Submitted by Novan (not verified) on Tue, 03/11/2008 - 12:16pm.
I've had deja vu experiences many times for as long as I can remember. I've asked my parents and siblings about their experiences and while they all have experienced it, the effects of deja vu for them seem very small compared to myself.
The deja vu experience for me almost always consists of the following: sudden disorientation, minor dizziness, a sickness in the pit of my stomach, a haunting sense of fear and the feeling of "otherworldliness". I have the intense feeling that everything going on around me has happened before and that I can predict what is about to happen. The experience seems primarily visual and verbal, with senses like touch, smell and other non-verbal sounds being almost nonexistent. During several of the longer bouts I've actually tried to predict what would happen with mixed results; I would try to predict what someone would do or say before they did and while they might partially say or do whatever, it would never fit exactly what I predicted. Another poster also mentioned breaking the deja vu by "leaving the script", which I've also experienced. When deja vu happens, it tends to feel like there's no end to it until I "break out" of it by forcing my own will on the world around me and breaking the predetermined script. It was interesting to hear that others experienced the same thing. My deja vu usually occurs anywhere between 20 seconds to just over a minute with the lingering feeling lasting anywhere between several hours to several days.
The strangest part of deja vu for me is that for the last few years it seems like my mind has been adding additional content to my "experiences" that seems straight out of a horror movie. For example, last night I had deja vu in the shower and I could distinctly see in my minds eye that a snake was coiled above the shower head and about to strike me. It's like it already happened and I could see it happening before it did. I forced myself to look and needless to say the snake wasn't there and it didn't happen, but it was definitely scary and still lingers in my mind. In other instances it will be other things like spiders crawling on my legs or my brother getting hit by a car. I don't watch horror movies nor do I watch much TV. I'm generally not into scary stuff.
Strange stuff but it's nice to see others talking about their experiences.
»
Reply
Search Serendip
Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate
but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
My experiences
I've had deja vu experiences many times for as long as I can remember. I've asked my parents and siblings about their experiences and while they all have experienced it, the effects of deja vu for them seem very small compared to myself.
The deja vu experience for me almost always consists of the following: sudden disorientation, minor dizziness, a sickness in the pit of my stomach, a haunting sense of fear and the feeling of "otherworldliness". I have the intense feeling that everything going on around me has happened before and that I can predict what is about to happen. The experience seems primarily visual and verbal, with senses like touch, smell and other non-verbal sounds being almost nonexistent. During several of the longer bouts I've actually tried to predict what would happen with mixed results; I would try to predict what someone would do or say before they did and while they might partially say or do whatever, it would never fit exactly what I predicted. Another poster also mentioned breaking the deja vu by "leaving the script", which I've also experienced. When deja vu happens, it tends to feel like there's no end to it until I "break out" of it by forcing my own will on the world around me and breaking the predetermined script. It was interesting to hear that others experienced the same thing. My deja vu usually occurs anywhere between 20 seconds to just over a minute with the lingering feeling lasting anywhere between several hours to several days.
The strangest part of deja vu for me is that for the last few years it seems like my mind has been adding additional content to my "experiences" that seems straight out of a horror movie. For example, last night I had deja vu in the shower and I could distinctly see in my minds eye that a snake was coiled above the shower head and about to strike me. It's like it already happened and I could see it happening before it did. I forced myself to look and needless to say the snake wasn't there and it didn't happen, but it was definitely scary and still lingers in my mind. In other instances it will be other things like spiders crawling on my legs or my brother getting hit by a car. I don't watch horror movies nor do I watch much TV. I'm generally not into scary stuff.
Strange stuff but it's nice to see others talking about their experiences.