Didn't I just post this?

[Rexmons]

Deja Vu

Most people have had deja vu – that eerie sense of having experienced something before – but U.S. researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for this sensation, and they think it may lead to new treatments for memory-related problems.

They said neurons in a memory center of the brain called the hippocampus make a mental map of new places and experiences, then store them away for future use.


But when two experiences begin to seem very much alike, these mental maps overlap and start to blur.


" Deja vu occurs when this ability is challenged," said Susumu Tonegawa, a professor of biology and neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, whose work appears in the journal Science.


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I don't know about you guys but for me deja vu isn't just a weird feeling that I've done something before. I'll have a dream where I'll see like a snapshot of an event involving myself that might not make a whole lot of sense to me at the moment but months, maybe even years later I'll be in that exact same position, with the exact same people, in the exact same environment, and it will trigger me to remember what I saw in my dream earlier. Anyone else experience something like this?

[Shawnee123]

All the time. Sometimes it's so strong it feels weird, like an out of body experience.

[TheMercenary]

Karmic events.

[Beestie]

I've thought about this a lot and I have an idea but don't know if its even medically feasible but here goes.

I think there is at least a slight possibility that little shards of memory somehow find their way into our DNA and get passed down to subsequent generations. Not specific memories but ones from the deeper layers of consciousness that either lay undisturbed for long periods of time or very powerful ones that the mind through hypothetical mechanisms decides is important enough to encode in our DNA.

DNA has plenty of room for this extra information that hypothetically finds its way into the deeper recesses of our memory. Also, there is a precedent for inherited memory in the animal kingdom. Baby chicks respond very viscerally to a shadow of a chicken hawk when the shadow moves towards them from the front but show no reaction when it "flies" over their head from behind. Behaviour might be instinctual but a reaction to a specific stimulus has to be at least partially pre-learned which begins to suggest a mechanism for encoding and transferring learned behaviors.

I don't think any of us have led prior lives but I can't rule out the possibility that there are little bits and peices of our ancestor's memory floating, unanchored in our brain such that when a "live" experience, on its way to being stored, brushes up against one of these floating, uncataloged engrams which conceivably could trigger a "recollection" that didn't actually occur. Not to us, anyway but maybe to someone in our geneological treehouse.

[TheMercenary]

An interesting thought Beestie, probably beyond our current level of research, very interesting never the less. I subscribe to the karmic reincarnation theory myself.

[Griff]

You've got the core of a very cool sci-fi thriller there Beestie.

[Shawnee123]

Bruce, dahling, that was supposed to be a joke. (Oh, not funny?)

Beestie, I like your theory. I do think we carry the energy of those who came before us; when people wonder about nature vs nurture, I do think that part of our nature comes from generations we may know nothing about.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

like an out of body experience.

This is how Deja Vu feels to me. I'll notice that I'm having a Deja Vu moment and then start analyzing it from the outside. I hear/see myself involved in the moment, but don't feel like I'm there. So it starts off as Deva Vu and then transitions into out of body stuff.

And Beestie, that's a really cool idea. I think it's unlikely, but still very cool.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Bruce, dahling, that was supposed to be a joke. (Oh, not funny?)

Shawnee, I think it was funnier because xoB deleted it.

[Beestie]

I'm going to write a book one of these days. Not 100% sure what the story is yet but it will be somehow based on exploring and exposing the fragility of our window to the world: the mind.

Somewhere between Clive Barker and the Matrix. At least that's the idea.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by HLJ

Shawnee, I think it was funnier because xoB deleted it.

You know...you're right! :p

[Rexmons]

what if there really are other versions of ourselves in multiple dimensions and we're seeing a glimmer of something "one of us" has already done via our subconcious.

[Sundae]

As well as deja vu, there is also jamais vu and presque vu. They're all described in Catch 22 funnily enough.

Jamais vu is literally "never seen" and is the feeling that everything and everyone around you is unknown and unfamiliar. It can be really intense - to the extent that all of a sudden the words coming out of people's mouths don't make any sense. Oddly, I find I get it more in the winter.

Presque vu is "almost seen" which refers to the feeling that something is about to happen, something almost tangible but not quite there. It's like reaching for a name or a memory that you can't quite get.

Rexmons, my experience of deja vu is exactly as you have described it, but I have always accepted the explanation that it is a trick of the mind rather than real life suddenly falling into line with something I have dreamed previously.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Bruce, dahling, that was supposed to be a joke. (Oh, not funny?)

Oh shit, I'm sorry. It went right over my head. Duh

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Beestie

I've thought about this a lot and I have an idea but don't know if its even medically feasible but here goes.

I think there is at least a slight possibility that little shards of memory somehow find their way into our DNA and get passed down to subsequent generations.~snip

So you think there's a chance I'll see the Hoochie Coochie dancer, Grandpa saw in the carnival, back in '02.
Uh, that's 1902.