The Peculiar Phenomenon We Call Deja Vu

Before yesterday, the last time I went to The Melbourne Show was 10 whole years ago. This recent experience worried me. It was a cloudy, cold and clammy day so I trudged alongside my  friend, Jen and younger 12-year-old brother, Aaron. The entry fee and lunch prices made me squirm, and there was this monstrosity of a ride they called The Space Roller. It looked like a giant propellor that someone had thrown a spanner into, so it jerked about all over the place threatening to break off its stand. Jen and Aaron convinced me to get on it and I was in absolute agony watching the asphalt, clouds and clusters of children merge into one and feeling like my bowels were going to rip off my body.

The reason for my concern that day was because if it had been the year 2000 I would have called the weather a harmless, light drizzle. My 13-year-old brain would not have thought twice about the prices (why when you have parents?) and I would have jumped on every ride available, even anticipating that stomach-dropping adrenalin rush as gravity pulls your body about. It made me ask myself if I was losing my inner child, am I really getting that old?

Besides that, I did take the time to enjoy my Dagwood Dog...

At one stage we were watching a group of proffesional divers performing before a 3 metre tank of water. The highest diving board was 25 metres from the surface. That's equivalent to 10 stories high! I could feel the apprehension of the audience as we watched one of the divers climb up to the peak where the board was waiting for him. I actually videotaped him on my phone and it seemed to take him forever to reach the top, then suddenly I was looking around wildly, a familiar feeling inside me increasing as promptly as it started. At my feet; the grass wasn't scattered around evenly on the earth, more so in clumps. The man hadn't jumped yet, and I could see that there were two red flags above him with a cross marked on each, flapping like wings against the draft. There were 2 commentators I could hear, an Aussie and a French. I didn't even have to look around to know that the Frenchman was dressed in a yellow suit. It occured to me that I was encountering an intense moment of Deja Vu (a sense that you have experienced something before, it is said to be a startling and often disturbing feeling of history repeating, yet you cannot place where the first encounter occured).

It stalked me all the way home, I wanted to know why it happens to us and what it means. That night I scoured online forums for some answers and similar incidents. Here are a few things I found...

French scientist Emile Boirac was the first to study this strange phenomenon and gave its name in 1876, which translates to "already seen". It is hard to explain scientifically because the moment is so sudden and fleeting that it is difficult to pinpoint how one becomes subjected to it. It usually occurs in mundane scenes yet the experience is often remembered with incredible detail. It is more frequent in our 20's and tends to trail off as we age.

There are over 40 theories associated with Deja Vu - everyone's had a crack at trying to figure it out from philosophers, psychologists, even paranormal experts. Some of the major theories include the Dual Processing Theory where scientists state that Deja Vu occurs when 2 cognitive processes are out of sync and the Divided Attention Theory where it is believed that when we are distracted with something else, our brains are still able to register our surroundings subliminally therefore when we do finally focus on our surroundings, we would think we'd already seen and experienced it before (because technically, we have).

Despite all this boring logical stuff, my artist's mind leans towards the more paranormal theories such as the ones associated with reincarnation, precognitive dreams and thought waves. Buddhists have put their 2 cents in, saying that Deja Vu incidents mean that we are on the right path of our life journey. Many believe that the Deja Vu sensation originates from memories of a past life. I read one case where a 2-year-old girl told her mother of her vows as a nun and went to describe her duties in the convent, versing night prayers she could not have known. There was another of a woman who had a lucid dream of watching a man jump down from a building, but before she witnessed him hit the ground, she looked up to see a woman jump also. A few years later she was watching the televised news on September 11, 2001 and saw the same horrific scene from her dream, right down to the colour of the woman's shirt. Lastly, I read of a retired military man's nightmare of people screaming for help amidst explosions, smoke and debris. He woke up distressed on the same treacherous day, September 11 to find out that his dream was actually playing out on the other side of the country. It is said that when a large group of people bear the same thoughts, these turn into radio waves that are picked up by others.

Feel free to put your 2 cents in :)