October 21, 2005

• speaking of! Happy Friday!
• Curious, George: Déjà Vu How often do you experience it? Does it bother you, or do you enjoy it? It never really bothered me until yesterday's David Copperfield post. The moment I saw the post, I kinda freaked out; it was the most intense case of déjà vu I have ever experienced. At first I tried to convince myself, "surely I must have read this somewhere else." But then I saw Chy's comment, and I knew that something was awry. It was as if I was living Groundhog Day... And yes, yesterday was quite a bad day for me! Why, why did my déjà vu have to involve David Copperfield!? Is this some evil mutation of the David Hasselhoff recursion?? posted by sugarmilktea at 07:30PM UTC [trackback]
• *gasps for air*
• This is a double post. I think... isn't it?
• I used to get intense deja vu almost daily when I was younger (about ten years ago, or so). I would even experience recursive deja vu, or deja vu about experiencing deja vu.
• Is it possible that having read about it here or somewhere similar, that you are misremembering? I tend to think many deja vu experiences are the result of such unattributed memories. Personally, I thought I'd read it on MeFi and was merely a case of deja blu. Haw haw haw!
• MoFi is the only online source I read with any regularity (and perhaps the BBC news), so I don't think I saw it anywhere else. I would be able accept that I may have read/heard it elsewhere, but Chyren's comment was confirmation of serious dejaaa vuuudu... Where else would I have heard That'd be the only way he'd make a woman pregnant since he'd never stick his penis in one.?? I thought I'd read it on MeFi and was merely a case of deja blu. Oh, that's beyond bad!
• Tonight on "It's The Mind" we discuss the phenomenon of deja vu -- that strange feeling you get that you've done.... something.... before. As for me, I get it on occasion. I'd say a few times a year. But there have been 2 instances where I am 100% certain that I had dreamed it before. They were fairly unimportant and innocuous moments, but notable in their place and context, hence why I remembered them.
• I've been having constant recurrences of such feelings, like everything is just a loop. Been told it's just stress, and, erm, well, the onset of old age. 'Must exercise, healthier diet!' Meh. One thing that really bugs me is having those when hearing most 'new' music; a combination of 'I can't believe these people can get away with such blatant plagiarism', 'oh sheez, I'm old, since now new stuff just seems like the same old things to me...', and 'crap, Alzheimers' much? I'm positive I've already heard this... have the title in the tip of my mind..' *sigh*
• Re: dreaming a future event, I consider it a different thing. Had two of those, way too creepy. Nothing dramatic or life-changing, but still creepy.
• I've had a couple of the dream events, too. They both involved work, and tasks that were completely unimportant (as in, getting paper for the printer). Interestingly, as with mct, I also used to have deja vu nearly constantly in my late teens. It happens every now & then, now, but I usually ignore it.
• Many years ago, when I was about 18, I used to experience *very* severe episodes of deja vu. Anything could trigger it, and when it occured my thoughts would be flooded with this 'remembered' event. It was like remembering a dream (and there was always a kind of repetitive chanting-type music accompanying it). They would last about 10 or 20 seconds (I think), and when they ended I would be 'out of it' for almost a minute...not knowing where I was or even who I was sometimes. Eventually I'd return to normal, except for being a little unsettled by the episode. This probably happened a handful of times over a few months, and I just attributed it to stress, since I was studying pretty intently at the time. Hasn't happened again for years, but this post just reminded me of that.
• Simple. You were teleimpregnated by aliens in a former life, and gave birth to David Copperfield.
• I have been under quite a bit of stress lately, perhaps that has something to do with it? Still, it was disturbing how strong the feeling was. In the past, I always brushed it off and thought how strange it was to experience such feelings. I recall having a lengthy discussion on the subject with a friend once as well - - one of the theories was a brain neuron mis-firing, or something like that... Pisses me off in a way too, because I'm afraid I will always remember my deja vu of David Copperfield now (could it have at least been someone like, say, Kurt Vonnegut?)!
• Not so much with the deja vu, but I've had a hell of a case of only ever seen one episode of some series, flipping channels, idly decide to watch another episode and it's the same damn one I've already seen! Seriously. This has happened at least four times in the last week. Is there a word for this phenomenon?
• I have déjà vu a lot. I mean a lot. Intensely. I've had episodes of déjà vu of déjà vu of déjà vu that have been occurring on the same events since I was a child. I also have dreams episodes, but the dreams that come true are about stupid things like vegetables and umbrellas. As far as this: "Where else would I have heard That'd be the only way he'd make a woman pregnant since he'd never stick his penis in one.??" Maybe one of many variants of it here?
