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Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

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Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#21

Post by rajathagasthya »

nv-vn wrote: post #19

One of the weirdest things about Deja Vu is that (in its most intense form) it can often seemingly create future memories. My first experience with Deja Vu that I can remember involved what I could only describe as predicting the future. While the events I "predicted" didn't end up happening, it felt as though I knew exactly what "path" I was on and what would happen next. It's a very scary feeling that makes it seem…

My deja vu situations are usually not pleasant and I feel exactly the same way as you do!

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#22

Post by spoxaka »

Ductapemaster wrote: post #9
04b03 wrote: post #2

I once had this feeling while being stoned. It was maybe my fourth or fifth time smoking marijuana. For a good two or three hours, every moment I experienced, every conversation I had, I had the feeling that I've lived through it before. A constant Deja Vu. I knew I was stoned, but it still freaked me out. After talking to my friends about this (while still being high), I was able to enjoy and explore it. I asked my…

I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't even remember the dream and I have the…

you've just described exactly the same experience which happens to me quite often. I must say that I'm quite relieved that I'm not the only one like that. thank you for taking time to write this

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#23

Post by roryisok »

I've been having an experience very similar to deja vu, but not quite the same. I've developed some kind of accidental mental hack where reading nursery rhymes to my kids makes me fall asleep. I could be wide awake but I'll literally open page one of a book and yawn immediately. My wife thinks this is hilarious.

As I'm just reaching the edge of losing consciousness, my brain starts to manufacture false memories about whatever nursery rhyme I'm reading. For example if I'm reading "sing a song of sixpence" my brain will say "ah yes, I remember this one, the king and the maid are having an affair, and the queen learns about it and has her killed". Then I'll shake off sleep and realise that it was a false memory

It's an odd feeling.

Similarly, sometimes when drifting off I'll find myself at the end of a train of thought which I did not have. I don't know how else to describe it. It's like my subconscious was having a train of thought and i jumped in and claimed it.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#24

Post by OscarCunningham »

Ductapemaster wrote: post #9
04b03 wrote: post #2

I once had this feeling while being stoned. It was maybe my fourth or fifth time smoking marijuana. For a good two or three hours, every moment I experienced, every conversation I had, I had the feeling that I've lived through it before. A constant Deja Vu. I knew I was stoned, but it still freaked me out. After talking to my friends about this (while still being high), I was able to enjoy and explore it. I asked my…

I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't even remember the dream and I have the…

There's a hypothesis that this is why we (normally) forget our dreams; it prevents us from getting confused about what's real.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#25

Post by cko »

roryisok wrote: post #23

I've been having an experience very similar to deja vu, but not quite the same. I've developed some kind of accidental mental hack where reading nursery rhymes to my kids makes me fall asleep. I could be wide awake but I'll literally open page one of a book and yawn immediately. My wife thinks this is hilarious. As I'm just reaching the edge of losing consciousness, my brain starts to manufacture false memories about…

I've had many similar experiences right before falling asleep as well, though I wouldn't have known to describe it as well as you have, but yes, I'd be mid-thought in something and forget the thoughts leading up to that one.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#26

Post by andai »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #24
Ductapemaster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't even remember the dream and I have the…

There's a hypothesis that this is why we (normally) forget our dreams; it prevents us from getting confused about what's real.

Ahh, thanks, I hadn't thought of that! That would explain a lot.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#27

Post by Broken_Hippo »

FatAmericanDev wrote: post #4
04b03 wrote: post #2

I once had this feeling while being stoned. It was maybe my fourth or fifth time smoking marijuana. For a good two or three hours, every moment I experienced, every conversation I had, I had the feeling that I've lived through it before. A constant Deja Vu. I knew I was stoned, but it still freaked me out. After talking to my friends about this (while still being high), I was able to enjoy and explore it. I asked my…

Explains why my boss is always tellung me my ideas are not new, he is always stoned. I'll raise this issue on Monday.

If only this were a common side effect.

