Talk:Déjà vu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I thought I'd jump in before the new agers start to cry foul. I've tried to be fair in this article, to not dismiss any 'parapsychological' explanations out of hand, but to weigh in with scientific evaluations. There is no definitive scientific answer, the most accepted explanation remains a conjecture and I have clearly identified it as such. The link between epilepsy and deja vu is confirmed, and the fact that everyone has occasional mild epilectic seizures is also confirmed, and this does give strong circumstantial support to the electrophysiological explanation.

My research on these matters involved the "Oxford Companion to the Mind" and numerous websites. - MMGB

It's been a topic in cognitive psychology since at least 1987, when I had my first college course in cognitive psych. --LMS

I expected as much - I've never studied psychology, but I encountered it in my courses on neurophysiology - MMGB

I can't find a reference offhand, but wasn't there a kind of silicon associative memory chip that had a failure mode wherein it would sometimes incorrectly "remember" its input? --LDC

[edit] Re: Misuse

An anon (4.12.163.243) put the following in the article. I removed it and placed it here. --T2X 03:31, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, Keanu Reeves is referring to the reappearance of the same cat with the same action. Lawrence Fishburne was basing his statement on the fact that the imminent danger was the anomaly in the system, with the altering of the building structure, not the déjà vu Keanu Reeves experienced.

This is hard to say. Both explanations are plausible. Reply to David Latapie

[edit] Vision and déjà vu

It seems that déjà vu has nothing to do with vision. A déjà entendu or déjà senti (already heard or already smelt, respectively) would still be called déjà vu. This should be explicitely clarifiried, IMHO. —Reply to David Latapie 11:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Deja Vu - life as a movie that's already been seen

As "some believe" that Deja Vu is a glimp of our true, normal state of mind, when we see the future, as well as we remember the past.

It is when you walk down the street and suddenly, for a split second, fall into a very interesting, sleepy, state of mind - you know that it has already happened. You "remember" that once you go around the corner, you would see that and that. You go around the corner and see it.

If we look at it with a more open mind... let's try remembering what this Deja Vu feels, or better how time feels during Deja Vu.

While in the state of Deja Vu, time feels like there are no "past", "now" or "future", but only one long... time.

If we try remembering ourselves at the age of 2 or 3, I believe we felt time different then we do now. It felt more like it does in the state of Deja Vu, rather then normal "past", "now" and "future", didn't it?

Now the most interesting part- Some people believe that there is such thing as "intuitive thinking", it is when you "remember" what will happen within an hour, as good as what has happened an hour ago.

That everybody is born with that kind of thinking, only when not used, it perishes at the age of 3 - 4. The part of brain responsible for it falls asleep.

Yet from time to time it awakens and asks if anybody needs it - this is what we call Deja Vu.

These are pieces of your Divine possibilities. This is your fading memory of paradise, from which you dropped into this life. It is when you, in a life-long agony, for split seconds come to the senses and see the world in reality. Understood the hint? Had just hinted you where is and how to get your pity billion, if you consider, that all happiness lies in money. Now, not by accident, has spilled the beans about the main thing - about where to find answers to all your "why?", "what to do when...?", "how to be at...", "how to act at...". Continue yourself."

Now seriously, if one man once can get, maybe by accident, into a state of mind where he "remembers" the future, it means that he can do it again, maybe even on purpose. And if one can do it, another also can do it. And if one can "see" 2 minutes into the future, why couldn't he "see" 5 or 10 minutes? Or, let's say, an hour, day or month? Imagine what would be your possibilities then?

from ( in Russian ) http://www.universalinternetlibrary.ru/book/norbekov4/ogl.shtml and http://www.norbekov.ru

and some pieces from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/science/14deja.html?ex=1252900800&en=331d6db9dff26282&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

...

"The way the coffee cups were lined up on the table," said Gretchen Purcell, 24, a business consultant in the Washington area who felt this so strongly during a conference-call meeting last month that it made her laugh out loud. "The whole scene was so familiar I thought I knew what people were going to say before they said it. It was like I was in a movie I'd already seen."

...

