Déjà vu or Déjà Moo?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Or indeed, déjà POO, some of you are probably thinking...

Sorry for a big opener, but here's a recap of what's happened so far on my déjà vu subject in the What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you? thread.

Weirdest thing that happens to me is déjà vu - all the damn time.

Averaging out at about four to six times a week, I get the intense and scary feeling that I've been somewhere before, met a particular person (or spoken about a particular subject before), or - most commonly - I get the creepy feeling that something (not necessarily bad) is about to happen, and then it does: anything from a car having a minor prang in the street nearby to getting a surprise gift from a relative through the post. Most of the time, it's more than a sneaking suspicion - I actually feel completely sure that it is the second time that I am experiencing a particular moment. It's not just significant or quantifiable events that I can get déjà vu about though - it's just that they tend to be more memorable later on. It can be the most mundane thing: like a particular sentence used (even on the TV) or the exact position of a cup on a table in a café where I've not been before that day.

As well as the 'intense scary feeling' at the time of the déjà vu event, I can suffer from varying levels of mental disorientation and confusion sometimes up to three or four minutes before a 'big' déjà vu episode; and the physical symptoms I can experience before, and/or during and/or after (and not necessarily all at once) include:
Dry mouth
Clammy hands
Difficulty in swallowing
Loosening of the bowels (mostly mild, very occasionally serious)
Mild dizziness (feels like getting up from a chair suddenly)
Hair prickling on the back neck, or sometimes all over body (and goose-bumps)

Before you go claiming that I'm suffering from quite a rare but well-understood mental illness: in my adult life, I've approached doctors (under a false name - my trust has to be carefully won) several times trying to get some sort of handle on what's up with me. I've had MRI scans and every sort of head-prodding and cerebrum-poking that Western medicine has to offer, but always done a runner pretty sharpish when it becomes patently obvious that after just a couple of visits they're all booking me a one-way express ticket to a room with rubber walls and/or recommending a lifetime of trussing my intellect in an ill-fitting chemical straight-jacket. If I refuse medication (a fast-diminishing right these days), can you imagine trying to claim disability benefits for my condition?

With a frequency of about four or five times a year, I can acutely visualise (or hear) exactly what is about to occur, and as soon as my brain interprets this information to be one of my 'premonitions', the physical symptoms and confusion rapidly diminishes. On at least four occasions in the last decade, I've stunned companions by being able to 'predict' little things happening, à la Bill Murray in Groundhog Day predicting that the diner waitress will drop her tray. If caught unawares by an episode of déjà vu, it can lead to a slight loss of physical co-ordination that makes me clumsy, or lapse of composure can make me weep for no apparent external reason.

It's been happening since I was about 13-14. Prior to the onset of puberty, I used to get severe headaches that the doctor attributed to short-sightedness, but being sent to the optician for some fetching National Health specs didn't make the problem go away. Various further tentative diagnoses of migraines or dietary deficiencies and their attendant 'cures' made no difference either. The onset of zits, body hair and a breaking voice seemed to occur at the same rate that the headaches diminished.

I've tried to keep a diary of déjà vu events several times over the last sixteen years or so, but it just kept creeping me out, or became such an obsessive project that took over my whole life to the point where I was not sure whether I was getting 'false' déjà vu feelings because I was expecting them, or over-analysing my feelings. My first encounter of email and the Internet in was a direct result of me trying to find out more about the déjà vu phenomenon from medical and academic institutions across the world: suffice to say that I was either treated like a crank or nutter myself, or had the shifting unease that those who were actually interested in my case were the very weirdos from whom the former group were seeking to disassociate themselves.

I can't say that I've gotten used to my 'gift' over the years - I've just had to learn to cope as best I can.

So there it is - it appears that maybe I can unselectively see a few seconds or minutes into the future, but have no idea how to apply it to anything useful like saving the world, winning the lottery, or giving Neil  forewarning that the CaB site was about to go fucky.




I'd be very interested in your take on this, but please do bear in mind that I've had sixteen or so years of pondering about it already. PM me if you don't want to air your déjà vu thoughts/experiences in public - I'm baring my soul here too y'know!

Regarding the symptons you describe. Do you feel a slight detatchment from reality when these occur?

Not at all - in the case of the less significant ones, it's just a vague idea like the nagging feeling you get on the way to the bus stop that you might have left a tap running in the bathroom in your hurry to get to work. Hyper-reality would probably be the best way to describe what I feel when I'm having major déjà vu that's linked to either a notable event or a particularly visual precognition.

Also I have to ask do you ever here voices, not coherent voices that you can pick out what they are saying, but the feeling of something being said?

This is usually one of the first things that a doctor asks - it's very difficult to describe without a lot of hand-waving and badly used similies. I'm not hearing voices or noises per se; to put it in its simplest terms, its more like a forgotten memory being awoken in a way that anyone that is familiar with Proust's madeleine might recognise.

if you think the topic of déjà vu is worth its own thread, let's do that.

Yeah, I think it really is. I would post my own deja vu stuff but here isn't quite the appropriate topic.*

*I even had a feeling of Deja vu about VW's once. That just made me slightly depressed more than anything.

