Monday 28 April 2008

Deja Vu: How Far Ahead Can It Happen?

Today, I had my monthly episode of deja vu, and it got me thinking about it again, as often happens. I find that I tend to have dreams, sometimes months in advance, that 'come to' later on. Typically, there is an episode like this about once a month, where I will be doing something quite inane and all of a sudden, a particular event will occur - sometimes, a song will come on, or someone will say something - and with a flash, I will remember the dream I have had. Invariably, the dream matches up to the next few seconds (I had one impressive one where the real life experience was in synch for several lines of written conversation on an IM program) and then the event goes on in a different direction. I remember dreaming about drawing a velociraptor to a song I had never heard, but that I remembered liking in my dream. About 3 weeks later, I was drawing a raptor following an excellent roleplaying session, and a song I had recently aquired during the afternoon, but not listened to (Die Macht - Unheilig) came on, and as it did, so did the deja vu. I had to put down my drawing tablet pen for a while, to sit and stare while I listened.

Whenever this happens, I am quite awed: for all that I doubt there is any way of identifying which of my dreams resolve into a deja vu situation, they happen regularly and repeatedly. I have had this all my life: I initially didn't know what it was, and in my readings on deja vu itself, I found the explantions not satisfying at all. The theory that it is the brain prompting a person in the seconds it takes before awareness catches up certainly doesn't factor in dreams from weeks to months in advance. I was somewhat disappointed that there had been no other reports on this, or at least, ones that had been taken seriously. One of the many whacky things that makes me wonder if I am mad: however, my university scholarship came in recently, so I must be doing something right!

Has anyone else had this happen? From what I gather, deja vu figures prominantly in the theory this blog is formed around, as an example of the past life review. Perhaps that's what it is? I seem to be pretty in touch with my daemon (who has made some comment postings here now, I believe), so perhaps that figures into it? I'd be interested to hear from the few other members here who have strong contact with daemons/egregore, to know if this is something that happens with others.

Seraph.

The drawing I was doing during this particular episode of deja vu can be found here, if anyone is interested: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y109/Crystal_Seraph/Dante_coren_rapto_small.jpg

6 comments:

Anthony Peake said...

SERAPH: A member of this blog (ArtFunk) is a world recognised expert on Deja Vu. Art has come up with a theory he terms "The Dream Theory of Deja Vu". He suggests that a deja vu is really when an incident previously dreamed and forgotten is encountered in waking life and is suddenly recognised.

Although not this actual article (which used to be available for free download) here is a link to another of Art's papers:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mdlee/dejavu.htm

Also this link may be of interest from Professor Chris Moulin's excellent deja vu site:

http://chris.moulin.googlepages.com/dejavulinks

I am hoping that Art may respond to your fascinating posting.

Unknown said...

Hooray! I'm not the only one! xD

Nice to know, that *thumbs up*

Karl Le Marcs said...

Tony;
It would be tremendous if we could hear more from the wonderful Art Funkhauser on this blog, thanks for the links, I shall follow them up certainly.

Gwen;
Hello, thank you for joining our little group with your comments, and I assure you that here amongst all the ITLADians you are certainly no longer the only one.

Seraph;
Interesting question which opens up the "When does Deja Vu become Deja Vecu?" discussion, and how far ahead can a precognitive event be expected to come to fruition?

Anthony Peake said...

KARL: I intend to email Art today and suggest he joins in. By the way you fell into the same linguistic error I did with regard to Art's surname. Having an 'O' level knowledge of German I assumed that Art would spell his name as you did, Funkhauser. However it was pointed out to me by Dr.Vernon Neppe (name dropping again, I must stop doing that), probably The world expert on Deja Vu (Vernon's definition of deja vu is the one accepted by all involved in the study of the phenomenon), that Art's surname is spelt 'Funkhouser'. It is therefore an amalgam word of English and German.

Just thought you would like to know.

Seraph said...

Just a note: Gwen/Seraph is me, and if Dmitri posts, he'll sign his name. Seraph has been my own nickname forever xD

Karl Le Marcs said...

Tony;
That would be great, I know that Art contributed at the beginning of the blog but now it has blossomed to become the evolving egregore of beauty that it is, I'm sure he'd be fascinated.
*raps self over knuckles with rare copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage for spelling Funkhouser wrongly*

Weirdly still, I also have German 'O' Level Tony (YAS!!!) but then these things don't surprise you and I much these days do they Tony?

*brushes around the room whistling while clearing up all the names that Tony has dropped*