deja vu is easily explained by common psychology knowledge.

Well, then I'd like to hear your thoughts on it instead of "someone else knows what this is", if it's so easy to explain, then why are there so many theories about it? What does this "common psychology knowledge" say?

2 Members: datajunky, HERETICtheory

I'm really looking forward to this next contribution.
It's always a pleasure

Love the McKenna quote. He was a truly inspiring man.

I haven't ever put much thought into deja vu for a few reasons. I guess I figured somewhere along the line that it was a lot of stuff to sort through because to address it you need to first address several other philosophical and psychological theories and ideas before you can even humor the idea and then on top of that once you gather your theories and trains of thought, many people are going to stomp on them and say that THOSE are wrong. In the end it becomes very difficult to actually discuss deja vu. However, I would like to take the time right now to attempt to rationalize this phenomenon a bit.

I think it's very interesting, especially given the information emerging about fractal patterns in nature, specifically in time, though, to me, the existence of any fractal pattern at the basis of matter suggests that it is inherently infinite. In this sense, I lean heavily towards what datajunky suggested about overlapping moments of novelty or energy/chaos in relation to the levels of depth of the fractal we are exploring. That sentence was a bit rough and not exactly how I wanted to put it but I think if we were to examine how a supposed fractal time wave would occur, it might make some more sense.

I am not an expert on this but I am making an attempt to fully understand this theory and it's surrounding bubbles of thought and I am learning more each day. If we graph novelty we can clearly see the correlation between historical events in the past and events that have happened more recently or even in the near future, we can see that the graph is literally repeating itself but falling smaller and smaller in scale each time. This is exactly what a fractal does. Honestly, I would need to examine the graph a little more thoroughly to determine whether the changes are sufficiently "self-similar" rather than copies of a repeated event but if we assume that it may act in such a way (as a fractal would) this would suggest to me that moments of deja vu could possibly be the gap between changes in the fractal wave. That is, deja vu could be the moment in a supposed linear time when the fractal waves are congruent, if only for a moment.

There are a few other theories that I am not well enough versed in to make much comment on at all, though I think they also hold legitimate possibilities for explaining deja vu. These theories all consist of the idea of multi-dimensional realities, which in my opinion could fit very nicely in with Novelty Theory and fractal time. In such a case, I would be intrigued to find out if deja vu could possibly involve events in other dimensions which correlate or sync up with specific events in our perceived realities. Maybe somebody else knows some more about this kind of thing and can clarify or at least point us in the right direction?

Like I said, I don't presume to know enough to make any kind of a fully developed theory on this subject, this is merely musing for the sake of intriguing conversation. I do think that the question of deja vu is a very important and vital question, sort of like a keystone to closing the gap between certain theories, however, at this moment I have no such validation on my postulation and I do not want to assert that I have any kind of qualification.

edit:



Haha thanks, I appreciate it.

I was much inspired to post by your previous post about fractal time. Though this post is a little lacking in my confidence on the subject, I hope it suffices to at least get some people's thoughts jogging.

Hope I don't disappoint.

This post was edited by HERETICtheory on Feb 13 2010 01:49pm

I didn't watch much of the video, but thought a little about deja vu.
Obviously, at least most of the time, when the same thing is happening to you, you notice that. I am not sure, but I believe a deja vu isn't special, its us that is making it appear special.

I want to present 2 arguments. One indicating that a deja vu isn't special and is supposed to happen (if it would not happen than that is what I would call supernatural). Second that we make it look special for a certain reason.

