Everyone must of had that feeling of Deja Vu before?

[zoobyshoe]

I have this sort of experience happen to me a few times a year. I don't really count them, and actually rather enjoy the experience, it makes me feel 'Human'.

Indeed, one deja vu is an almost beautiful mysterious experience. People who have few tend to cherish them and talk about them with enthusiasm and wonder.

I used to feel the same about the few I'd had until my late 30's when I started having several a day. This escalated till I was having several an hour all day long. Unbelievably, it got worse. I started living a life of having two or three a minute all day long. What was once a cool mystery became sheer torture.

It reminds me of some LSD experiances I have had when i was younger, except that was more the feeling of everything taking on a new meaning, rather than everything being familiar, but knowing they are not.

I've never done LSD. I have a sister who did quite a bit of it and she is now a raving lunatic who hears angels talking to her and believes she is the true wife of Jesus. I don't reccomend this drug to anyone.

 

[bioactive]

I have had deja vu experiences most of my life which were eventually diagnosed as partial seizures. The diagnosis was confirmed by complete elimination of symptoms after treatment with anti-seizure meds.

The experience is very profound. For me, it was an intense feeling of going back to a place that I was completely familiar with, no matter where I was at. The location or the objects around me were not important, and I was completely aware of where I was, and could drive a car during the experience, for example. It was more like going to a familiar place, or, I hesitate to say, a familiar state of existence. In other words, I had the intense feeling of living in a parallel place and having a parallel existence, which I was not aware of most of the time, but was now able to "remember" briefly. It was usually accompanied by a brief feeling of fear or despair because I came to believe I am not fully conscious of what I am experiencing, or that I am missing a big part of my life, or that I have a parallel "dream" world that I keep forgetting about.

Believe me, those of you who are describing "I feel like I have been here before," without adding that it feels like a profound physical/mental/mystical experience on a par with the most extreme mental experiences of your life, are not suffering the kinds of partial seizures I did. There is no chance of mistaking it. I continue, even under medication, to have those odd feelings occasionally, but the true deja vu experiences are completely absent.

After the diagnosis, I came to understand it as a brain dysfunction. I remembered telling the doctors I talked to that I remembered the first time I ever experienced the feeling. I was in a full contact tae kwon do fight, and got "knocked out." As I came to consciousness, I had a very, very powerful deja vu experience. I now believe that my brian may have been damaged by that punch.

I also came to believe that seizures may be responsible for some of the odd belief systems in the world today. If I were not a scientist who believes that the world is made out of stuff, and that all my feelings come from the interaction of matter in my neuronal system, I might be led to believe that I was "remembering" an alien abduction. Or I might believe I was "communicating" with a higher power and start writing on stone tables.

Zooby I feel like you. They were interesting until the frequency increased in my early 50s.

Anyway, I'm glad I stumbled across this conversation and thanks for giving me a forum to tell my story.

Jim

 

[Anttech]

I've never done LSD. I have a sister who did quite a bit of it and she is now a raving lunatic who hears angels talking to her and believes she is the true wife of Jesus. I don't reccomend this drug to anyone.

Can happen, its not something to be toyed with.

 

[Math Is Hard]

If there are milder experiences of the kind of hippocampal centered seizures that I have then they are simply milder seizures, milder deja vus. I can't, and didn't, say these don't exist. I don't know if they do. No one could say for sure. The reason being that someone like you who may have had one of these, would never be tested with depth electrodes to see if the feeling corresponds to seizure activity. Such an invasive proceedure would never be allowed just for curiosity's sake.

The people whose deja vus have been recorded by EEG were being prepped for brain surgery because of much more serious seizures that weren't responding to medication. The depth implanted electrodes were for the purpose of locating the seizure focus. The deja vus, (and many other simple partials that have been recorded this way) were not the main point of the procedure at all, and I don't think any neurosurgeon in the world would implant electrodes just to study simple partials. They pick these up, incidently, in the process of looking for the more serious seizures.

So there may be mild deja vus that are simple partials, but I can't assert that for certain. I have no EEG recording to show you.

