kkkzzz,

That’s the problem, isn’t it?  When is something “mere” coincidence and when --- and if  --- is it more significant?  In the movie “Signs”, a character asked, “What if there are no coincidences?”

FWIW, I’m convinced that there are no coincidences.  I’ve paid attention to such things for the last 20 years and have found that what we call “coincidences” are like the quantum events that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”.  It’s difficult to explain but impossible to ignore.  There seem to be patterns in our lives, strings of coincidences that defy our explanations.  How can we account for this?

 Please understand that I’m not preaching any sort of metaphysics here, only commenting upon my own experiences and observations.  To me, this is an area of human experience that begs for investigation.

Spacer wrote:

kkkzzz, That’s the problem, isn’t it?  When is something “mere” coincidence and when --- and if  --- is it more significant?  In the movie “Signs”, a character asked, “What if there are no coincidences?” FWIW, I’m convinced that there are no coincidences.  ....

Hi Kzzzz,

 I make some of my living investigating equipment  and system failures.   I always am suspicious when anyone assumes two events are just  coincidence and digging into such usually reveals a causal link.  So I'm with you in principle but  "Sometimes a Cigar is just a cigar" applies to coincidences too.  Not often.  Less than half the time certainly, but sometimes the darndest things happen that just are not causally linked.  

And boy those can be hard to swallow and errode confidence in the next investigation.   It sure keeps you on your toes!  I would guess that a small number of Deja Vu experience are just coincidence or something like it.  But I agree the experience is just too pervasive and universal among humans for all the incidents to be explained this way...

PH

 

Spacer / PH,

I actually agree with you. Despite my extremely strong aversion to all things supernatural, astrological, and hocus pocus, I have personally experienced too many cases of precognition -- mostly in the form of distinct and unmistakable funny feelings -- to dismiss the phenomenon outright. I have occasionally had funny feelings that ultimately did not correspond to anything of any significance, but the ones that have successfully foreshadowed something were quite distinct. In other words, milder funny feelings have generally been false alarms while stronger ones have generally been true alarms.

As for deja vu, I don't experience it very often. I would venture to guess that this happens about once a year, whereas the precognitive funny feeling is more frequent.

I have no explanation for it, and precisely because I have no explanation for it I will NOT fabricate an answer. I will simply say that I cannot explain it and I will hold out for the possibility that science will one day discover a plausible or verifiable explanation. Until that happens, the question will remain unanswered, and I owe it to myself to leave it at that and NEVER succumb to cooking up an answer of my own choosing. I can apply scientific knowledge of the day to propose an idea and perhaps someday a theory, but the idea and the theory must be rooted in science.

I too have experienced what are dubbed synchronistic events. I jokingly call these too conicidental to be coincidence. They do when occurring present some very eerie aspects that defy classical physics and could be "blamed" on quantum wierdness. I try to rationalize it by telling myself that in an infinite number of events there are bound to be a finite number that show some peculiar consistency or pattern. Something like seeing familiar patterns in cloud formations. This is what we of the atheist ilk label magical thinking and try to avoid with disdain. Of course those of the spritual species immediately extoll these as "acts of gaWd aLmiGhty hisElf". For this to be the case this omnipotent omnipresent creature would have to have complete control of the universe down to the most underlying forces in nature. A dust mote falling from a ceiling would have to be divinely inspired. In fact our every thought would have to be generated by this I am he as you are he as we are all together. Makes one feel just a tadbit paranoid eh? Nothing more than superstring puppets?

Omar Khayyam said it thusly:

Quatrain 46

We are nothing other than a moving row

Of magic shadow shapes that come and go

Neath this sun illumin'd lantern

Held by the master of the show.

Another translation of Quatrain 46

For in and out, above, about, below,

Tis nothing but a magic shadow-show,

Play'd in a box whose candle is the sun,

Round which we phantom figures come and go.

and then in Quatrain 49

'Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days

Where destiny with men for pieces plays

Hither and thither moves, mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the closet lays.

 

I can't believe this thread is still going.  I was just thinking about it last night when I was watching something on Sci-Fi that set off a Deja Vu experience..


Have A Nice ________

I was thinking about this thread during the day and I have a question, it may sound stupid but is it possible to have deja vu about deja vu, and what would this mean if possible???

as7ro wrote:

I was thinking about this thread during the day and I have a question, it may sound stupid but is it possible to have deja vu about deja vu, and what would this mean if possible???

I would say refer back to the beginnings of this thread where we were discussing multiple universes, realities and dimensions or repeating cycles.
I think deja vu of deja vu would fit well into a couple of those theories where we may be in a continuous repeating cylcle.


