the "I've been here before" experience

Hey everyone

I would like to ask people for their thoughts and perhaps even experiences with the "i've been here before" effect. We all have friends that occasionally will say "woah, i've just had deja vu" or maybe even you have had a strong experience. I'm bewildered and i would appreciate any insights or even just contributions. I suppose it is appropriate for me to explain my experience. I remember it because it was quite powerful and i seemed to have had it for no reason

Quite simply, three years ago, i was in a full english classroom, the teacher was talking about Romeo and Juliet. I was sat in a specific chair, and thinking a specific thought, and the teacher said something that set me off... im sorry i cant remember what it was he said, or much else for that matter, i just remember what i felt.

firstly, as soon as he said the phrase, my first thought was "oh *****" i know this. i know this and i've done it before, in this chair, in this room with all these people. and he's already said that.... then i started feeling quite sick... REALLY sick i was breathing heavily like i'd had the wind knocked out of me and lastly i had a deep, nasty gut feeling that something was slightly "off" All this happened in the space of about 5 seconds, but it was like my mind was racing. I could not remember why or when i was there before... this is stupid, but i could only remember the memory of being there before. and whats wierd is my feelings were all over the place but were maybe saying that i could have been there years ago, or even (i know this doesnt make sense) been there before in the future.

After about 5 seconds i was fine and went back to work. But All of this was wrong because it was a normal, quiet day, and i was calm and had never even thought about the unnatural. just my homework

Normally i'm a critic of people that claim to have experiences, so i'll make it clear im not trying to convince skeptics, or even gullible people. But i'd appreciate any insights or similar stories from people who recall a deja vu experience.


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[edit on 20-6-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Although i've had a few of the "fleeting" variety of deja vu experiences that are gone before you quite know what happened, just a sort of inner thrill like an elevator dropping too fast, that sort of sick sensation, and a kind of dazed confusion just for seconds, I had, a few years ago now, a series of the deja vu type experiences that lasted for much, much longer and continued to occur for days.

I was totally drained by the time they ended, and had even begun to think maybe I was having seizures or strokes or something, but then they finally ended. As one would begin, I had trouble maintaining a grip on what was going on around me, as in continuing conversations and so forth, but no one else seemed to notice anything. After about the 4th straight one, I stopped saying anything to anyone else about it, because it sounded fantastic even to me. I had no other signs/symptoms of anything physical going on and because I am a Christian, I prayed about them but that didn't make them go away or explain them. Nothing ever has, but as far as I can remember I've had maybe one or two brief "episodes" since then.

I've never before heard anyone describe them the way you did, as unsettling, and making you feel ill, and especially this statement of yours "whats wierd is my feelings were all over the place but were maybe saying that i could have been there years ago, or even (i know this doesnt make sense) been there before in the future".so am glad to know my experiences are not unique. I too had the feeling that I couldn't remember when it had happened before and it seemed more like a memory of a memory, maybe like something I'd been told happened but didn't remember myself.

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Many will totally understand your reaction to the experience, and your curiosity now, so don't worry, you're in good company :-)

I imagine it happens at least once to almost everyone. It's a 'world stops still' moment, isn't it -- something you're likely to remember and ponder over for years to come.

It used to happen to me quite frequently when I was a young child, to the point I pestered my father about it more than once. I described it, though, as : " I've done this before !! ".

I remember being in a rock-throwing fight amongst two rival gangs of kids, when I was about seven. Suddenly, I experienced a feeling that was similar to being underwater: the sounds around me seemed suddenly far away and everything seemed to go into slow-motion. I watched my rock arc through the air and hit a kid on the side of the head. He yelled and fell sideways and as it happened, it was like I wasn't there in my own body. Instead, for a second, I saw things from a different and strange perspective. A very strong deja vu feeling swept through me. I'd done it before. I knew who my rock would strike before it landed. I knew the sound the kid would make, the face he would pull, the way other members of his gang would point at me and begin furiously hurling retaliatory rocks in my direction. It was similar to watching something from two different camera angles at the same time. It was a very strong experience, because I still remember it, all these years later and despite experiencing deja vu on dozens of later occasions.

