/335976/is-there-a-scientific-explanation-for-deja-vu

I really enjoyed this article.  The hypothesis is quite plausible.  I hope it gets proper peer review.

[papageorge1]

I think the article covered one possible sensation that some people call deja vu. I don't think it really covers the type of deja vu experiences I had frequently as a kid but declined in quantity as I aged. I can't recall when I had my last experience.

For me, it was as if my consciousness was a few seconds ahead of the physical reality and where I accurately always knew what was going to be said or occur before it happened. I remember wanting to catch it as it was happening and remember astounding my brother by saying exactly what he would say before he said it. He still said those words anyway but was astounded that I beat him to it, I remember even watching Walter Cronkite on the news and knowing what he would say a couple of seconds before he said it.

My best theory is that I was experiencing in my consciousness a couple seconds ahead of the physical. It was like I spontaneously jumped out of sync for a few seconds. This was always accompanied by a wavy sense of reality during the experience. I suspect my type of deja vu falls more in the paranormal category as I accurately knew almost impossible to predict things in the future I should not have known through normal processing. 

 

[XenoFish]

Quote

This could mean that what we perceive as deja vu is actually our brain trying to cope with the conflict between what we actually experienced and what we think we experienced.

Yep. I agree with this. 

[micahc]

I remember an explanation from college way back in... well a long time ago....where a new memory passes up the short term memory rehearsal stage and goes directly to long term memory making you feel like its an old memory.

['Walt' E. Kurtz]

Strange I think I've read the very same  topic and post  before

[XenoFish]

6 minutes ago, 'Walt' E. Kurtz said:

Strange I think I've read the very same  topic and post  before

It isn't deja vu. There have been many threads like this.

[lightly]

13 minutes ago, 'Walt' E. Kurtz said:

Strange I think I've read the very same  topic and post  before

It isn't deja vu. There have been many threads like this.

[XenoFish]

5 minutes ago, lightly said:

It isn't deja vu. There have been many threads like this.

[Tom1200]

I can't remember where I read this, but it seemed plausible to me:

How do we see?  Light enters the eyes and cells turn this information into electrical signals for the brain to interpret.  As this stream of data is passed back and forth around the brain different information is extracted by different parts, processed and passed along for further analysis.  Sometimes the processing order runs a little out of sync, and the image is created in our memory section before it has reached the visual part right at the back of the brain.  So when we 'see' something there is already a memory of having seen it, but that memory is just milliseconds old. 

Because we're constantly updated with gigabytes of visual info we don't have time to analyse the discrepancy so instead we're left with that really odd feeling of knowing what's about to happen or be said - because in part of our brain it's already happened.  I remember once watching the lottery results and accurately calling each numbered ball before it appeared.  I astonished myself - until my wife told me all I'd done was read off the tv screen.  That's not how I remember it!

[Festina]

5 hours ago, papageorge1 said:

I don't think it really covers the type of deja vu experiences I had frequently as a kid but declined in quality as I aged. I can't recall when I had my last experience.

 

They diminish over TIME cuz — you been there, done that before, memory/connector from a past  previous life— Evolution / Growth. 

Now it’s the New stuff.....lessons. 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Festina

['Walt' E. Kurtz]

1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

It isn't deja vu. There have been many threads like this.

It seems very familiar

[qxcontinuum]

Well well I wish the scientists would have tested me. I've told my wife about places I would see 10 years in the future, I draw a lake where I will catch the biggest fishi with peculiar landscape, I dream of traveling through Africa months before my boss is telling me: we go to Africa. There is deja ch anc premonition that science cannot explain yet. They seek an explanation on our brain bug what if there is something else? What if we have a collective mind that can be triggered under certain circumstances and we see ahead visuals transmitted by other ppl what if our brains are working like television set sometimes emitting and capturing signals, converting into images

[patient10879]

Over the past year, I have repeatedly experienced what I can only describe as some variation of deja vu, or perhaps an out if body experience. I believe this happens to me due to underlying health issues. I've brought these "episodes" to my doctors attention, and he believes they're seizures. I honestly don't know what causes them, or why they happen, but I just don't feel completely satisfied by that explanation. This is the best way I can describe them...They seem to be brought on by a familiar song, or commercial, or voice in the background of my current surroundings.  I feel like I'm having an out of body experience, like I'm somehow removed from what's going on around me, but that I'm still aware of it all. There's also a strange, metallic smell. It feels almost like I'm reliving a memory, but not in a way that I know what's going to happen, more like a memory I'm not directly involved in. I don't know how long they last, but it seems like less than a minute. They're probably not even that long, because nobody I'm with realizes anything's wrong if I don't mention it. It's truly a very strange and unsettling experience.  

[+DieChecker]

I had deja vu just the other day. My wife said my sister in law was going to the store, and if I wanted anything. It came to me that I'd heard the question before, in the same location, and same positioning of people, and had said yes before. Whereas something bad happened afterward. So, after a brief pause, I said no.

Disaster avoided!! 

[ChrLzs]

It it just me, or are deja vu jokes of exactly the same groanworthiness as those in Christmas crackers?