Have A Nice _________

yes i did. the previous the thread of repeating cycles is actually how i developed that question.

PH,

I’ve spent almost all my working life doing maintenance.  Like you, I’ve often found that seemingly unrelated problems are, in fact, connected, although the connection is sometimes difficult to find.  On the other hand, I’ve found that once a system is corrected, it will shortly need another correction.  To put it another way, once something breaks it will break again --- most often in a completely unrelated way.  For example:  your car has been getting regular maintenance and has functioned flawlessly for a long time.  Then one day you get a flat tire, and a week later a fan belt breaks.  How could the two be related?  On the other hand, why should both events happen so close together in time?  If this happened only occasionally I’d say that it’s simply the laws of chance operating, like flipping a coin and getting 5 heads in a row.  It’s not likely but inevitably it will happen.

In my work this happens so often that I expect it, and have even come to call it “The Law of Twos”.  Could it be that there is actually a relationship that I don’t understand?  Sure.  We get fooled by that a lot.  One 19^th Century magician used to use a “magic” bell hanging on a cord above the stage which would ring when he pointed to it.  In fact the cord was electrical and the bell rang when a hidden assistant pushed a button.  The unknown factor only looked like magic.  Similarly, physicist David Bohm insisted that the “spooky action at a distance” of Quantum Mechanics wasn’t spooky at all, just the result of hidden processes.

Maybe there is some undiscovered law of nature at work here, or maybe it’s some process that exists outside physical reality.  I’m encouraged by the fact that so many of you keep your minds open about these things.  Without proof we can’t explain or explain away anything, although too many people do one or the other.  All we can do is collect data and see where it leads us.

Besides, it's fun! 

Spacer,

I have not heard the law of twos before...the causal link might be there.

I am not sure what you mean by processes existing outside physical reality.  To me it seems that if any physical property or state is affected then the causal factor(s) are within physical reality by definition.  However I do understand the spirit of your statement.  At the April APS meeting a slide was shown showing a state of dipoles in a crystal which were all improbably pointing in one direction.  From the point of view of one of the atoms it was astronimically improbable that all its fellow atoms shared its orientation..... Until the slide was panned back and a technician was shown with a hand on the dial , cranking up a dc electric field...

The gist was that the physical constants of the universe have to be improbably tuned to very very precice values in order for the universe to exist in its present state.  So improbable is this (1/10^120) that the presenter was swinging around to the multiverse solution.  If there are 10^120 universes (or more) then chances are one will be like ours.  He was much more reluctant to accept the hand on the dial alternative!  

 There could be more undiscovered forces and causal factors not hypothesized, let alone proved.  Anything in these catagories would seem  as you say spooky.  But I still believe that causes are knowable, at least  in theory, if not by our limited brains. 

Science is advanced only in comparison to previous standards.  It seems certain to me that we know  a lot less than we don't know! 

I am very apt to be dismissive of a lot of stuff that is not supported in the science lexicon and heaven knows skepticism is essential in this age of psuedoscience.  The balanced view though is that anything is possible.  Not necessarily probable but possible.  (Besides its fun!)

PH

I think something greater and deeper, revealing more truth about ourselves and the universe is opening up to us now. Ok, Deja Vu happens to lots of people, it has happened to me, along with dreams. I have had dreams that have been repeated the next day with pinpoint accuracy. Most of these experiences happened in a particular period of my life. These are of course, very personal experiences. I don't believe they came from another demension or happened in the past. For example I had a friend who told me she had this terrible dream, a nightmare. In the nightmare she went to a party and died suddenly. She told me she was planning to go to a party on Friday night and was sure she would die there. She said she was scared and wanted my advice. I told her to face her fears and go to the party. She went to the party, and walked through a sliding glass door that was closed when she thought it was open. A large chunk of broken glass fell against her neck, and she died a few minutes later. I have a hard time believing this was an experience wherein she already died in another demension.

I don't think we know very much about the universe around us or ourselves. Logic and thought will only take us so far in this quest for knowledge. The real, true hidden truths lie not only "out there" but also inside of us, in a subconscious part of us. We have a connection to something eternal and real, that really reveals everything to us if we listen. Man's struggle is with himself, with his ego, which has been deservedly labeled every possible dark and evil name, namely "the devil". Overcoming your ego is not about struggle or thought, it's about surrender to who you really are. In that part of you lies knowledge about Deja Vu and other paranormal experiences. Somehow, though, a part of this is entirely unknowable by thinking, it's something you only experience, like Deja Vu.