On at least four occasions in the last decade, I've stunned companions by being able to 'predict' little things happening

This could be co-incidental. I'm sure we could all have a similar success rate given the random nature of chance. I know this is stating the bleedin' obvious, but isn't the deja-vu sensation not triggered by a chemical reaction in the brain? And perhaps your brain is just firing all the time?

It would be easier to accept that you are beyond the fringes of medical science, rather than existing in some metaphysical twilight zone.

Dead interesting though - I hope medicine catches up with you soon, and can help you.

Thanks Martian - it's not really help that I need though, it's more a path to understanding that I'm seeking, and of course I want to communicate with and help other people with similar experiences. Trouble is, I could really do without being ordered by a court to swallow lots of mindbending pharmaceuticals, or be vivisected alive by some black helicopter-piloting government defence researchers...

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

I get deja vu a hell of a lot. not as much as you though mind.

The most lucid example would have to be, 80 minutes through a Scunthorpe United versus Aston Villa preseason friendly. I could have absolutely sworn I'd imagined or dreamt about the exact same thing happening. It was a short, but very very sharp one. The most irritating thing was being looked at by my friends as if I was some sort of mental idiot.

I've also had inverted Deja Vu's, where things actually happen in real life, and then get replayed in my dreams, only they're twisted and distorted, often to something a lot more sordid. Not bad you may think? Well I still have to come to look at the people ive been fantasizing about straight in the eyes virtually everyday, knowing that I'd probably be arrested if they knew what I was thinking (no doubt that's going to come along before I'm a dead).

As explained on the previous topic, I've even had a premonition that I was on VerbWhores. Sounds extremely cacky and suspect considering how regular I'm on here, but then when it happened, all the 'Last Post' usernames were correct, and everything down to the last detail was identical.
And then, when I checked a topic, I suddenely remembered that the deja vu had 'happened' before the forum fucked off. Why were there no avatars? And then it happened, and everything fit into place.

I've rationalized all this by assuming that it happens when you get into a regular habit of doing a certain task of a similar nature, and your brain gets tuned in. Any details that create worry in your mind are just coincidental. I think that's stopped me from turning insane.

Yours sounds a lot more serious, even to the point of physical changes. I've only had serious physical weirdness once or twice, but I sometimes feel quite tense, and the odd cold sweat comes along. It's most likely the fact that your brain can't explain it, and in some attempt to devote its run time to explaining it, basically forgets to keep your body working.

It all interests me greatly.

[Cerys]

I once had déja vu explained to me thusly:

When you experience something, your brain checks to see whether or not you've experienced it before, and then files it away in your memory.  Déja vu is what happens when your brain hiccups and files the experience away in your memory before checking to see if you've experienced it before.  Therefore as far as you're consciously concerned, you're reliving something that's already happened at least once.

This makes a lot of sense, to me - although does anyone remember me posting some time last year about my bout of ongoing déja vu that went on for several days?  Really, really weird feeling for the whole time, especially as I couldn't put my finger on what I was remembering; only that I felt as though I'd dreamed it.  Odd.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

Wow. Many thanks for that Cerys. It certainly rationalises everything a lot more.

Well, that may have solved my problem, but how are you going to convince Sherringford that he's spent the last many years of his life pissing and shivering over something so simple? Maybe he's just a mental.*

*;) Many, many apologies.

[Martian Martian]

Sorry Hovis, the phrase 'hope medicine catches up with you' sounds a bit threatening... like, they're tailing you in a transit van waiting for you to stop and tie your shoelace before pouncing on you.

Now that you've started a deja-vu thread, I don't know whether to relate my particular 'weirdness' in this one, or in the original. I think I'll stick it in here, because it's medical and there is a touch of premonition about it, although it's not deja-vu.

This 'thing' used to happen a lot. I'd be asleep, dreaming about anything at all, when all of a sudden the depth of field in my 'dream' vision would alter instantly - you get a similar distortion if you look at your finger through the wrong end of binoculars. I would awake in a panic, and my vision would still be pear-shaped. The only thing that would correct it would be to go to a window and look intently at the furthest away point.

Anyway, I spoke to my GP and several opticians. None had encountered this problem before, and were as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Thankfully, I've only had about two episodes in the last ten years - but I would like to know the cause.

[twatloops]

I once had déja vu explained to me thusly:

When you experience something, your brain checks to see whether or not you've experienced it before, and then files it away in your memory.  Déja vu is what happens when your brain hiccups and files the experience away in your memory before checking to see if you've experienced it before.  Therefore as far as you're consciously concerned, you're reliving something that's already happened at least once.

This makes a lot of sense, to me - although does anyone remember me posting some time last year about my bout of ongoing déja vu that went on for several days?  Really, really weird feeling for the whole time, especially as I couldn't put my finger on what I was remembering; only that I felt as though I'd dreamed it.  Odd.

Yeah, I was told much the same.  The image gets shoved into your memory before it's processed, then the cognitive part does a quick scout for any reference points to relate to what you're seeing and goes, "Hold up!  He's one of them reincarnated psychic types!"

Cue you getting all spooked...

[Capuchin]

But why does your brain do a check to see if you've experienced something before>?

[Cerys]

Because if it didn't you'd live in a state of total bewilderment, with no sense of recognition.  Ever seen 'Memento'?  Worse.  Goldfish would be taking the piss out of you.  Not that you'd care.