Everyone's heard of it, and I'm certain most of you have experienced it as well, but no one can ever shake off the feeling you get when deja vu occurs.

In the past, deja vu occurred so frequently and distinct, I actually thought I had some form of telepathy. My psychologists wrote it off saying that I had a mild case of DID, but that didn't make much sense to me since I could firmly identify with myself. I then thought it had something to do with the environment I was in which one of my friends in high school mentioned that my anti-synconicity (I have horrible luck, for those that don't know) lead to me sliding between spacial identities. Most others thought I just made things up. As it slowed, I began to realize that deja vu is more of a state of mind than an action the mind performs. A realization of old memories connected piecewise without a relation of time; filtered so to say.

So I'd like to ask what everyone's opinion about this subject matter is. What does Deja Vu feel like for you? What are your opinions on it?

I've had deja vu before, but I've always been able to identify the old situation as being different from what is happening now. It's like "Wow, this situation seems extremely familiar, I think I've done this/been here before. Oh right, I remember now, I actually have been in this exact same situation before."

What's freaky for me, is I can't tell if I ever dream the same thing twice, or if just in my dream I know I've been here before. As in, within my dream, I have a past where I did whatever I'm doing in the dream, again. It's probably more likely that I actually have dreamed the same thing twice, but I honestly can't tell.

I think part of the reason for déjà vu, feelings of telepathic powers, is all due to people underestimating the powers of the human mind and psyche.

M went through a bit of what I think, but I'll expand. People do know more than they think they know; they realize and retain a lot then they can consciously bring forth. It's called the subconscience for a reason: because it's bellow the veil of perception. Your brain is going through all these thoughts and ideas and you don't even know, and every thing gives a perception of feeling that you can consciously feel. So when one event or idea shuffles forward something in the subconscience, you will realize something is going on by a general attitude or feeling you are growing, but you can't pin point what. Thus, people blame the paranormal, déjà vu, telepathy, things of the sort.

I can't say it's happened to me in real life at all, but it seems I have similar experiences in music. The first time I heard the main theme to Phantom of the Opera, I was struck by how familiar it sounded. Same with a few other pieces of music...

Supposedly, it should have something to do with implicit memories, where you can't actively remember somethings, but still have them stored in the back of your head.

Who knows.

Deja Vu makes me think of the whole "wheel of life" and reincarnation of how our souls are recycled - and deja vu could be just a flash in the pan about your previous life/ves... @w@"

but probably not true <_<. Me likes to think it could be that~

Déjà vu happens because Haruhi doesn't want summer to end. =D

It does feel like I'm psychic when I have deja vu. Or maybe it feels like I'm repeating my life over and over again, like Haruhi. Or maybe it feels like my brain is doing weird stuff when it's trying to solidify new memories. Doesn't really matter, since I can't find out for sure right now. It's always fun when it happens though, hahah.
Sadly, the boring "normal" answer RD gave is probably the correct one. The nice thing about that answer is that it shows how awesome our minds really are. I'm counting on running in 'autism mode' in a few years a la Ghost in the Shell, lulz. Hurry, science! Go go go!

And you haven't experienced deja vu at all, Gotank? Poor level zero.
www.mp3s.com/LevelUpper.htm

Deja Vu makes me think of the whole "wheel of life" and reincarnation of how our souls are recycled - and deja vu could be just a flash in the pan about your previous life/ves... @w@"

but probably not true <_<. Me likes to think it could be that~

Or maybe you are reviving your life, the one you have right now, to not make the same mistakes you did that made you come back to earth and re-do all again but with the intention/chance to re-do it better. :P I don't believe in that much, but is something that comes to mind. Though that mean the rest of people are... ...false?

The times I have got Déjà vu I have tried to think/guess what will happen next, if the deja vu is happening in an action and not in a "static" moment, like being just in a place.

Also RD reply is a good explanation of it.

Deja vu happens really often to me, but judging by the comments in the thread, RD's explanation is by far the most logical and reasonable explanation. After all, with all the millions of different thoughts that are entering your mind and any time, conscious and subconscious, and the millions of different events that all have a possibility to be the same as one of those millions of thoughts, there is bound to be at least one collision within your life, and for most people it occurs pretty commonly...?

(That was a sentence, but question marks FTW, so... don't argue with that.)

People just have to remember that every day, every hour and minute and second, the mind is bombarded with ideas, thoughts, images, sounds, tastes, feelings, emotions, events, histories. Multiply that by the span of your life time, and you essentially have your whole existence.

People who believe in the traditional sense of déjà vu are limiting the fact of life to 'walking, and just walking this very instance, a unique action... now I see a red truck, and I only see this red truck, a unique sight...' but reality, life, isn't like that. There is so much that goes on within just the scope of instant, conscience realization, and then everything else is pushed down into the subconscience. Like, do you remember specific feelings, images, or sounds from a very young age like 2 or 3? Most people have memories from very young ages, but they are generally very broken up and vague, but at the same time very strong with the emotions and feelings they conjure up. It's all in there, somewhere.

I've only had Déjà vu once in my life. I met and got to know this girl in school, but I had a strange feeling that I've known her from an alternate dimension before. Before I even knew her, I had subconscious thoughts that I was fated to be her close friend. Clannad, anyone? :heh: (Fuko Ibuko's arc.)

Other than that, I think Déjà vu are sensations that need to be taken as seriously as any wise book or novel. You don't have to be reading or thinking about the book every second of your life, you just have to analyze its content when you get the chance to read the book. My simple summary. ^_^

Most of my deja vus come from my dreams, or from that wonderful gap of a moment between dreaming and waking as your mind's on overdrive mode, generating incomprehensible dream-like thoughts while you're half conscious.

That's the only source of my deja vus for two reasons. First I can trace back, even if only faintly, but certainly, that I first felt that familiar experience during those dream-like states. Second, I tend to be conscious of the subconscious when I'm awake.


Deja Vu makes me think of the whole "wheel of life" and reincarnation of how our souls are recycled - and deja vu could be just a flash in the pan about your previous life/ves... @w@"

but probably not true . Me likes to think it could be that~ I'd like to think that they're flashes from our past reincarnation or from alternate universes, and that dreams are a portal that connects the unconscious pool of wisdom and memories from all these different lives. It sounds more magical and fantastic this way.

But dreams are probably just the shuffling and reorganization of your subconscious as it integrates new information, which is why you tend to dream of things related to thoughts you've had or, in the case of taking in more information than your conscious mind can handle, you have totally incomprehensible bat-shit insane dreams. (I remember having a dream about worms, centipedes and millipedes crawling in and out of my body after reading Tropical Citron the night before. I woke up in a sweat, heart racing and barely catching my breath. Jesus fucking Christ.)