Of course we would not go poking around a healthy brain with electrodes -but we could certainly study healthy brains with fMRI imaging. It ain't cheap, but this type of research is done pretty frequently here at my uni. I would be curious to see which brain areas, if any, increase in activity in the case of an "induced deja vu" experience such as reported after the hypnosis experiment.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The experience is very profound. For me, it was an intense feeling of going back to a place that I was completely familiar with, no matter where I was at. The location or the objects around me were not important, and I was completely aware of where I was, and could drive a car during the experience, for example. It was more like going to a familiar place, or, I hesitate to say, a familiar state of existence. In other words, I had the intense feeling of living in a parallel place and having a parallel existence, which I was not aware of most of the time, but was now able to "remember" briefly. It was usually accompanied by a brief feeling of fear or despair because I came to believe I am not fully conscious of what I am experiencing, or that I am missing a big part of my life, or that I have a parallel "dream" world that I keep forgetting about.

Here's a quote from the introduction to:
-Anatomical origin of deja vu and vivid 'memories' in human temporal lobe epilepsy
(Abstract linked to in an earlier post.):

"In 1876, Jackson (1931) described a 'dreamy state' occurring in certain epileptic subjects. Although aspects of the dreamy state had been recognized as early as the 10th century by an Arab physician [quoted in Pennfield and Perot (1963) and fairly extensively discussed in the mid-19th century in the French and British literature (Pritchart, 1822; Esquirol, 1838, Morel, 1860; Herpin, 1867], it was Jackson (1931) who first described clearly all its aspects speculating with amazing accuracy on its neural substrate and giving it its name..."

..."These phenomena occur withing a 'voluminous' mental state that the patient sometimes describes as 'dreamy'; hence the name. In addition, Jackson felt that a critical component of the dreamy state was a doubling of consciousness, which he termed mental diplopia: a depressed 'normal' consciousness plus a second, parasitic consciousness: the simultaneous objective consciousness of the exterior world together with the subjective consciousness of an interior world."



I'm glad you mentioned about each occurance reminding you of this "parrallel existence" you were afraid you were going to forget again when it was over. At first I had this same sense of alarm each time I entered the state of mind where I could "sense" the universe was a mere recording that could be played over and over, but I had them so often this fear of forgetting them went away and I practically lived in the "dreamy" state, so my initial alarm that I'd forget the separate but parrallel state of mind eventually waned. For the first year or so, though, I was convinced the "loop" of time would break, I'd return to normal, and all my "knowledge" that the universe was just a recording was going to fade from my consciousness. While the experience is happening it is so powerful I am not at liberty to consider it any kind of illusion.

Believe me, those of you who are describing "I feel like I have been here before," without adding that it feels like a profound physical/mental/mystical experience on a par with the most extreme mental experiences of your life, are not suffering the kinds of partial seizures I did. There is no chance of mistaking it. I continue, even under medication, to have those odd feelings occasionally, but the true deja vu experiences are completely absent.

I'm afraid that there are people who have not had this experience but who hear people talking about it and mistake what they're saying to be referring to some purely mundane experience of things seeming familiar but not being able to quite recall why. Other people I talk to who haven't had one hear what I'm saying well enough to realize that I'm describing something they have no knowledge of, and are able to respond "No, I'm sure I've never felt anything like that." Reports like Math Is Hard's of experiences that seem to have all the right features except the attention-getting intensity are impossible to say anything definite about. They could, in fact, be more contained seizure activity, but I can't say.

After the diagnosis, I came to understand it as a brain dysfunction. I remembered telling the doctors I talked to that I remembered the first time I ever experienced the feeling. I was in a full contact tae kwon do fight, and got "knocked out." As I came to consciousness, I had a very, very powerful deja vu experience. I now believe that my brian may have been damaged by that punch.

The classic cause of seizures: a head injury.

I also came to believe that seizures may be responsible for some of the odd belief systems in the world today. If I were not a scientist who believes that the world is made out of stuff, and that all my feelings come from the interaction of matter in my neuronal system, I might be led to believe that I was "remembering" an alien abduction. Or I might believe I was "communicating" with a higher power and start writing on stone tables.