Coincidence? .... or is it....??!!

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

On 4/2/2020 at 12:23 PM, qxcontinuum said:

Well well I wish the scientists would have tested me. I've told my wife about places I would see 10 years in the future, I draw a lake where I will catch the biggest fishi with peculiar landscape, I dream of traveling through Africa months before my boss is telling me: we go to Africa. There is deja ch anc premonition that science cannot explain yet. They seek an explanation on our brain bug what if there is something else? What if we have a collective mind that can be triggered under certain circumstances and we see ahead visuals transmitted by other ppl what if our brains are working like television set sometimes emitting and capturing signals, converting into images

Have you had any Covid related future sights?

[qxcontinuum]

13 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Have you had any Covid related future sights?

No but have had some about being an old man walking in deep snow, heading into caves with other ppl. 

There is something about snow that settle well with me.

[ChrLzs]

20 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Have you had any Covid related future sights?

You'd think that given the severity of our current global crisis.... that if there was anything to this, like even a tiny shred of truth - rather than cherry-picked and unevidenced tales always told AFTER the fact... - there would have been a huge outcry just before the pandemic appeared.  But nah.  We just got warnings about Planet X/Nibiru, as if we haven't heard that one for over 20 years from idiots who can't recognise lens flares...

 

So, c.mon, soothsayers and fortune-tellers, lift your dam game.

[_Only]

On 4/1/2020 at 4:57 AM, Gary Meadows said:

I feel like I've read this article before...

Definitely feels like I've read this comment before...

[_Only]

On 4/1/2020 at 9:15 AM, papageorge1 said:

 

For me, it was as if my consciousness was a few seconds ahead of the physical reality and where I accurately always knew what was going to be said or occur before it happened. I remember wanting to catch it as it was happening and remember astounding my brother by saying exactly what he would say before he said it. He still said those words anyway but was astounded that I beat him to it, I remember even watching Walter Cronkite on the news and knowing what he would say a couple of seconds before he said it.

 

 

I have also experienced something far more conscious like you, but in mine it was a dream of going to someone's house and taking a tour of it. I saw it all before (I realized when it happened later 'in real life'), but there were 3 or 4 minor yet striking differences, all else the same.

First difference was in the dream, the person whose house we were visiting (the same person I would later meet in waking life) took us in his truck to go there, and the trip was about 10 minutes or so across town in California. The difference being in real life when I visited, he didn't take us, we drove there, and it was not across town, but from California to Utah.

Next difference was, in the dream my car was in the driveway of said house in Utah, but later in waking life when I visited my car was left back home at California (we had taken a U-Haul truck).

Other difference was the bathroom in dream had one of those blurry windows which was around corner from dining room, but it hadn't been placed yet, so it was sitting propped against wall, and with open window and I remember being embarrassed taking a pee with everyone in the dining room talking. But later in waking life when I saw bathroom, the window was perfectly set in pane and normal.

Last difference I remember was when taking the tour, it was my friend and I who had made the trip, and each of us had a room to stay in this house. In dream, when we saw my friend's room in tour, all his large stereo equipment was in the room. When taking this same tour later in waking life, that had all been left back in California like my car.

It's those few yet striking differences, combined with my conscious recollection that I had dreamed this previously, between my dream and my later visit that help greatly in letting me know that this wasn't simply a de ja vu experience, but something different, with far more conscious recollection, like you (if you weren't simply getting lucky with your guesses, which I'm not making a judgement call either way). Whereas de ja vu is just a vague sense that something happened before, akin to a memory, but you can't recall the origin of memory at all.

Kicker to all this was my friend was a kooky funny dude. He would always say quirky funny things, and you often wouldn't really knew if he was being serious or joking. A common thing he would say that always made us laugh was when we would talk about something that happened, he would go "oooh yeaaah.. I had a dream about that!". Thing is, though, I know he did have a lot of dreams, and would often tell me about them. It really strikes me that I finally had a moment where I could say "oooh yeaaah.. I had a dream about that!", and it just so happened to be with this friend at my side whole trip/experience. It really fills me with wonder when I remember it throughout my life.

But my long story aside, again, I feel your and my experiences like that are different from de ja vu, which isn't really a conscious recalling or memory of details that later happen, but de ja vu is a vague sense that you can't recall when/why you had it - I feel a big difference. On the other hand, we do all ahve a lot of dreams, and most we don't remember. So what would hypothetically happen if something happens again that we previously experienced in a dream, but a dream we don't consciously remember... that would be the perfect setting for an experience of de ja vu.

All that said, experiences like mine above, plus just the feelings/thoughts that come into my head commonly these days, I really feel like this reality is a dream. But where to go further in understanding with that? I don't know, stuck in this frame of mind in a reality of time/space limited by 5 senses. But, given the possibility that this is all a dream (and perhaps all our memories could simply be either artificial, or from other dreams, and this day is the dream that ends when we go to sleep), the possibilities for what de ja vu could be open up quite a bit more, potentially being parts of dreams we had before, but simply don't consciously recall. It's far more rare when we have recollection of things in this life that we did dream before, but like others and I have experienced, it does happen.