"In one entry, Mr. Naik writes of attending a birthday party for a friend at a restaurant: "Everything, the conversation, the position of people, position of tables, plates were extraordinarily in place. Most remarkable of all events. Very intense. Lasted for a long time. Which is odd - usually intensity and time are reciprocal. I could predict every single future event in this time period to utmost precision. Felt extraordinarily weird after this one. I sat there for the next minute to come back to reality." "

I started cleaning some of that up and gave up. I thinkt here might be some useful information in there -- might be better to pull out the good bits rather than delete it outright... Scix 23:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted outright. Feel free to add back the good bits. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 01:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Just a quick question

I have experienced déjà vu, however in a certain occurrence, not only did I fell I recalled the surrounding environment but I also recalled the feeling of déjà vu and my reaction to it (my immediate thought was "this has happened many times before". It felt similar to looking into a mirror facing another mirror parallel to it.

Can anyone offer an explanation or at least a name for what I experienced? Alan Frize 18:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, depending on your theory of what déjà vu is, your experience falls right smack-dab in the middle of "normal" déjà vu. I have also had this experience. It's weird. But if one takes déjà vu to be a sort of glitch in the memory storage "software," where things put into the "right-now" short-term memory folder are also accessed by the "has this happened before?" script (to heavily draw on a computer analogy of brain function), as soon as the recognition of déjà vu happenes, it also goes into the feedback loop.

If we were really computers, we'd need to reboot at this point. Fortunately, there's some control in place that keeps the phenomenon from occuring for more than a few seconds at a time (I think something like 20 seconds is my own record). I'm actually fairly interested in what stops déjà vu from happening once it's started. Scix 19:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quick answer to a quick question

>> But if one takes déjà vu to be a sort of glitch in the memory storage...

But if it would be a glitch, then how comes some people report seeing glimps of the future?

>> Can anyone offer an explanation or at least a name for what I experienced?

Yes. If we take the above theorie ( Deja Vu - life as a movie that's already been seen ), that Deja Vu is seeing glimps of the future, then it is quite normal. For example, you have a Deja Vu and then, after it ( in the future ) , you think "Hay! I had a Deja Vu!". Now, during the Deja Vu you "see" your immediate future in which you will think "Hay! I had a Deja Vu!". So you're getting a Deja Vu of remambering this Deja Vu.

Good Luck!

>>> But if one takes déjà vu to be a sort of glitch in the memory storage...

>> But if it would be a glitch, then how comes some people report seeing glimps of the future?

> If (and its a big "if") people who report seeing the future actually do see the future, then that's not deja vu, now is it? Unrelated phenomenon. Scix 19:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I assume there could be many ways of seeing the future, but with this theorie Deja Vu is falling for split seconds into an intuitive state of mind in which you do "remamber" the future ( this is what gives you a feeling of "this has already happened" ), at least a few seconds or minutes into the future. See above quotes.

If I am seeing into the future, my experience will be of seeing the future. THEN I will have the experience of remembering having seen the moment before. But that's not generally how it happens: with deja vu, we only get the second part. Scix 20:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe that some people do not have this glimps at all, other might have them more or less or in some different way. As well as some might have interpritated what they have seen differently. As it was asked in the "quick question" above, why does one get Deja Vu of a Deja Vu, it could be because one is remambering himself in the future remambering his Deja Vu of remambering himself in the future... I have also heard of people having tripple Deja Vu, so maybe the amount of Daje Vu Deja Vus is limited by the time one is in that state of mind? But I'm note sure about this one. The Russian book ( link above, most interesting chapter http://www.universalinternetlibrary.ru/book/norbekov4/3.shtml#22 ) kinda gives an insight into this, yet I don't know how readable it would be with a auto-translator...

[edit] Merge proposition

The entries for jamais vu and presque vu are both stubs. As these phenomena are related to déjà vu, might it be worth merging them with this article?

On a related note, is l'esprit des escaliers really worthy of inclusion as a related article? Is the feeling of "that's what I should have said" a psychological phenomenon like déjà vu? --Urbane legend 11:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with merging both of those stubs into this article and to removing 'l'esprit des escaliers' from the related articles. I will do both. uriah923^(talk) 21:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I redirected the two articles here instead of deleting them. If that was a bad move, feel free to wipe them out. uriah923^(talk) 21:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree, personally. Especially as neither item is really mentioned here in the least bit. Instead of merging, we should cross-link them all and try to beef up the other two articles. 24.34.23.216 01:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN DEJA VU?