The trouble with TLE is that the seizures are in the part of your brain where emotions are generated and they usually supercharge the emotional component of the seizure such that whatever you're experiencing is "backed up" with an emotion many times normal strength. As I said, when I'm actually having a deja vu I am not at liberty to question its reality.

Zooby I feel like you. They were interesting until the frequency increased in my early 50s.

Sheer torture.

Anyway, I'm glad I stumbled across this conversation and thanks for giving me a forum to tell my story.

Jim

It's too bad this thread wasn't directed to the Mind and Brain forum which is really the proper venue for your story.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Of course we would not go poking around a healthy brain with electrodes -but we could certainly study healthy brains with fMRI imaging. It ain't cheap, but this type of research is done pretty frequently here at my uni. I would be curious to see which brain areas, if any, increase in activity in the case of an "induced deja vu" experience such as reported after the hypnosis experiment.

If the fMRI can distinguish between seizure activity and normal activity it might go a long way toward sorting this out. I don't see that the "where" of the activity would be too informative since we are just about always using the hippocampal region: we are just about always forming and accessing memories.

A more promising type of scan might be something done with a SQUID, I think:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci816722,00.html

I have no information on how deeply into the brain this can sense, though, nor the cost of using it.

 

[bioactive]

Here's a quote from the introduction to:
-Anatomical origin of deja vu and vivid 'memories' in human temporal lobe epilepsy
(Abstract linked to in an earlier post.):


..."These phenomena occur withing a 'voluminous' mental state that the patient sometimes describes as 'dreamy'; hence the name. In addition, Jackson felt that a critical component of the dreamy state was a doubling of consciousness, which he termed mental diplopia: a depressed 'normal' consciousness plus a second, parasitic consciousness: the simultaneous objective consciousness of the exterior world together with the subjective consciousness of an interior world."

Yes, this is describing something like my experience, Especially the term "parasitic consciousness." I feel like the parallel consciousness is going on all the time without me being aware of it, which is frustrating because I feel it is something important.

I also have a feeling of it being exhausting because the parasitic consciousness involves relentless activity and effort to overcome great obstacles. During an event I am "aware" that I am undergoing all these difficulties in addition to, and in parallel with all the difficulties of my normal life.

All this sounds very Castaneda-ish but in reality I know that it is just brain damage causing perceptual changes. Having taken acid myself I know that it is entirely biological and even odder perceptual changes can occur just through stimulation of certain receptors in the brain.

Thanks for the quote.

 

[zoobyshoe]

All this sounds very Castaneda-ish but in reality I know that it is just brain damage causing perceptual changes. Having taken acid myself I know that it is entirely biological and even odder perceptual changes can occur just through stimulation of certain receptors in the brain.

Yes, our brains take sensory imput and organize and coordinate it into the coherent and useful experience of "normal" consciousness. Anything that interfers with this unbelievably complex neuronal activity causes corresponding distortions of our experience of the world around us, and also of ourselves.

Thanks for the quote.

You're welcome.

 

[-Job-]

There are many sensations associated with seizures. Fear and panic, for example. Yet, explanations for panic or fear don't involve seizures.
A seizure is not an explanation, it's random over-activity.

 

[Math Is Hard]

If the fMRI can distinguish between seizure activity and normal activity it might go a long way toward sorting this out. I don't see that the "where" of the activity would be too informative since we are just about always using the hippocampal region: we are just about always forming and accessing memories.

A more promising type of scan might be something done with a SQUID, I think:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci816722,00.html

I have no information on how deeply into the brain this can sense, though, nor the cost of using it.