• I think there is a neurological theory that it's something to do with patterns being copied in the brain so perceptions are simultaneously seen as memories. I've had it before as well as other blips...Ever go to a place and get the feeling that it's somehow powerful and strange?
• Ever go to a place and get the feeling that it's somehow powerful and strange? 1990, Wilmington North Carolina, I walked past a big ugly purple house in a run-down part of downtown as I was going to visit a friend (first time going to their house). I had very strong feelings overcome me *before* it was even in my eyesight. Once I did see it, I couldn't comprehend the bizarre feelings. Lasted a few minutes, and then I forgot about it... Until a couple weeks later when I asked my friend, "hey, what's up with that purple house down the street from where you live??" His eyes lit up and he calmly said, "oh yeah, everyone in my neighborhood knows about that house. Seven years ago a married couple lived there, the husband stabbed his wife to death, twenty times to her chest..." I just kinda *gulped* Totally off-topic, but nonetheless, odd!
• Had dream-deja-vu for a while. I got used to it, although it was still creepy, until most of the dreams involved scolding myself to stop thinking about that, already, it's creepy, there you go again. Which is recursive, I guess. Eventually it seemed to peter out; I haven't noticed it in a while. *shrug* Glitch in the matrix. They were only very short moments, never whole events or actions. Never had it in a moment not connected to dreams.
• Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets the "I've dreamed this before" thing...It's been awhile, though.
• Another one...when you're awake doing something and you suddenly get a flashback of images from dreams you had years ago.
• I had very strong deja vu a few weeks ago at a conference. Not only did I feel like I'd been in that exact spot with the same people before, but I felt like I had felt deja vu at the same event before. And no, I hadn't met these people or been there before. The human brain, she is funny sometime. No?
• in dreams you're just mapping out probable realities. When one meshes, meh. No big deal. This thread is like deja vu all over again.
• Clarification: I've never taken it to be a big deal, and I'm not all into the crystals-auras-impurities-precious-bodily-fluids gig. I'm more unsettled by my sleepwalking than the deja vu thing.
• /sean penn Guess that 'it makes the brain grow, man, yeah' thing is just, like, bogus, man... *puff* /sean penn
• Oh it's sleepwalking now eh? Sure, sure ;)
• As a child I was bombarded with deja vu. It lasted up until about 17. Then it dropped off to only very occasionally and not very strong. When I hit about 28 or so I started to get very strong episodes, but they were fairly rare. Now days it happens a little more often, but is extremely strong and goes on for extended periods--meaning it's not just a flash. I get the looped deja vu, too. /off topic smt, I have had several episodes like your 'purple house' episode. The most traumatic one for me happened about 20 years ago while I was driving on I-5 in Seattle. I was coming up on this relatively old, beat up car when I started to get a strong feeling of foreboding verging on intense fear. I realized that I was reacting to something from that car. As I was starting to go past it, the man driving it, shoulder-length hair, grungy-looking, looked over at me as I glanced at him. He looked away and kept on driving as I slowed down and pulled over. I have never felt such a sense of evil and terror like I felt then. It left me shaking and I tried to make sense of it. There was nothing out of the ordinary that I could see about the car or the man, other than the fact that when I looked in his eyes, I saw something very bad there. When I got home, I called my mom and told her about it. A couple of days later, I saw his face again, I knew instantly it was him. It was in the newspaper. He had been wanted for murder and had been caught the day after I saw him. I can't tell you how freaked out I was by that. I can never forget that feeling. It was awful.
• Wait a minute... This is the first time I've seen MoFite "thursday", but I feel like she was here... yesterday. I've been up around SLO,CA where I'm planning to move, having moments of what I call "pennicillin-resistant nostalgia" and pleasantly surprised at how much hasn't changed (I'd been away for almost 10 years, and most of my Obispo-related-memories are a lot older than that), but yesterday I got deja-vu-ed hard at a place I'd never been before and momentarily forgot where - and when - I was. Considering I was looking at an apartment to rent, I think the landlord suspects I'm on drugs... still, I can't decide whether it's telling to "get this place" or "run away".