But the most memorable aspect of deja vu is the 'feeling', at least it is for me. It's a weird feeling that's impossible to describe. It's not JUST the sensation of having done this precise thing before: it's the weird feeling that sweeps through you. It's not pain. It's not joy. It's not 'good' or 'bad'. It's different to other sensations: almost an 'out of human' thing. Once we've experienced pain, we know what it's like; like laughter, or embarrassment or other 'normal' feelings. And others express pain, joy, embarrassment often enough for us to accept such emotions as part and parcel of everyday life. But deja vu, though brief in duration (usually) tends to isolate us: lock us in a bubble of mental confusion during which Time seems to stand still or do a loop.

I imagine people who're experiencing deja vu must look momentarily stunned or dazed. But we'll probably never be able to recognise the signs of deja vu in others, because people tend not to mention it, unless we know them very intimately. My daughter has occasionally said to me: ' Oh, for a second there, I felt as if this had all happened before'. But I hadn't noticed the signs on her face. Maybe we just appear 'thoughtful' to others, or respond in distracted manner, while we're experiencing it.

I used to press my father for an explanation, when I was a child. I wanted to know what the deja vu 'feeling' WAS. I wondered if everyone had it and what caused it. We tend to seek reassurance, because there's no doubt about it; it's a powerful experience that leads to much pondering.

My father basically didn't want me to dwell on it, I suspect. Maybe he'd had similar questions to my own, based in his own deja vu experiences. Finally though -- to shut me up and turn my mind to more ordinary matters -- he informed me that deja vu was caused when the mind registered a situation, but instead of processing and storing it in the usual manner, the mind has a blip, and replays it again. All of this supposedly occurs in micro-seconds, leaving us with the odd experience that we've done or seen all this before.

In later years, I read a very similar explanation for deja vu. It sounds feasible and may account for the 'double perspective' aspect of deja vu, which could be caused by the mind's attempting to PROCESS an experience at the very SAME time as it's replaying it.

one of the theorys behind pre cognition is that we live in a time loop. people that are sensitive, are just for some reason, feeling something is about to happen that has played out before.
then you have things like feelings that do not play out like supposed to, maybe because not everything is going to be exactly the same. i am only talking about times when people are at there most sensitive though.

i am not saying what i just wrote is fact, just that it may be that we are in a time loop. just one of many reasons why something like deja vu might exist.

some people for what ever reason may be accessing memories that are what we percieve to be the future, but if we are in a time loop, than the event is in the past also. strange stuff.

i have had quite a few deja vu experiences, what they mean i do not know, but when they do happen it is weird. i do not want to go into what events, but i am sure most people must have experienced something weird like that in there lifes.

[edit on 20-6-2006 by andy1033]

@ dock6

I like the idea of the mind having a "blip," it at least is understandable that something as complex as a brain making a mistake every now and then. It would at least explain the reason everyone gets so confused momenterily, and perhaps why i felt ill for a brief period. unfortunately as with all these things theres always the unknown part. For example; i for some reason also associate deja vu with dreams had previously, which can't really be associated with a momentary lack of "continuity?" can i call it?

@ curiousity

Heh, i'm glad to tell you its not a seizure or stroke
Well as far as i know neither of us has any lasting brain damage

I have never had frequent occurances, that must have been very unsettling... so what you mean is, whilst people were talking, you had the feeling they had already said it before?

@ Andy1033

i believe i understand what you are getting at, and with all the strangeness of some things and the fact that NOBODY HAS ANY FREAKIN IDEA HOW TIME WORKS that it is entirely possible time works in strange ways. Whilst i can't contribute any ideas, i can only make the simple observation that over and over, time and time again, history always repeats itself, and i guess it always will.

I have heard "deja vu" explained as proof of reincarnation.

Do I believe this? Not really.

All of my fleeting deja vu experiences have been too specific and too "modern" for the same moment in time to have happened in a previous lifetime.

I tend to lean more to the explaination of a "mind hiccup". Kind of like a CD skipping... just an anomoly.

My deja vu experiences are where Im im in a situation where I have knows this before. Like when Im talking to my friends and I have this feeling like i knew what he said. I know this because I have dreamnt this and things sometimes in my dreams come up to be true almost the exact same way. Like this one time, I was looking for this binder for my work and I could never find it in stores. Then I had this dream where I found the binder and it had a bunch of filled holes from paper, you know like the wholes in paper you cut out. Anyway I remembered the dream and then a month later I found the binder, opened it up in the exact same room as the one I did in my dream. And mostly my deja vu experiences have to do with me knowing something usefull. Like what your question was. If I were you in that situation I would end up knowing what the teacher said to me b/c I have dreampet it. Its pretty powerful if you know it to be able to predict the future. My dreams are usually associated with the future and It usually turns out to be correct like in my dreams but in my dreams, its a bit different. But if I had a dream that when the next terrorist attack would be, I would remember it as a deja vu and go back and say, aww man I could of predicted that.