Wow - a SQUID?! At first I thought you were pulling my tentacle, but I am going to ask my profs about this. Indeed, one of the things that was mentioned in my last class is how difficult some processes are to "subtract out" with the use of a control task -- namely, neuron firing in the hippocampal regions since this is in action every moment.
What would be interesting to see is if a hypnotically induced deja vu could produce any significant firing in that region over and above normal activity. Could the hypnotic suggestion instigate an over-firing, or a mis-fire in the region, or possibly even produce a small seizure in subjects who were prone to it? If we saw nothing then we would be more inclined to believe that the subjects were just being overly cooperative in their reports.
With fMRI, we can see physical responses of neurons quieting when the subject uses CBT techniques. Subjects with depression, for instance, can settle down frontal lobe activity when an attack comes on. It seems possible that a person could also activate firing in a region through something like a hypnotic suggestion.

I am just bouncing ideas off you.

What I am also curious about is if the brain stimulation that caused the deja vu reports in epileptic patients triggered an actual uncontrolled seizure or if it was just creating a controlled inappropriate firing that would not have otherwise occurred.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Wow - a SQUID?! At first I thought you were pulling my tentacle, but I am going to ask my profs about this.

Hehehe. I thought you'd think I was joking. However the SQUID is a genuine, if amusingly named, device.

Indeed, one of the things that was mentioned in my last class is how difficult some processes are to "subtract out" with the use of a control task -- namely, neuron firing in the hippocampal regions since this is in action every moment.

I saw a lecture where a grad student presented the thalamus as the probable origin of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients because all her pet scans of hallucinating schizophrenics showed the thalamus to be the only universally active part of the brain in all the scans. Of course she had her head up her behind because the thalamus is a kind of Grand Central Station in the brain and all sensory imput is channeled through it. It is always going to be at work, unless you're in a coma.

What would be interesting to see is if a hypnotically induced deja vu could produce any significant firing in that region over and above normal activity. Could the hypnotic suggestion instigate an over-firing, or a mis-fire in the region, or possibly even produce a small seizure in subjects who were prone to it? If we saw nothing then we would be more inclined to believe that the subjects were just being overly cooperative in their reports.

I am not too interested at this point in sorting out what happened to the subjects in that study because it completely ignores what should be everyone's first suspect in any report of a deja vu: the already documented one.

There is a serious and unnecessary problem going unaddressed which was mentioned in your second link:

In some severe cases it can be distressing to the point of causing depression and some sufferers have been prescribed anti-psychotic medication.

However, experts suspect that many people who experience the sensation are unwilling to discuss it with their doctor.

In other words, people who might have this taken care of rather quickly by a neurologist prescribing anti-epileptic drugs are, instead, suffering for years because no one knows, or will acknowledge, this is seizure activity. This cause has to become well known and understood before we start tinkering around in more or less pointless speculation about other possible alternatives to explain non-problematic experiences 97% of the population seems to have once in a great while. Some anti-psychotic medications and also anti-depressents make seizures worse, but they'll be continued to be given to these people because psychiatrists and GP's and the people out there depressed and bewildered because they're having them chronically have never heard the deja vu is a completely treatable kind of simple partial seizure.

What I am also curious about is if the brain stimulation that caused the deja vu reports in epileptic patients triggered an actual uncontrolled seizure or if it was just creating a controlled inappropriate firing that would not have otherwise occurred.

These were stimulated by one electrode and recorded as seizure activity by the neighboring electrodes. Any of the electrodes can be used both as passive recievers or as a means of delivery for voltage. Each electrode is exposed at graduated points along its depth as well. They are precision made, and hair thin to do the least damage upon insertion.

 

[zoobyshoe]

There are many sensations associated with seizures. Fear and panic, for example. Yet, explanations for panic or fear don't involve seizures.
A seizure is not an explanation, it's random over-activity.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but the simple partials that manifest as fear or panic are notable in that these emotions happen in the absense of any percievable cause. The suffer can find nothing in his mind or environment to justify the inexplicable, extreme emotions.

Here is an example reported in the book Seized:

"On another typical day, at four o'clock, Jill was alone in her office. The day's interviews done, she sat reviewing her notes. Suddenly, she couldn't concentrate. The words she was reading held no meaning for her. She went back over the last few lines in vain. Something far more powerful than her notes was on her mind, 'an awful feeling of absolute panic and fear.' For no apparent reason, she felt certain that 'something really bad' was about to happen. This global, nonspecific terror imobilized her, demanding all the energy and concentration she had. It seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her where she could not reason with herself. Even though the terror was without external basis, she experienced it as though it were utterly justified and true.