I MEAN DEJA VU IN ALL SENSE OF THE WORD...

my mom said that someone once told her that it was something like this: we have two hemispheres in our head, left brain and right brain. we are perceiving a situation at any given time...then one of the hemispheres delays its perception by mere seconds (or maybe more?) and it is when we feel as if we already lived through a certain moment...and we did, we just lived through it like, 10 seconds ago.

My brother also said that some people (who believe in reincarnation) believe that when you get deja vu it is because you are doing well in your new life...or that you did well in your past life. Something like that... User:Yayforblank 01:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The article discusses your first paragraph already, and it's the explanation that makes the most sense... as compared with off-the-wall and unverifiable hocus-pocus like precognitive dreams and reincarnation. Wahkeenah 01:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I had this feeling a couple of times

I can say it is not a good feelig to see something that you think that you have seen before. It is such a strange thing but it is a kinda interesting experience. P.S. Does anoyne else have this feeling? User:Drilon 23:49, 30 January 2006 Drilon (UTC)

It's not anoyne else, it's just oyu. >:) Wahkeenah 00:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AHH

I had a crazy deja vu exactly like Alan's, however it lasted FOR A FREAKING HOUR. Just like to say, as thats the longest one I've ever heard of, and it freaked me out for the longest time.

AHH, when you had this hour long Deja Vu, did you just feel that evrything that is going on around you has already happened - for example, someone comes into the room and you think "hay, this has already happened sometime!" - or did you also feel what is about to happen - like you think "hay, I remamber someone will/had walked into the room right now!" and so it happens ? --81.198.36.229 19:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

i had a Déjà visité. it was the freakyest thing i have ever seen. this is what happened... i had a dream and i was in this warehouse walking around and i had kno idea where i was and i dont kno how i got there or y i was there. this dream was vary vivd and i remeabered it... then about three months after the dream i was bike rideing with my friend. we were on a trail that was about 20 mi away from my house and... i past the same warehous that was in my dream! i just put on my brakes and stoped. i stared at the warehouse for about 5 min with out saying a word... then my friend said "whats wrong with you" and then i explained to him about the dream and stuff... omg it was so weird this happened about 6 months ago

[edit] Is this Deja Vu?

I'm not sure if it's Deja Vu or not but my expereince seems to be a little different. I would dream of a specific scene and anywhere from weeks to months later it would happen in reality. It wasn't just a mundane detail. I would see a surrounding area that was totally unfamiliar to me in the dream and some time later, when I finally came to that place I would recall the dream. I've tried to explain it to friends but most of them shrug it off. Sometimes when I wake up after having a dream, I have a good indication as to whether or not it might come to pass, usually, that's not the case though. I do recall, after one fairly vivid dream, I described what happened to my roommates at the time. A few months later it happened, right down to the words people spoke. Each time, the scene only lasts for a minute or so. I'm typically quite skeptical about this kind of thing but sometimes it creeps me out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Polurbear (talk • contribs) .

I suppose it could be. If it makes you feel any better, you probably don't remember the times when your dreams didn't come true (it would be very strange if we never had dreams that came true). — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 23:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

That is exactly the same type I experience. I have a dream, then forget about it for a while. Then, one day, the exact scene occurs, and I can recall exactly what everybody is about to say. It has happened to me three times that I can remember. --kenb215 18:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that happens to me every few weeks, where I recall- or perhaps-precall something that someone says or does! Le Anh-Huy 03:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deja vu - an alternate explanation

"deja vu was just a momentary infinitesimal lag in the operation of two coactive sensory nerve centers that commonly function simultaneously". Joseph Heller - Catch 22 -- Blogan 13:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I am shocked and horrified that this is the only Catch-22 reference around here. I must find my copy and rectify this gross oversight immediately! --Sam Pointon 03:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe someone said something similar in Babylon 5 (that's about 5 million geek points for me) --Kick the cat 21:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paramnesia

Why does Paramnesisa redirect to this page? Paramnesia is "a disorder of memory in which dreams or fantasies are confused with reality" (Dictionary.com). This seems entirely different from Deja Vu and should probably warrent its own page, unless I am mistaken about the definition. --72.56.15.118 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frequent Deja vu

I just want to know if there's any significance as to why I have been having deja vu a lot more lately. I have deja vu at least 3 times a week, and as much as 2-3 times a day. Even some of my friends have been experiencing it more often as well. What is, or could be going on?