1. We all know how much we rely on habit. At least thats the case for me. I paid some attention to it. For example I haven't been to the city for 2 weeks. Then I got 1 time to the city and end up going there the next day and so on. Ending up going there 5 times this week. There isn't a reason why I did this it was just habit. The same thing happens so often with so many different things. Lots of people rely heavily on habit. Now lets take the deja vu in. If we meet a certain guy at one specific spot while we were eating a banana and exactly the same thing happens again, meeting the same person at the same spot and once again we were eating a banana than that makes us think. That makes us try to make sense out of the whole thing. If we cannot make sense out of it we are more likely to believe in something supernatural. Anyways the point is that this situation happening twice is a normal thing, if something like that wouldn't happen all the time then I would believe in supernatural things. Just look how structured our lives are, for example people work at the same days, same time, have a break same time. So the two people meeting at the same spot is supposed to happen when both have a break the same day and time and it is supposed to happen multiple times. If you have eaten a banana last weak during a certain day you are statistically more likely to do exactly the same thing next week during the same day if you get the same memory stimulus. Considering the influence of habit and the structure in our lives many people end up doing the same things at the same time, so deja vu's should happen quite frequently. If they wouldn't I would believe in the supernatural.

2. The reasons why humans made it that far is partially due to their brains ability to recognize patterns. Recognizing patterns is an extremely valuable skill not just to progress in science or whatever elce but also for survival. At least in the old days that was the case. Indeed our ability to recognize patterns I believe is better than reality is. For example someone gives you a picture and this picture as 3 real patterns you are quite likely to start seeing more than just 3 patterns. The more you believe in something the more patterns you start to see, the more you start to notice and and and. The better you get in it the more deja vu's you might start to see. Not always but in many cases we see patterns where there are none. Our brain sees more than there is, that is not just the case with patterns but also with vision. You have for example a blind spot in your eye where you shouldn't see anything but your brain adds wrong information in that blind spot making you see something that is not there. Just take paranoid schizophrenia for example. A certain smile that might not mean anything can be interpreted in a very different way, that the person actually is superior to you and is just about to rip you off. Things cannot only be under exaggerated they can also be over exaggerated. I think that a deja vu is a perfect example of our brain trying to put in more sense and importance into an event then there is.


Another point I would like to add is that if a deja vu would happen to me right at this moment I wouldn't pay any attention to it.
But lets assume I had taken a psycho stimulant drug, be it cocaine, MDMA, adderall etc. If a deja vu would happen to me in a drug influenced state I would see it as something special and the reason for that is I could see more patterns, more associations. When you take a psycho stimulant more activity is going on in your brain and the result is a single stimulus such as a deja vu would actually connected to many more past memories than when I wasn't on drugs. The more past memories the actual situation is connected to the more likely we find a past memory that is similiar to the actual situation. The more likely we see a deja vu. My point comes now:
What is going on inside our head is distinct from the outside world. A drug making us see more deja vu's within our head does not create more deja vu's outside our head.

on the daily i usually have deja vu more then 5 times a day and half of those times i feel something always trying to discombobulate me and sometimes i break down for few minutes and feel like im mentally insane.
this is no lie of mine but since this topic was brought up about the whole "spiritual thing" i was kind of intrigued by this whole conversation that you guys sparked up here.
and as for this deja vu thing i usually have, it occurs in my sleep and sometimes makes me jitter when i do. i have nightmares always when i come across deja vu and i think its because of my worst experiences of life that has happened to me.
im only 18 but i been thru alot of things which no teenager should have gone thru, not even an adult in their lifetime. what can cause such commotion in my sleep and on the daily?
i know im not psychotic but to this spiritual connection which i have no clue of is recognized in my memory for some particular reason but which i have NO knowledge of how it connects to my deja vu
if anyone has similar experiences id like to hear another persons perspective.

May've been mentioned already, but there's a buttload of tl;dr going on in this thread. The only thing I've heard mentioned of Deja Vu was something to do with a "lag" in the optical nerve or some business that causes you to kinda see twice. Can't remember many details or where the hell I read about it.

Deja Vu is nothing more than the recollection of a feeling that happens all the time when similar events occur. People are really good at finding patterns where there are none.

what about hearing voices and its connection to the spiritual?

This post was edited by sinbad2 on Feb 25 2010 10:17pm

vouch
That is almost the definition of being human (IMO).

This post was edited by Azrad on Feb 26 2010 02:21am