Also sometimes when I talk to my friends and have a deja vu I stop them and try to remember what they are going to say next and Im almost always right.

I have these deja vu experiences quite frequently, especially the last few years.

I think our subconscious is universal and eternal....it is our soul so to speak. Sometimes the subconscious drifts into our consciousness and a deja vu results.
Not the best explanatin in the world, I know.

So, it would be quite natural and normal for these experiences to occur.

Hello FreeWind and Welcome,
Yes I have had ordinary deja vu's.
A little story. In 2001 I visited a city 1500 m. from my birth place and 4500 m. from where I have lived for three decades. I knew this place intimatly but could not stay for long at the time
Now five years later I live here, I just feel at home. Every day is a deja vu. A recolection an effort to remember.
WIS

I don't get upset about it much, I always mention it when it starts and verbally walk myself through it.

The last one was at my friend's place while discussing the new glass doors for her IKEA Billy bookcase...it started with the mention of the doors... I announced I was dejavuing and as we continued talking about the doors it occured to me that the doorbell should ring...I said so and when it did we were both kinda like "okaaaaay that was a bit bizarre" her neighbor trotted in and was about to say something, and I piped in and said "Oh good God you didn't actually PAY for a copy of the davinci code did you"? The neighbor's mouth dropped open and she said that was why she'd come up...to tell of her purchase and to tell my friend not to buy it because she'd lend it to her when she was done.

Then it ended and we spent the next half hour hashing out how often it happens to each of us and what kinds of activities seems to deja vu most often.

Mine usually are very mundane...like the above. Nothing life shattering or really amazing. too bad I can't deja vu about winning lottery numbers!!

From talking to others I think it happens to everyone at some point and at different frequencies. I seem to have them a lot at least once or twice a week. I am also fairly certain that I've had long periods without them as well (those are harder to remember)

Originally posted by justgeneric
I don't get upset about it much, I always mention it when it starts and verbally walk myself through it.

Which must mean you haven't had the variety the originator of the thread and I have had, that are upsetting. Good to know that if they were to come back in a cluster, they might not have the disturbing effect my days long episode did

Originally posted by Freewind@ curiousity

Heh, i'm glad to tell you its not a seizure or stroke
Well as far as i know neither of us has any lasting brain damage

I have never had frequent occurances, that must have been very unsettling... so what you mean is, whilst people were talking, you had the feeling they had already said it before?

I thank God it was neither, not to my knowledge anyway, although my brain does seem to have had some kind of lasting reaction because whenever an episode starts now, and they are very infrequent lately, I have a temporary loss of speech, the ability to continue with what I was saying if I was talking, it's like my brain shuts off for just a nanosecond.

The episodes are almost never about people, it is smells, sights, movement that seems to be in a repetition, almost as if I've been removed from where I was and placed at some point in the past and am reliving those seconds. It has the same exact sensation as an elevator dropping too fast, the kind of movement that makes you want to hold on to something.

When it was going on and on, I was literally becoming sick to my stomach with it. It has an actual sensation of movement, as if my body, though still, is actually moving. I'd be sitting in a chair and then suddenly, some sound would spark one of the episodes and I'd be "lost" for a second or two, not knowing where (or when) I was.

Sometimes I'd be moving. For instance, once I smelled a certain lemony scent, and immediately the street along which I was travelling by car looked different, as if I was seeing it for the first time, unfamiliar and so frightening, then, it passed, and I remembered that smell and another town I'd lived in, and I believe, the street I was on at the past time had been like superimposed on the one I was on when the episode started

Don't know if any of this really makes sense to anyone but me, it is sooo "interior" that it is hard to explain in words.

Well this is the theory that I lean towards and its pretty sensible when you think about it.

The reason is a tiny chemical imbalance for a few seconds that causes your short term and long term memory to get mixed up. As soon as you see something it is written in your long term memory and FEELS like you've been there before or heard whats being said before. The feeling is often that you know what people are going to say next, like its on the tip of your tongue, but I bet no-one can ever actually predict the next part properly and your often left stuttering or flustered.

The feeling is no doubt weird, but makes a lot of sense when you think of it like this.

A day long event of deja vu??? I don't think I'd manage it well.

It's a bit novel at times, never frightening for me.