Other more outside the box possibility in all possibilities is that there are multiple realities involving us going on right now, and for whatever reason the paths cross during de ja vu, but that drifts even farther into territory that is hard to try to explain as much as ponder.

All I truly know as far as this reality we share is that I think and feel, therefore I am. All else I simply have to trust is 'real', but of course with our frame of reference of all we know, it isn't out of the realm of fairness/sanity to view whatever we are experiencing as 'reality', though I stay open to the chance of perhaps some time potentially seeing more to the big picture. But I also understand that, if this was a dream, there could potentially be no way to know it (or few ways most will never find), so anything found/explained in this limited box of reality is not able to truly find/explain the nature of reality and the mind. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by _Only

[papageorge1]

1 hour ago, _Only said:

I have also experienced something far more conscious like you, but in mine it was a dream of going to someone's house and taking a tour of it. I saw it all before (I realized when it happened later 'in real life'), but there were 3 or 4 minor yet striking differences, all else the same.

First difference was in the dream, the person whose house we were visiting (the same person I would later meet in waking life) took us in his truck to go there, and the trip was about 10 minutes or so across town in California. The difference being in real life when I visited, he didn't take us, we drove there, and it was not across town, but from California to Utah.

Next difference was, in the dream my car was in the driveway of said house in Utah, but later in waking life when I visited my car was left back home at California (we had taken a U-Haul truck).

Other difference was the bathroom in dream had one of those blurry windows which was around corner from dining room, but it hadn't been placed yet, so it was sitting propped against wall, and with open window and I remember being embarrassed taking a pee with everyone in the dining room talking. But later in waking life when I saw bathroom, the window was perfectly set in pane and normal.

Last difference I remember was when taking the tour, it was my friend and I who had made the trip, and each of us had a room to stay in this house. In dream, when we saw my friend's room in tour, all his large stereo equipment was in the room. When taking this same tour later in waking life, that had all been left back in California like my car.

It's those few yet striking differences, combined with my conscious recollection that I had dreamed this previously, between my dream and my later visit that help greatly in letting me know that this wasn't simply a de ja vu experience, but something different, with far more conscious recollection, like you (if you weren't simply getting lucky with your guesses, which I'm not making a judgement call either way). Whereas de ja vu is just a vague sense that something happened before, akin to a memory, but you can't recall the origin of memory at all.

Kicker to all this was my friend was a kooky funny dude. He would always say quirky funny things, and you often wouldn't really knew if he was being serious or joking. A common thing he would say that always made us laugh was when we would talk about something that happened, he would go "oooh yeaaah.. I had a dream about that!". Thing is, though, I know he did have a lot of dreams, and would often tell me about them. It really strikes me that I finally had a moment where I could say "oooh yeaaah.. I had a dream about that!", and it just so happened to be with this friend at my side whole trip/experience. It really fills me with wonder when I remember it throughout my life.

But my long story aside, again, I feel your and my experiences like that are different from de ja vu, which isn't really a conscious recalling or memory of details that later happen, but de ja vu is a vague sense that you can't recall when/why you had it - I feel a big difference. On the other hand, we do all ahve a lot of dreams, and most we don't remember. So what would hypothetically happen if something happens again that we previously experienced in a dream, but a dream we don't consciously remember... that would be the perfect setting for an experience of de ja vu.

All that said, experiences like mine above, plus just the feelings/thoughts that come into my head commonly these days, I really feel like this reality is a dream. But where to go further in understanding with that? I don't know, stuck in this frame of mind in a reality of time/space limited by 5 senses. But, given the possibility that this is all a dream (and perhaps all our memories could simply be either artificial, or from other dreams, and this day is the dream that ends when we go to sleep), the possibilities for what de ja vu could be open up quite a bit more, potentially being parts of dreams we had before, but simply don't consciously recall. It's far more rare when we have recollection of things in this life that we did dream before, but like others and I have experienced, it does happen.

Other more outside the box possibility in all possibilities is that there are multiple realities involving us going on right now, and for whatever reason the paths cross during de ja vu, but that drifts even farther into territory that is hard to try to explain as much as ponder.

All I truly know as far as this reality we share is that I think and feel, therefore I am. All else I simply have to trust is 'real', but of course with our frame of reference of all we know, it isn't out of the realm of fairness/sanity to view whatever we are experiencing as 'reality', though I stay open to the chance of perhaps some time potentially seeing more to the big picture. But I also understand that, if this was a dream, there could potentially be no way to know it (or few ways most will never find), so anything found/explained in this limited box of reality is not able to truly find/explain the nature of reality and the mind. 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I also have thought that somewhat different types of experiences get put under that kind of catch-all phrase 'deja vu'. My and your experiences really seem to be something fairly different.

As to your thoughts about 'reality', I come from the school of thought that says Consciousness/God/Brahman alone is real and this universe is thought/dream/play of God/Brahman. A spark of this One Consciousness/Source is what animates all living things including us. We are trying through love and feelings of oneness, to reconnect with the Source. This 'relative reality' is just here to allow all these myriad of things to evolve forward. Don't sweat it, the universe is smarter than us and on our side!