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Deja Vu's and You

    • 79 posts
    February 8, 2014 10:35 PM EST

    For about the majority of my life I've been a sufferer of Deja Vu, however the thing is though over the past month or so I've been getting more and more frequent Deja Vu's (I'm talking an increase of +8x the usual amount) particularly when going on transit, playing a new game that I've never in my life played before, watching a movie I've never in my life watched, reading books I've never even read, hearing specific details of a conversation I've never heard before, etc etc.. it's come to a point I've starting questioning my sanity.

    So then my prompt today is firstly: have you ever experienced a Deja Vu before and what do you think about it?

    For me personally as I've stated before I've been experiencing it countless amount of times, it usually dawns upon me that it happened 30-90 minutes after it actually occurs. I personally find it unsettling and wish it would stop or rather instead of having it dawn on me AFTER the event occurs I wish it would dawn on me BEFORE (horse bets anyone?). I recalled hearing from a friend of mine that Deja Vu is merely illustrations of past (and I mean far in the past) dreams coming to light and portrayed into reality. The thing I find unsettling about this is, if that is the case why must our minds ponder about such things? It's truly unsettling.. so yeah about Deja Vu, it's cool and surreal initially if it doesn't occur so goddamn frequently.

    Anyways, this prompt is more of a vent of frustration more than anything else but again if you have similar experiences to this feel free to share :)

    • 158 posts
    February 9, 2014 12:04 AM EST

    As a lifelong sufferer of insomnia, I have often had instances of sleep deprivation where I could not remember whether a memory I had was from my waking life or from a dream.  My instances of deja vu are much more frequent when I'm stressed or sleep deprived.  
       It is definitely a very odd sensation, particularly when it's happening often.  Are you getting enough sleep? Spending too much time in front of the computer? 

    • 194 posts
    February 9, 2014 2:42 AM EST

    This reminds me... I never have them anymore. I think during my teen years it was at least once every day.

  • Tom
    • 624 posts
    February 9, 2014 6:35 AM EST

    If I remember right, it's caused by chemical imbalance within the hypothalamus. Nothing terribly abnormal.

    • 79 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:12 PM EST

    Fairly enough, 6-7 hours a day. As for spending time in front of computer.. I use computer on average of 3-4 hours per day, 7 hours at work.

    I don't think it has to do with insomnia though, I know of those instances where dreams and waking life seems to cross, it doesn't have the same unsettling feeling as this does. :(

    • 79 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:13 PM EST

    Wish that's the case with me, I'm well past my teen years and I still get them every 5-9 days now sometimes 3 times in a day's span.

    • 79 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:16 PM EST

    Yeah, and when it dawns on you it feels like you get that sensation of saying something along the lines of.. Jesus Christ really? It's fun admittedly the first dozen of time though.

    • 79 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:18 PM EST

    Wonder what cause that sort of imbalance. Perhaps medical science will tell us one of these days, never know. I'll probably look into that, thanks Tom for mentioning that.

  • Tom
    • 624 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:29 PM EST

    I'm far from well read in medicine. I recall hearing it in a behavioral evolution lecture and thought it was an interesting tidbit that answered what causes deja vu, better than the respawn point idea gamers give.

    • 194 posts
    February 9, 2014 1:37 PM EST

    It's like LAG in your brain. The part of your brain that registers memory actually receives the information before the part of your brain that registers the information as what is currently happening. So you "recognize" the information as memory instead of or as well as a current event.

    Deja Vu on vsauce

    • 61 posts
    February 9, 2014 4:11 PM EST

    I've had terrible Deja Vu about World War Z. One that made me question the integrity of my mind and the way the universe works. I remember seeing a clip of the World War Z zombie rush chase scene thing (Haven't actually watched the film) on a Tv program called 'Greatest Movie Mistakes' which highlighted continuity errors and plotholes in films. I remember seeing the scene of the main character running through the streets whilst being chased by an absurdly volumetric wave of zombies but not the particular mistake. I remember seeing this scene on Tv in 2010. The film was released last year. I'm almost certain that I had seen that scene before, so when I saw that scene on the trailer I said to my pa, who was also there, "They re-released it, eh?" and he had no clue as to what I was talking about. I told all sorts of people that I had seen it before, but no one believed me. To be honest, it was a pretty incredible story. It really made me mad that my mind would play such a dastardly trick and make everybody think I was crazy. I've had smaller deja vu events in my life, especially from my childhood. They're strange things deja vus.

    • 74 posts
    February 18, 2014 8:40 PM EST
    A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the matrix. It happens when they try to change something