Please excuse my writing and spelling as i am working thousands of feet up, it is a little bumpy in the air right now and im in a hurry lol. My job is to collect time photo data in the US. I am a naval aircrewman and have little schooling in this feild however i am schooled in the field of flight and physioligy and I was just looking at a text a freind of mine just sent and i had to look your name up on this deja vu subject.

    Is it posible that we are reaching a point in our brain to were we are calculating events past to present to calculate the future. We could be taping into a realm without relizing that we are useing another portion of our brain that is dorment.

Admril Jocovny and General Rockberry was fired and discharge from the US military for the insain calculation of pearl harber being atacked in 1940's. His calculations and research think tanks were created for the sole perpose clasifying future attacks againts the US in the 1920's.

Example: reconition of an object or place you never have been to befor could constitute as a calculated event you yourself have created. Every step and every move you make can creat an effect. Say you were shooting a basket ball into a hoop. You would have to calculat the strength, footing  sight, feel of the ball, and invironment around you. Then once judged that you can make that informed disition made by yourself, you take the shot....success you make it.... that was not luck.....it was skill in knowing you had the knowledge and ability to calculate every step in order to make that shot. Therfor you have just created the future.

   Same thing when you walk into an unfamilier place butyour brain puts it into a larger calculated scal. Such as colors, shapes, sizes, all the way to names and places.

I, being a student in college, text booked and word nurtured, still openly accept other ideas per our existense, beyond what is programmed into our minds at birth as 'fathomable'. My common sense 'sense' leads me to the radical idea that even though 'theories' prove themselves based on flawless physical calculations and mathematical proceedures, they are still based on human concepts. Concepts which we use to perceive our world around us. 

Thats right I said it.

Spacer wrote:

... To me, this is an area of human experience that begs for investigation.

 

I second this notion. 

mjolnir wrote:

Spacer wrote: ... To me, this is an area of human experience that begs for investigation.   I second this notion.

So here is a new experiece that I will almost bet not too many have experienced.  I would love to hear thoughts on this.  It blew me away.  Simultaneous Deja Vu between two people where the content was the  exact same?

 This morning I am in the kitchen discussion various topics with my girlfriend.  I had just realized that I had sent an important business email with an attached spreadsheet and I had made an error (in that the Excel spreadsheet contained additional unrelated information because I had revised an older speadsheet and failed to delete other sheets).  In other words it was a slight embarrassment to me...so that said, I felt a Deja Vu coming on and it was not only the feeling of the Deja vu itself, but that it involved my girlfirend.  I felt like she and I had experienced some dialog at a point in the past and that some one had advised her on sending unproofed emails.  I had a sense of who that person but keep in mind, I made no mention to her of what I just experienced. 

So, my Deja Vu feeling subsides when she turns to me and says, "I just had a Deja Vu that had something to do with sending unproofed emails.  I told her I just had the same experience and then she says, was Rex in your DeJa Vu?

It floored me!  That was exactly the person i was thinking of.  Yet after the feeling left us both, neither of us could remember any such history, discussion about this between us or with this Rex person.

So here is a situation where not only did both people experienced Deja Vu at the same time about a less than important topic but where a specific person was identified without being mentioned at any point before or durning the Deja Vu feeling...It was PROOF that the experiece was common and not just between two hemispheres of one's brain...wow! 

 

 

 

Here is a theory for your consideration.  It is not as sexy and metaphysical as previous life experiences, precognition, or alternate dimensions, but I think it has merit.  You tell me.

Our memories are compartmentalized in this wonderful huge warehouse we call a brain.  The storage and retrieval of memories is a process both chemical and electrical.  It is much like an automated storage system where a robotic device can take an object to its storage location, drop it off, and return to retrieve it as needed.  As the object is dropped off at its storage spot a switch (or some biological receptor in the case of our brain) is tripped and the object is slid into its place.  Then, when the need arises to use the object, our system goes to it and pulls it out for use.

Now, what if when the object (memory) is being stored a minor glitch occurs and the system is given a false retrieval signal?  I can see this object being slid into place and instantly being retrieved in a quick little back-and-forth dance.  If this same minor glitch were to happen in our brain we could easily experience the memory of an event even as it was happening to us.

Studies show that deja vu experiences occur most frequently in younger people, and tend to diminish, even disappear, as we age.  The interconnections and chemistry of our brains are still being developed well into young adulthood.  It has not been proven, but there may be a link between the developing brain and the occurance of deja vu.

Like I said its not a sexy idea, but it does seem to be good biology.

