Déjà Vu Have We Been Here Before
My thoughts this month are around something I have felt before, and still, have no explanation for Déjà vu.
What is Déjà vu? Well, almost all of us are aware it means to experience the illusion of having already experienced something we are actually experiencing for the first time. Have you ever overheard your parents, or maybe a friend say of a child “She/he’s been here before” Well, what follows is my take/explanation on the subject.
Maybe it is a past memory, maybe we have been here before, If you ask someone who has experienced it they are most likely to tell you of a feeling that is so deeply seated they would be willing to bet on having experienced the feeling once before. That includes me.
Is it a memory of a past life? That has surfaced because the circumstances have been so close to the original it could not be suppressed leaving us thinking I have been here/done this before.
If you have an interest in this subject then settle back, and see if what I think has any foundation.
No Big Surprise
Let me use my earlier life as an example. When I left school I had one thought on my mind. What was that I hear you saying well, from an early age I loved helping with the cooking, so it would not come as a big surprise when I told you I wanted to join the Merchant Navy as a ship cook.
On leaving school I applied and succeeded in being accepted. I had a wait of almost 9 months before I would be given details of the ship I would serve on and which port I would travel to board the ship.
Around the same time I had a mate, still have, who wanted to be a drummer in a pop group, so most of my 9 months wait was spent going to different auditions with him.
Five months on we went to an audition that would change my own direction in life, not only did my mate pass the audition, but the group was also looking for a lead singer, and guess what my mate talked me into singing for them.
Over a period of more than a few weeks of practice with them, I ended up becoming the lead singer, with all thoughts about joining the merchant navy temporarily forgotten.
Singing is and always has been (always will be) a deep-rooted enjoyment of mine, but I was brought back to earth, so to speak when my forgotten letter dropped on the doormat a month or two after being accepted as my new group (Revival) lead singer. In a nutshell, the letter informed me to get in touch with Portsmouth, for further details on joining my ship.
Looking back I was sure glad I had picked the Merchant Navy. After explaining to my parents how I now felt and how I wanted to continue with my singing they agreed, that as long as I found work I would not be pushed into joining, and thankfully because it was the Merchant and not the Royal Navy I could send my Seamans ticket back without consequence. Even today many years on from that time I still feel I had made that choice once before.
One year later while I was out at my girlfriend’s house two men came knocking Mum answered the door and after an explanation and visual proof of who they were (Decca records) she invited them in to await my return.
My girlfriend did not live on the doorstep so to speak, and we did not own a telephone so these guys waited. Sadly, I guess I lost out after a wait of some 90 minutes these guys apologized for not being able to wait any longer (never came back either), or maybe I had had a lucky escape. Yet again another example of feeling I had been through a similar experience.
Déjà vu Real Or Imagined
Well, at that particular time in my life both Joining my ship as a trainee cook and singing was a passion of mine, and deciding which one I wanted was not an easy decision to make just supposing my choice to not continue with the Merchant Navy was such a life-changing decision it felt at the time I had been in this situation before an experience from a past life. Is it possible that we come back to right our wrongs the first/second etc. time around? Or maybe we come back to go down one of the paths we would have gone down if we had been in the right place at the right time.
There were a number of times during my lifetime when I would have been willing to bet I had been in that situation before the examples above are just two examples of having felt that feeling, so just maybe I will get to be a famous singer (I can dream) after all.
Maybe the reason why we do not remember being here before is that it makes us easier to manipulate on return journeys. Always assuming there is a higher presence.
Now, this is where the water gets cloudy if we do come back we would not be aware we were following one of the other paths we could have taken that is until a situation in your present life intersects with a past life experience with such force that we become aware we have done or experienced this particular situation before. Even though we can not explain why we feel this.
Deja vú it’s just a thought I think about from time to time, and it is blooming difficult to try and put a thought that no one understands for sure what the cause is into words.
The Reality Of It All
Now there could be a logical explanation according to the boffins at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. According to Deborah Halber, News Office Correspondent, a press release on June 7, 2007, suggest that neuroscientists at Picower Institute have identified a neuronal mechanism that helps us distinguish places we visit and at the same time helps us to identify quickly whether we have been there before. The boffins feel this could help explain Deja vú.
Researchers believe there is a set of neurons called place cells. These place cells ignite to provide a map of the new area. Next time we enter the same area the same cells ignite making us aware we have already been here, so there is no need to relearn the old ground covered.
Now when we enter a similar place to the one we have already visited the same cells ignite to map out the new area but overlapping occurs, enough overlap then leads to that spooky feeling of Déjà vu a French phrase, that actually means “already seen”.
It is believed that the results from this experiment, using engineered mice, could lead to treatments for memory-related disorders, as well as for confusion that some elderly individuals suffer from.
The work being done is supported by the National Institute for Mental Health and the National Institutes of Health.
…..Well, I’m off for a cuppa…..
Image by Jan Helebrant from Pixabay