• Darshon, not only did I have that weird "purple house" incident, but I also had an experience eerily similar to yours! *head spins* Again, this happened in NC, but in '89 I think. My family had moved into a new apartment, and I was spending one last weekend alone in the old one. Walked to the local conveniece store around midnight to buy a pack of smokes. On my way there, I passed two older guys walking on the street. Instantly, they both gave me bad feelings (aside from their drunken appearance). I hurried my pace a bit and continued on my way. I get to the convenience store, and start perusing the snack aisle. Out of the corner of my eye I see one of the guys walking up to the store. Adrenaline began to pulse through me immediately - I could *feel* something wrong. While the other guy stood outside, the other came in and started demanding the clerk to give him beer. I began eying the store for safe cover! Sure enough, this guy's temper escalated, it was obvious he was going to do something bad soon. The clerk was smart though, he managed to wrestle the guy out of the store and quickly locked the door. Both guys then began beating and kicking the glass windows, trying to break in (but I think they were too drunk to follow-through properly). Finally they gave up and walked away. The clerk told me to stay awhile (which I happily did, cause I wasn't about to tangle with those crazy dudes). Ten minutes later, I walked back home... One week later, I pick up the daily newspaper. There they are!! On the front page, both of my "friends" from the convenience store. My heart began to race as I read the story... Turns out that after they left the convenience store, they walked one block down the street and broke into a house where a single woman lived. They bound her, took her to a nearby wooded area, and raped her several times before crushing her skull open with a large stone. They left her... Impossible to describe the feeling that surged through me.
• Tonight on "It's The Mind" we discuss the phenomenon of deja vu -- that strange feeling you get that you've done.... something.... before. That was the best Monty Python bit ever. I've ripped it off in one way or another a million times in my own writing.
• Ringo: I mean a blue car with . . orange wheels . . George: It's all in the mind.
• Tonight on "It's The Mind" we discuss the phenomenon of deja spam -- that strange feeling you get that you've seen it done better by Monty Pythion.
• Tonight on "It's The Mind" we discuss the phenomenon of weird-ass comments that appear to be making fun of me but are so unclear you cant figure out what the hell they're supposed to mean.
• I often have this vague recollection of stories about people digging holes in their backyard.
• I don't experience deja vu so much, but I do have a very funny, very random movie with a character in it named Deja Vu who seems to experience things over and always repeats himself. Quite funny.
• I remember when the lamas arrived at our ger and laid the various ritual objects on the rug in front of me having a very strong sensation that I remembered wielding the phurbu in a particularly involved exorcism sometime just after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. And that, fellow monkeys, is how I came to be Abbot of Tashilhunpo Monastery - again!
• sugarmilktea and Darshon, okay you guys are really freaking me out... I have goosebumps now. Anyhoo, I was going to say the only place I get deja-vu these days is in my dreams. I'll be in a place in my dream and I'll think, "wait, I've been here before", and chances are I have in a dream from weeks or months ago that I had since forgotten. My current theory is that there is a "dream reality" in your brain that is a sort of twisted mirror of actual reality, fed by your perceptions of the real world. Every dream I have is a visit into this world, but not always in the same place. Usually it's a place I don't recognize, but sometimes I end up visiting a place I've been to before. I'm not sure how this relates to real deja-vu but the feeling is similar until I can recall the original dream. Maybe somehow that's related?
• oh no, drjimmy, I was just remembering an old line about ultra-snobbish Pythonphiles who always say "MP did it better"... not directed at YOU (which is why it made so little sense).
• oh, ok. Well it's usually true, they were the best in that kind of comedy. (although they borrowed the Dead Parrot bit from an old Benny hill sketch- I was going to do a FPP a while ago about Benny Hill- how he was a very original comedian in the 50s, only late in life did he descend into the sexist and unfnny stuff he's remembered for- maybe I will put that together one of these days)
• smt, I attribute what we feel to certain vibrations or electric currents. I'm guessing that evil must vibrate a different way or something. We are sensing something that is there, certainly, we aren't imagining it. I don't believe I am prone to a particularly vivid imagination, nor do I subscribe to certain 'phenomenom' without real and significant proof. But when it comes to something that affects me so strongly, completely out of the blue.......well, I trust my instincts implicitly.
• Here I thought Deja Spam was the feeling I'd gotten this penis enlargement email before.
• I attribute what we feel to certain vibrations or electric currents. That's what I like refer to as my super intuition! It has never failed me yet...
• Do I know you lot from somewhere?.
• Strange, JC, I often have a memory of someone digging holes... And there's a wedding dress, too.
• Oh. Boy. SMT, your story really got to me. I can't imagine what I'd feel, how would I cope after such an event... /off to drink. Gotta end up smashed or sleeping with company; after this spooky thread, no way I'm going to bed alone. Look what you made me do!
• Have one for me! And every day is deja vu for me because I wake up in the same house in pajamas I've seen before!
• I'm think going to start incorporating a vague "and I see someone digging holes, perhaps in a dream?" into my cold reading routine. Thanks guys! BTW, you ones with that dream, in what countries/cities are you located?
• This story again,, the short version, oh nevermind