Deja Vu - This is not seeing into the future, past lives or any of the other supernatural theories that have been presented. It is a very simple concept, one part of the brain simply interprets the current surroundings and actions faster than the rest of the brain, causing the brain to process everything twice. By the time you recognise that you've dealt with that situation before, the experience is almost finished, causing temporary confusion adding to the overall effects of Deja Vu. This is also why, in most cases, Deja Vu only lasts for brief periods of time and can give the impression that you know what's coming next.

[edit] Hemispheres crossing over.

It was suggested to me by my wife who was reading New Scientist that, if it is true that deja vu is communication between the "now" part of your brain and the "memory" area, creating the impression that what you are seeing is also in your memory, even though in reality its just crossed wires. I know that this is already discussed in the article, but she suggested that coordination exercises (designed to increase communication between both halves of the brain, e.g. copying the movements of your right hand with your left) would presumably increase the frequency of one's deja vu experiences?

I have been playing the bass guitar for a number of years, and that involves matching the timing of movements of one hand with those of the other, and I have deja vu ALOT. So what she says makes sense?

--SGGH 11:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

How do you explain the experience where someone experiences complete conscious deja vu in which the person remembers all sensations of a particular episode in time, but from a previous dream they can recall. I have experienced this before, one instance in particular that I had and made a subsequent effort to remember BOTH the instance of Deja Vu and the previous dream in which the experience caused me to recall from. I remember thinking about the dream months before the Deja Vu experience occurred. I dreamed about a place that I hand't seen or experienced before and then had a sensation of Deja Vu when the exact parameters of my cosciousness or feeling matched that in the dream. I think Deja Vu experiences like these are the most difficult to explain. 69.157.102.52 07:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deja Vu

  I like totally believe in Deja vu.  It is so awesome.  I dream about something and it comes true.  Not all the time but most of the time.  Like I dreamed that my friend would come home from the army and he really did.  I was so excited.

[edit] "Concentrator"

Re the phrase "expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate French concentrator at the University of Chicago." That inter-article intra-wikipedia link (I don't know the word) is blatantly not right as it refers to telecommunication circuits, not to something one might be at the University of wherever. However, I've no idea where it should point, sorry. --Kick the cat 21:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing Deja Vu

Backround to the story: I was sitting around talking with my friends.

One time when I was experiencing deja vu I saw a certain event. Yhen I saw(and heard) what my friend was going to say. Then after he was done talking I answered. Right once I saw this "episode of deja vu". It started to happen but I barged in while my friend was talking changing what I had just seen.

So, what happened there? did my mind just anticipate what would happen and show it to me as deja vu? or is there something else(not like paranormal or crap like that, but in my mind)?

[This also kind of disavows the idea of hemisphere's lapsing]

[edit] Inappropriate tone transclusion

This page has been marked as having an informal tone, but this does not seem to be justified. Consider removing the transclusion.

I guess its because this talk page is mainly people trying to find out about what happened to themself rather than discussing the artical, however I find it appropriate for this type of topic...

[edit] Deja Vu definition

In the first paragraph this articles states Deja vu is french for "already happened" I am only in high school french, but I am fairly sure that it actually means "already seen" I would change this but I am not sure of my french enough to be positive. I would appreciate if someone fluent in French checked this out.

[edit] Inapproriate Sources

"However there is much anecdotal evidence that déjà vu is at least sometimes associated with genuine precognition, which the memory anomaly theory does not account for[1]." The source that this passage references sounds like it's made by someone who is sore about wikipedia not giving support for their case. They obviously created this 'source' so that their additions would look legitimate, even though they are clearly reactionary, blog-style arguments written by the very person who edited this article to include it (or at least someone who is quite friendly to the writer of the source). This is, of course, against Wikipedia policy.128.54.152.174 07:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../d/%C3%A9/j/Talk%7ED%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu_552e.html"