I randomly get such a thing - hours worth of deja vu. Even when I know I've not been in the situation before. Smoking semi-regularly actually makes this happen less often.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#28

Post by pbhjpbhj »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #24
Ductapemaster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't even remember the dream and I have the…

There's a hypothesis that this is why we (normally) forget our dreams; it prevents us from getting confused about what's real.

My hypothesis is that dreams don't actually happen as we sleep, just that the conscious state "arrives" in the brain before the cleaning/storing processes have completed. The brain then creates a memory to explain what's hanging around from the clean-up. So the dream happens during waking, the brain inventing new parts as we try and recall the dream so that the dream state can be established from a logical timeline.

Analogy: a magical secretary is tidying your desk and files. They pull out some files to re-order, put some files you were working on away, lift it pages/images to see where those files should go, etc.. You interrupt them and they scuttle away. You don't believe in magical secretaries so you quickly (and inconsistently) imagine that you were working on the files that were out making a story that explains how those files came to be there, in that arrangement.

Presumably if scanning techniques can show images of what we see in dreams that provides some evidence against this hypothesis, however it doesn't defeat it unless it shows we _experience_ those images through the period when we suppose we're dreaming.

Evidence that refutes this idea gladly considered.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#29

Post by Lambdanaut »

My wife gets a kind of de ja vu.

She's had a peculiar persistent condition ever since taking a very large dose of lsd with me.

On a near-nightly basis for the last two years her dreams have been entirely different in quality to before her trip.

Prior to the trip she always dreampt in third person, as if watching a story unfold. Now she often has first person dreams.

These first person dreams are so much more real to her than her prior dreams. Indistinguishable from reality.

She often will learn things in the dreams that she doesnt know in real life.

When she woke up from the time she was dreaming as an autistic Vietnemese man during the Vietnam War and started talking Vietnemese to me, that was weird. Pulling out Google translate and having it accurately translate.

Or when she mentioned acute details of a person that neither of us had met before, but soon would be introduced to by a mutual acquaintance of ours. She knew this person because she had a dream where she was that person. The girl was described as chubby with dark hair and had a missing ring finger since birth, as well as being a mutual acquaintance of the friend who would introduce us.

It would take me days of writing to capture the adventures we've been on since this strange phenomenon began. Too many of her "alternate lives" for lack of a better word. And to be honest neither of us talk about it much. Even our closest friends just know the vague superficiality of it. Who would believe us? Most would be incredulous or write us off as nuts. The last place I'd expect this comment to meet welcoming eyes is a place like HN, and for good reason. There's no evidence of this nonsense outside of anecdotes. My wife certainly can't control her dreams to do a repeatable experiment. However now that I mention that, I wonder what lucid dreaming could be like for her.

Neither of us believed in psychic phenomenon before this, but now we just sort of accept that there are greater mysteries than the narrow lens of materialism is now focused on.

We can't explain these occurrences.

Re: Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real

#30

Post by stonesixone »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #28
OscarCunningham wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hypothesis that this is why we (normally) forget our dreams; it prevents us from getting confused about what's real.

My hypothesis is that dreams don't actually happen as we sleep, just that the conscious state "arrives" in the brain before the cleaning/storing processes have completed. The brain then creates a memory to explain what's hanging around from the clean-up. So the dream happens during waking, the brain inventing new parts as we try and recall the dream so that the dream state can be established from a logical timeline.…

If you've ever experienced lucid dreaming, I believe your hypothesis can be considered refuted _while_ you are in a lucid dream (for the same reason that the phrase "I think therefore I am" carries any weight). After the fact though, it doesn't seem possible to distinguish between a real memory of a lucid dream and your idea of a created memory of a lucid dream.

Another possible argument against is if a partner next to you observes you tossing and turning and possibly speaking in your sleep over time, and then you wake up and describe a dream you were experiencing consistent with what they saw. How would you explain the tossing and turning and talking in one's sleep in your hypothesis?

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