Déjà vu (pronounced /ˈdeɪʒɑː ˈvuː/ (
listen) DAY-zhah VOO; French: [deʒa vy] ( listen), meaning "already seen", from Greek παρα "para," "near, against, contrary to" + μνήμη "mēmē," "memory"), is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the recent past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain.
That's how the wikipedia article about this intriguing phenomenon that has puzzled me for as long as I can remember, begins. It goes on for some length about the history, medical and psychological causes and effects which inevitably bores me, and leaves me still trying to figure it out somehow. I don't, obviously, remember when exactly I experienced my first deja vu, must have been quite little at the time to not know why I suddenly got such a strange, inexplicable flash of knowing something, somewhere was being repeated....I do remember though, that it had something to do with a plastic bag someone was carrying in school. It was strong, and I immediately sunk into the fancy that I had been gifted with some strange superpower of some sort, something to do with a time warp, or past lives and the related, arising out of the vivid unrestrained imagination enhanced by reading about magic and special powers and wicca and the like( The Magic School bus, Sabrina,...the new mind-boggling arrival Harry Potter, and I don't particularly recall what else, helped me open up fantastical portals through which I and mysteriously only I was summoned time and again (especially in the middle of monotonous school lessons) .
However, it was also early on that I got acquainted with the term, and realized that this was not something beyond the common attained knowledge of people who had dwelt in the world longer than myself, and had to unfortunately discard the special power theory quickly enough, and with the knowledge comes the waning of interest; as I was compelled to accept the solidness of the fact that there was some psychological complexity involved in the entire matter that was, still is, beyond the limit of my comprehension. Such a sense, and sometimes the sense of it being repeated not once, but maybe more, number of times, is boggling indeed. There is also a certain urge to believe that the deja vu moment had actually occured in a dream. Strange is the perception of its occurence, more so, its recurrence.
I experienced it today, a gentle, fleeting, dissipating flash of thought. And more than the wonder associated with the actual event of the moment, I was left floundering more for the solid explanation behind the phenomenon, no doubt debated and researched, but always very, very elusive. Generally, science explains phenomena which have evidence, which one can visualize, or feel, or define in memory, but how is it possible to extricate the exact cause and origin of a phenomenon that is restricted highly to uncanny perception, the subject lacking utmost clarity always? Interpreting a dream is a much easier job......
listen) DAY-zhah VOO; French: [deʒa vy] ( listen), meaning "already seen", from Greek παρα "para," "near, against, contrary to" + μνήμη "mēmē," "memory"), is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the recent past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain. That's how the wikipedia article about this intriguing phenomenon that has puzzled me for as long as I can remember, begins. It goes on for some length about the history, medical and psychological causes and effects which inevitably bores me, and leaves me still trying to figure it out somehow. I don't, obviously, remember when exactly I experienced my first deja vu, must have been quite little at the time to not know why I suddenly got such a strange, inexplicable flash of knowing something, somewhere was being repeated....I do remember though, that it had something to do with a plastic bag someone was carrying in school. It was strong, and I immediately sunk into the fancy that I had been gifted with some strange superpower of some sort, something to do with a time warp, or past lives and the related, arising out of the vivid unrestrained imagination enhanced by reading about magic and special powers and wicca and the like( The Magic School bus, Sabrina,...the new mind-boggling arrival Harry Potter, and I don't particularly recall what else, helped me open up fantastical portals through which I and mysteriously only I was summoned time and again (especially in the middle of monotonous school lessons) .
However, it was also early on that I got acquainted with the term, and realized that this was not something beyond the common attained knowledge of people who had dwelt in the world longer than myself, and had to unfortunately discard the special power theory quickly enough, and with the knowledge comes the waning of interest; as I was compelled to accept the solidness of the fact that there was some psychological complexity involved in the entire matter that was, still is, beyond the limit of my comprehension. Such a sense, and sometimes the sense of it being repeated not once, but maybe more, number of times, is boggling indeed. There is also a certain urge to believe that the deja vu moment had actually occured in a dream. Strange is the perception of its occurence, more so, its recurrence.
I experienced it today, a gentle, fleeting, dissipating flash of thought. And more than the wonder associated with the actual event of the moment, I was left floundering more for the solid explanation behind the phenomenon, no doubt debated and researched, but always very, very elusive. Generally, science explains phenomena which have evidence, which one can visualize, or feel, or define in memory, but how is it possible to extricate the exact cause and origin of a phenomenon that is restricted highly to uncanny perception, the subject lacking utmost clarity always? Interpreting a dream is a much easier job......
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