Hello everyone,

 I've been following up with this thread I created but did not add onto any discussion because I did not want to influence anything but to merely here everything everyone had to say.

 Great posts by everyone. I have very complicated results on brain monitoring activities that I am having a hard time understanding. Based n the data collected, brain activity increases during a long period of sleep. Activity in the brain has a "weird" cycle in which there is no true pattern to be found. We have spoken to many experts in the field yet we are still not getting the big picture. Is there anyone out there that can shed some light on such a field of study?

______________________

Back to posts... I remember when my grandmother passed away. I was far too young to even remember her at all, but the night of her death I had a dream that even to this day haunts me. In the dream, my grandmother's skeleton was chasing me around. It might sound funny, I know, but that morning when I woke up I had found out that my grandmother was dead.

 Someone above (sorry I'm not making a direct reference) mentioned something about evaluating past to present events to predict future events and using a part of the brain that is dormant to us. I'd like to add to that based on recent findings and research. First off, it's a great idea and it has been brought up many times before as a possible explaination for such phenomenon. I myself am not a fan of the supernatural and I refuse to base science on such nonsense. However, I refuse to believe that is of the supernatural. This is where science has to kick in. Back to topic, it is very possible that the human brain might indeed be able to predict future events based on past time intervals. Such brains have had existed in the past; people who were able to predict events such as 9/11 by such people like Nostradamus. I do believe such brains exist in the world but are limited to certain time frames of time itself, meaning that these brains are indeed limited. However, this evaluation of past to present events leading to future predictions are not relevant to the Deja vu experience.

 As for the other person that described how his/her friend died at a party after having a dream... This could be an example of something else and the power of thought. It has already been proven that thought of the brain can effect body tissue and functions. You explained that your friend said she was scared and wanted advise..This being said, her fear of the party and nightmare could have been indirectly related to her death. Let me know if you comprehend what I am saying as I am not being very clear. Sorry for your loss, but the cause of her death could have been herself and the power of thought is the main suspect in the investigation. Based on her own fears and worries, her brain might have had made certain involuntary decisions that led to her walking into a glass door.

Deja vu can be classified in so many ways. I don't believe many people on this forum understand that concept. Deja vu has many types and forms as many of you out there can agree.

David
supporting revolution

Hey

Ive Been Reading Through Some Of Your Stuff..

And Its Got Me Thinking Of Something That A Came Up With Or Sort Of Had Starting Making Sense A While Ago Its Pretty Much Exactly What You Think But It Takes Boltzmanns Arrow Things... Ive Always Thought That SomeWhere In Time Now Im Dong The Exact Same Thing And Evrything We Do Is Planned Out Before Us, And Even If We Make A Concieuce Decision To Change It, Well Thats Already Planned Out For Us 2, Its Like Whatever We Do Is Already Planned To Do. And The Boltzmanns Theory Sort Of Looks Into The Fact That If The Arrows Were 2 Be Turned Arround, Then Our Past Is Our Future And Our Future Is Our Past For Sumthing Else. Okay So This Really Is Confusing And Im Only 13 So Yuno. Im Really Like :S At The Moment With All This But Basicllay What Im Trying To Get At Is.. That The Whole De Ja Vu Thing Is Caused When The 2 Times Of Past;Present And Present;Past Come Together. Which Probably Makes No Sense Which is Why Im Trying 2 Work This All Out Atm ! And It Got Me Thinking..
So.. If Time Travels In A Continus Loop, And The Big Bang Caused It All...Then Maybe Like Some Famous Person Said...Time Is Like The Fire At The End of A Fuse OR Sumthing..And The Big Bang Is What Comes After The Loop Finishes Its Cycle..Like Its 360 Rotation. And Like The Big Bang Is Caused When The Sun Expands Too Much, And Bursts Out Causing Little Metorites Of Everything All Through Space And TIME.
AnyWay Its Like 1 In The Morning And Im Confusing MySelf And Probably Evry1 Reading This So..

Yuno

Im Not Sure Whats Going On In My Head Atm And I Dno If Any Of It Makes Sense But

AnyWay

Bye

 

x   x   x

 A far more simple explanation is that the brain discards more than it retains. We forget things that aren't needed all of the time and sometimes we experience things similar to ones we used to know and forgot and that triggers the memory of a memory so to speak. It's like a memory echo.

 If deja vu were a real phenomena of recovering memories from another dimension or time, then it would happen far more often and we would also remember things that hadn't happened yet, hadn't happened to us, or alternate histories and futures.

 
Given those two choices it's far more likely it's a trick of the mind caused by it's need to discard information it will sometimes relearn later or similar data.