Deja vu, Precognition, the Collective unconscious, and other crazy theories

[Rockefeller]

I've been noticing more of my deja vu's lately, and I couldn't help but think of why this happens, how I could so positively feel like I've seen something that I know I couldn't possibly have seen before. It can be a little unsettling and if I didn't know any better I'd have thought I was precognitive or something.

Now in high school I took college-level psych courses and from what little I remember, behavioral neuroscience teaches it as an anomaly of memory, where deja vu might be a result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term and long-term memories (events that are viewed as being in the past), therefore creating you a false sense of familiarity. So here comes the first question I'd like to discuss: If this really is your brain short-circuiting or just doing something it isn't supposed to (that is out of the norm) and assuming pretty much everyone's at least experienced this once before, how frequent should deja vu be happening for you for it to become a real health problem?

Then comes statistics. Statistics teaches this thing called selection bias. Following this line of thought brings me to wonder that perhaps the brain has a tendency to record more hits than the misses, wherein we tend to remember the coincidences more often than when our guesses are wrong. Or, deja vu could just be an unconscious perception in the case where we will first get a brief glimpse of something and register it at a subliminal level prior to full conscious perception, and then when we obtain a full grip of things, it comes off as a second sight. Right now I'm leaning towards this explanation, as it makes most sense to me at the moment. What are your thoughts?

Ultimately the Jungian theories sprang to mind and I couldn't help but wonder what if, and some of what analytical psych teaches about the collective unconscious and archetypes are pretty interesting explanations of the phenomenon, in how there is a psychic inheritance where we inherit and are born with knowledge from our reservoir of experiences as a species (that pool of water he talks about which the Shadow guards). If I remember correctly Jung was also known to be somewhat spiritual, which brings me to my third question- if you are spiritual, what is your take on all this and how do you feel about the Jungian theories?

Lastly, if you are a believer of fortune telling, clairvoyance, psychics or other pseudosciences, could you provide explanation to your choice of beliefs, and what is your logic to believing?

I invite everyone (including you!) to join in on the discussion, chip in other ideas, and of course thanks for reading!

[Deuce Dropper]

[finley]

I just knew you were going to write about that.

I often experience very strong deja vu, to the point where I think "I know what happens next here", and sure enough it does. I can only ascribe that to the fact that many of life's experiences do repeat again and again, and (as you may recall from psych class) a lot of human behaviour is 'scripted'. The deja vu is, perhaps, caused by us not paying a great deal of attention and forgetting that whatever we're experiencing at the moment probably IS something we've experienced before, but in a slightly different setting. Still, that doesn't make it less weird when you feel that you been in a certain place before, having a certain conversation, and that you know the outcome.

I think the nature of time is one of the few things we don't understand at all and probably never will, but I don't have much time for the theories that we're living in an infinite time-loop, or that we "inherit memories", or that we're inside a Matrix-like machine. I'm pretty certain the universe must be weirder and bigger than we can ever imagine or observe, but since we'll never be able to experimentally verify the truth, I'd rather ignore it and get on with life.

[E04teacherlin]

You have seen a David Blaine or David Copperfield show?
I guess that answers it all. It still doesn't proof the existence or non-existence of god, but it does explain a lot. I personally believe in God and I enjoy magic.

[urodacus]

God is magic.
















think about it.

[zender]

David Blaine magic? or David Copperfield magic?
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Sometimes I get this strong feeling that I've met someone in the past. Then I ask, "Have we met somewhere before?"

And they respond, "Yeah, you just said "Hi" to me in the elevator five minutes ago."
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I think selection bias explains a ton. Also, these days, we are bombarded with SO many messages that we have to filter out more info in a day than our ancestors tried to absorb in months. Some of that info is probably recorded in the subcon and later we wonder if we have experienced this before or not. Add to this the fact that the brain is not the best at recalling details, and it seems we change memories each time we recall an event...
Eyewitnesses are lousy, and some old timer, like Sandman, tellin' you about how awesome he was in the distant past, can be totally disregarded. Oh, yeah, and some people just lie. (this last sentence is no longer referring to Sandman exclusively)
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Speaking of last sentences, I love the last sentence of Finley's message. I think I may have said that very sentence in the past, but I couldn't have said it better.

[heimuoshu]

[quote="zender"]David Blaine magic? or David Copperfield magic?
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Sometimes I get this strong feeling that I've met someone in the past. Then I ask, "Have we met somewhere before?"

And they respond, "Yeah, you just said "Hi" to me in the elevator five minutes ago."
[quote]
Glad they say that.
Usually the response I get is "Yeah dickhead. I'm your wife. Now stop drinking so much!

[Baas Babelaas]

It used to happen quite often. Vrooom - you just did/said that, or I just saw/did that.

It's weird.

I've looked into it, There is no precise science to explain it.

Just weird when it happens - that .333333rd of a second where you go "huh, it happened already"

[Rockefeller]

It used to happen quite often. Vrooom - you just did/said that, or I just saw/did that.

It's weird.

I've looked into it, There is no precise science to explain it.

Just weird when it happens - that .333333rd of a second where you go "huh, it happened already"

Yeah, and then there are also the times when you can almost sense its gonna happen and attempt to alter the situation to see if you can defy the inevitable, but then shit happens anyway. Like this one time years ago I was in a classroom and turned towards the clock on the back wall and at that moment I sensed a potential deja vu coming, so rebelliously I tell the kid sitting behind me "dont move!" he froze for about a second and then inevitably started stretching, and at that moment seeing that picture of him stretching with the clock in the backdrop I immediately felt like I've seen this before in my dreams.

It can be kind of annoying when that happens. Had I have kept my mouth shut, he probably would've just went on with his day with his head down taking notes.

[Zla'od]

Jung seems to avoid committing himself to whether such synchronicities are the result of something truly paranormal, or just the mind making connections. On one hand he was always concerned to maintain his respectability, on the other, he gravitated to the weirdest available stuff (see Richard Noll's book). I can't believe that analytical psychology would be of any practical use for somebody who had anything seriously wrong with them, and think it should be outright contraindicated for anybody with psychotic tendencies.

On whether there really is any woo-ness in the world, well, I doubt that any of us can be of much help in resolving such a fundamental metaphysical issue--especially when it amounts to a matter of opinion.