I have had a situation where I had what was I thought deja vu, only to realize that I accurately "knew" what was about to transpire for at least 1 minute after. I've had regular deja vu before, and this was not it. I was interacting with another individual, so I don't think I was having a weird seizure or was mentally detached in any way. It was not a lucid dream either.
Consider that your recollection of the event is itself uncertain. Could it not be that although you now remember having known what was about to happen, you did not actually know that when the situation took place, and only subsequently formed that memory?
I am sure this is exactly what is happening. It is just hard to find out and believe that something is wrong with your own memory. It is about the same as using infected OS to run AntiVirus scan. Maybe it is a coping mechanism? I would prefer to hope it was a prophetic dream than that I can't trust my memory as Déjà Vu/random brain hiccup can rewrite it without leaving any trace.
Same here. I sometimes dream about situations, conversation with people I do not know to have it re-happen 1-2 years later. The dreams are extremely realistic and very specific. They happen only ~once a year. They are very strong so whenever I have one I wake up and remember it. When Deja Vu happens, its usually a bit longer than few seconds and I know it is happening and I know what will happen next and I dont feel like changing it for some reason.
I changed it once, and I felt bad since I wasnt sure if I should.
And here I thought this only happened to me. I have sometimes dreams of very specific conversations with someone else, and then days or weeks later it happens. I'm sure its just an interesting psychological phenomenon, but still.
Yes, that is one possibility. Another is that the dream and actual events do not match as closely as you believe. Your memory of the dream is rewritten, after the fact, to more closely match what actually happens.
Heard a similarly strange anecdote from consciousness researcher Anthony Peake on a podcast recently:
He was was sitting in a cafeteria eating lunch with a female friend who has a seizure disorder. During the meal, this friend went into a "freeze" (where they essentially detach from reality, blank stare - catatonic) - and while frozen she said "What is he doing here?" while looking at the door behind Peake.
Peake thought this odd, because normally people don't speak while in a freeze - she came out of the freeze a few seconds later and he was telling her that she said something --- and not 1 minute later, the female friends' son walked through the doors, to which she exclaimed "What is he doing here?"
Reminds me of that Feynman story where he had the strongest impression that his grandmother just died. Just then, the phone rang. He tentatively picked it up, to discover that it was for his roommate. His grandmother was fine. People strongly remember the coincidences, but they tend to forget all the times that they had some feeling and nothing came of it.
Without any recordings of this conversation, it's entirely possible that this conversation is entirely a lie, or simply embellished to match the world views of the people involved.
I once knew what was about to happen to have enough time to sketch and annotate it, and then show it to a coworker. I predicted exactly the image the boss would draw on the board and the words he would say. I have no explanation. But my coworker saw it too, so it wasn't all inside my head.
My wife and I constantly have deja vu, like once or twice a month. What's strange about ours is that it always comes with a vert intense feeling of impending doom. Every single time. It's been happening to us for years. Being religious as we are, we have our suspicions that there's something more at play here, some nefarious invisible cause. Or maybe it's just some wires in the brain acting up. We don't really know, and it doesn't really matter, since the only thing to do about it whenever it happens is, well, nothing.
"There is Something Deeper to this phenomenon where our notoriously unreliable memories play a spookier, more immediate trick on us than usual. How do I know? Well, it happens to me sometimes, and _my_ memory is accurate and unclouded."
I also have memories of deja vu experiences that would seem to eliminate false memory as a possible cause. Most of us do, which is why the phenomenon is at all remarkable and not just called "being mistaken".
That's not entirely true. If that where the case you couldn't play tennis or do any other physical task. In some sense, your brain is a "prediction machine" at least for short term physical events.
If there are parallel universes and some of them are slightly ahead of us in time, if something happens in one of those of sufficient emotional intensity it could get 'broadcast' to the other universes, so it has already happened just in another universe.
That's just some random very unscientific thoughts!
What an odd coincidence that I just experienced Deja Vu this morning. I was a having a conversation with my wife, and about two sentences in I was able to predict the next three, because this exact conversation had happened to us in one of me dreams month ago.
I was a mundane conversation about her preparing to go out with our child. But it isn't something that would be "normal" because she was meeting with a very specific friend, which was part of my recall of the event.
But how certain are you that you were able to predict the next three? Did you stop her from saying them and write it down, and let her continue (without letting her see what you wrote down or watching you write it down)? If not, then you may just have been listening along with her and misinterpreted your own thoughts as having "knew ahead of time" what she was going to say, when all you were actually doing is simply comprehending it. It's a very real possibility unless completely ruled out like this.
Maybe i'm grossly oversimplifying this, but wouldn't it be easy to have participants in a study wear an EEG cap (maybe some work needed to put it in a fashionable form) and keep a X-second sliding window of data? They could then use a smartwatch or something similar to notify the system "hey! i just experienced deja vu!" The EEG data could then be passed back to neurologists so that markers might be identified.
EEG doesn't really show that much about what's going on inside the brain. You are going to want an fMRI for that.
Someone once compared an EEG to holding a stethoscope up to the outside wall of a factory, to get an indication of level of activity. It doesn't tell you much other than this person is awake, asleep, having a seizure, etc.
I don't know much about this type of technology, but I'm assuming that in it's current state, fMRI machines can't be compacted to the point where it is comfortable to wear on a daily basis.
I know that in their current state, MRI machines are huge and cost exorbitant amounts of money. Is there any other emerging tech that might allow users to go about their daily lives while capturing brain activity at a resolution that's useful to neuro-scientists?
You are also assuming that the brain is the origin of consciousness as we know it. And not just a "reducing engine" for an external "signal" - as Aldous Huxley suggests in his Mind at Large concept:
I was relatively certain that the term "shitposting" was more or less the official term for posting BS comments on the internet. I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, as that wasn't my intention.
First off, it's not "smacktalk", because I wasn't insulting anyone. I was warning the person who posted the article that smacktalk, or "shitposting" as I referred to it, might happen if you don't put a "(2013)" at the end.
Second off, I apologized for offending you, and despite you denying it, it clearly was offensive to you since you called it "low brow".
But I've learned my lesson; I'm getting enough downvotes now, I'm glad that the community has decided that certain words aren't allowed.
> it clearly was offensive to you since you called it "low brow".
Everyone these days is so quick to accuse others of being offended, it's very tiresome.
Just because someone points out that a phrase like "shitpost" isn't really language cromulent with the general discourse on HN doesn't mean they're offended, it's pointing out a quality standards issue.
And anyway, at half a century old I don't waste time and energy getting "offended", pass the gin.