I also lean to a more scientific explanation as to the function and occurance of daja vu.

With so much as yet unrealized about the human brain it is entirely possible that it's a a "blip" in the memory chain...

Then again we also have very little knowledge about factors of time - exactly how and why it works...it is a perception really and we've built models to match the perception...that doesn't mean that what we've decided about time is correct. It means we've found a comfortable platform to experience it on.

Our time theories may be totally incorrect for all we really know

Precognition is a topic I am chronically on the fence about. It could be possible, with so little truly being understood about brain function and time function...

I am quite glad I don't terror as a result of my deja vu...when it happens it's usually less than a minute or two and sometimes shorter. A full day of it and I'd really be freaked out!

I remember reading accounts on the net about people who have 'pre-birth memories' i.e. they remember choosing to come to earth, were shown who their parents would be and often, according to some of these accounts, they were briefly shown the entirety of their future human life!

Anyway, IF such a thing were true then it could be argued that deja-vu is simply the soul recalling a particular experience that was viewed in this (pre-birth) life review????

I think that could be a real answer, Easy, though I have no Scripture for it specifically )about the past) so it is a personal belief that every living soul lives forever, which indicates both in the past and in the future "forever.

I'd like to hear more about this if someone wants to start such a thread or has had some kind of experience with pre-earth life memory, preferably a Christian with Scripture to prove or disprove the theory.

I too have minor experiences with this. They are often something like me
sitting in my living room with some friends waiting on others to arrive.
I find myself looking out the three panoramic windows that allow me to see my
front yard. Not realizing that its not actually happening I mention that so-and-so
just got here. So naturally my friends would look out the window and say,
"you are crazy, theres no one out ther..." But before they could finish the said
party would arrive. I have these kind of occurences at least once a week.

Also, the comaparison of the feeling of deja-vu to a falling elevator intrigues me.
Even more so with the talks of time travel or at least trying to understand time.
This falling feeling got me thinking. I wonder if the "queasiness" is what it would
feel like to step into a gravity dialation bubble? You know the ones that scientists
propose to use for time travel and what not... I wish i could describe that thought
in a more technical manner. But thatll have to do for now....

I also have deja vu experiences quiet frequently.

The last one i had was 2 days ago, and unlike any other deja vu i had it happened while playing Call of Duty online. Call of Duty is a 1st person shooter game.

I was playing harbor, a map in the game, and all the sudden when i made a kill... something just flashed in my thoughts... like this happened before. For about 5 seconds I had that gut feeling like it happend before... I killed one guy in the same section of the map as my thought or feeling felt in those 5 secconds. I never had this happen in the 4 years I played this game. I was just wierd.. at that exact moment i made the kill it flashed... a vision in my head... of the same steps that just happened in the game.

I have no idea how a deja vu works but I think it might have a connection with our dreams. Ever heard that phrase: Dreams make/form Reality. There is also a lot of info online about dreams and the connection they have to creating reality.

Our souls/spirits, body, dreams, the universe, etc are all mysterious works of God and we have no clue how they work and interact together. There is a connection between those I am 100% sure, I feel it but i cant prove it.

One day we shell know, one day we shall be pure.

[edit on 21-6-2006 by theTRUTHtheWAY]

I don't know about that bubble thing, but the "falling elevator" sensation is identical to one I get if I turn a somersault in the water, a kind of a "I'm gonna fall", but you're not even near that state. Some might call it lightheadedness, but for me that doesn't describe it accurately. And it is a "queasiness", that was a good call.

The sensation seems to follow hard on the heels of the beginning of the episode so that first the sense comes, "I've been here, done this, seen this before" and then the queasy sensation of falling followed by an almost immediate return to the previous state. (Most of the time, during the period of episodes over many days, it actually took longer to get back there at times, sometimes to the point that I began to wonder if I would ever "get out of it".) It almost feels like when you feel the need to shake your head to get rid of dizziness. A sort of "coming back to myself" feeling.

Well, to get back to the thread...Not sure that the reference was to my experiences but I just want to say that the deja vu experiences I had over a period of days were NOT day long. They lasted longer than normal from time to time but not always, but did continue to occur over days. I'd say maybe 2-3 weeks, though I really don't remember the length of the episode.

There is another thread that I keep getting confused with this one, it is at
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Might want to check there for further sources.

As I was typing this, I found myself wanting to say things like, "when I got back", and "when I returned" and now I'm wondering if that is significant.