This panic, she knew, was a seizure, something like the dread van Gogh occasionally felt. Her doctors had explained to her that epileptic discharge in the part of her brain that controls fear can cause a panic attack. Unfortunately, her knowledge that the feeling is really a seizure does not lessen the intensity of the experience. Each time it happens it feels horrifically real; the seizure presents itself as actual, impending doom. If one of these panic attacks were to last longer than a few hours, she believes, she would have no choice but to kill herself."

-Seized by Eve LaPlante, Pages 55-56
Harper Collins, NY 1993

Most libraries I've checked seem to have this book if you're interested in reading in great detail about Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

 

[zoobyshoe]

The Chinese Explanation of Deja Vu

I once told my landlady, who is Chinese, about my deja vu's. She knew what I was talking about, and said that in her culture the explanation for this is as follows:

When a person dies they go to a place of waiting, where they prepare to be reborn in a new life and body. During this time each person is given a "cup of forgetfullness" to drink so that they will not remember their past life in their new one. Everyone is cautioned to drink every last drop of the cup of forgetfullness. Some people, though, are careless and don't drink every last drop. As a result, when they're reborn in their new life, they get small flashes of memory from the past life.

 

[bioactive]

In other words, people who might have this taken care of rather quickly by a neurologist prescribing anti-epileptic drugs are, instead, suffering for years because no one knows, or will acknowledge, this is seizure activity.

I agree. In my case, if I had not been very energetic and precise in describing my experience, the neurologist might not have identified it as partial seizure. The MRI was negative. We decided to try the anti-seizure medication diagnostically. Since the deja vu experiences ceased after treatment with Depakote, a diagnosis of partial seizures was confirmed.

Many less communicative people unwilling to discuss the details of the experience would not have made it as far as I did with the doctors.

Jim

 

[-Job-]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but the simple partials that manifest as fear or panic are notable in that these emotions happen in the absense of any percievable cause. The suffer can find nothing in his mind or environment to justify the inexplicable, extreme emotions.

Here is an example reported in the book Seized:

"On another typical day, at four o'clock, Jill was alone in her office. The day's interviews done, she sat reviewing her notes. Suddenly, she couldn't concentrate. The words she was reading held no meaning for her. She went back over the last few lines in vain. Something far more powerful than her notes was on her mind, 'an awful feeling of absolute panic and fear.' For no apparent reason, she felt certain that 'something really bad' was about to happen. This global, nonspecific terror imobilized her, demanding all the energy and concentration she had. It seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her where she could not reason with herself. Even though the terror was without external basis, she experienced it as though it were utterly justified and true.

This panic, she knew, was a seizure, something like the dread van Gogh occasionally felt. Her doctors had explained to her that epileptic discharge in the part of her brain that controls fear can cause a panic attack. Unfortunately, her knowledge that the feeling is really a seizure does not lessen the intensity of the experience. Each time it happens it feels horrifically real; the seizure presents itself as actual, impending doom. If one of these panic attacks were to last longer than a few hours, she believes, she would have no choice but to kill herself."

-Seized by Eve LaPlante, Pages 55-56
Harper Collins, NY 1993

Most libraries I've checked seem to have this book if you're interested in reading in great detail about Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

I meant that, possibly, if we knew as much about fear as we do about deja vu, we might be saying that fear is caused by a partial seizure.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I agree. In my case, if I had not been very energetic and precise in describing my experience, the neurologist might not have identified it as partial seizure. The MRI was negative. We decided to try the anti-seizure medication diagnostically. Since the deja vu experiences ceased after treatment with Depakote, a diagnosis of partial seizures was confirmed.

I like to refer people to this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3137487&dopt=Abstract

when the issue of diagnosis of simple partials arises. It is often not possible to get EEG or MRI confirmation of any problem. Depth implanted electrodes would resolve the issue, but this is much too invasive for mere diagnostic purposes. Your doctor took the only proper alternative in light of the fact your symptoms walked, talked, and quacked like a simple-partial: simply try an AED and see if it works.

Many less communicative people unwilling to discuss the details of the experience would not have made it as far as I did with the doctors.

There was a tragic person who used to post on the Epilepsy form who was institutionalized for seven years as a schizophrenic before someone figured out she was having complex-partial seizures. I hate thinking about this.

 

[bioactive]

Almost forgot the horror story part of my tale.

My neurologist, unable to find any clear physical evidence of brain trauma, and knowing that I had never been in a state of unconciousness, and knowing that the medication was preventing further seizures, nonetheless turned me into the California drivers license office.

When I asked him why, he said he didn't think I was a risk at all, but that if I did happen to have an accident, he could be sued for not reporting me. He stated that he was doing it only for his own protection. At least he was honest with me.

I ended up having to do phone interviews with an officer, and then do a drivers test like a high school student getting their first licence. Both I and the officer that tested me thought it was a silly waste of time.

Imagine the costs to the state, not to mention my lost productivity at work while jumping through these hoops.

 

[bkvitha]

do dejavus occur through dreams!?

 

[zoobyshoe]

do dejavus occur through dreams!?

This is hard to sort out. During all of my deja vu's (thousands of them) two or three stood out from all the rest because as soon as they started I was certain the reason the situation seemed familiar was because I had dreamed about it at some time in the previous few weeks. In all other respects these experiences were the same as the kind I usually had. The difference was that, for some reason, I suddenly "remembered" I had dreampt it. I put "remembered" in quotes because I suspect this is some kind of illusion, a false memory, created on the spot. The dreams I'm "remembering" probably never happened.

Neurologist Wilder Pennfield got exited when he discovered that stimulating the temporal lobes of epileptics with tiny voltages could elicit vivid memories of their past. He concluded, at first, this meant all of our memories were stored in the brain and could be retrieved. It turned out later that most of these snatches of "memory" couldn't be linked to real events in the person's past. They seemed to be improvised around real events and people but were things that had never actually, specifically happened. In addition this "memory retrieval" by electrical stimulation couldn't be reproduced in non-epileptics.

That's why I suspect these deja vu's that seem to be recollections of dreams are probably false memories, though I haven't had that particular addition to my deja vu's often enough to sort it out as well as the other things, like the illusion of precognition.

 

[bkvitha]

This is hard to sort out. During all of my deja vu's (thousands of them) two or three stood out from all the rest because as soon as they started I was certain the reason the situation seemed familiar was because I had dreamed about it at some time in the previous few weeks. In all other respects these experiences were the same as the kind I usually had. The diffe: t. I put "remembered" in quotes because I suspect this is some kind of illusion, a false memory, created on the spot. The dreams I'm "remembering" probably never happened.

To tell you the truth, I've experienced so many of them, through "dreams".

I clearly know that i dreamnt it only a few weeks or months before it occured.

Yeah, maybe it is just false memory.
But how is that sometimes i just "seem" to know the answers for somethings i am really unfamiliar about...?

Could it be intuition!?

 

[zoobyshoe]

But how is that sometimes i just "seem" to know the answers for somethings i am really unfamiliar about...?

Could it be intuition!?

It depends. What sorts of unfamiliar things do you seem to have unexplained answers for?

 

[Altune]

dejavus, I have had them most of my adult life, They manifest as small Mini dreams I have during my initial Lucid state when I just go to sleep.
I have had several times when speaking with friends about it, have the reocurrence and tell them exactly what is going to happen next. This is not to say that I predicted the future, just small tidbits of time are revealed.
I Dont think it can be diagnosed as small seizures in the brain, unless the seizures make situations happen in your future. I think that some people are highly suseptive to slight variations in time and experience these visions in real time ( so to speak ) In my experience all my senses are working, ( during the dream state and the dejavu state ) and it makes for a very strange feeling. I would like to harness this phenomina and use it for some good.
anybody have any luck in such?
Al