Deja Wooed
******************************************************DISCLAIMER*****************************************************
I do not claim to be a psychologist but am deeply interested in phenomena concerning the human mind. The theory proposed in the following post in entirely my own and has not been researched. Professional psychologists may feel free to adapt this theory in any form. But as is the painful disadvantage of posting stuff on the internet, I cannot legally claim to be the proposer of this theory, but out of common courtesy, it would be great if appropriate credit is given. Theory released under the Ramu Public Licence (RPL).
**************************************************************************************************************************
The human mind is trained to correlate. Right from birth, we teach our young to recognize and remember. The child first relates to its family, its surroundings and its possessions. As the child grows older, it recognizes experiences - trying to enjoy the good ones and avoid the bad ones. All these experiences and acquaintances add to the child's personality, ever so increasing its correlation and memorizing skills. The subconscious mind plays an important role in assimilating these little encounters as a vital part of one’s personality.
Coming back to the topic at hand, Wikipedia describes Déjà vu as:
Déjà vu (literally "already seen") is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917) in his bookL'Avenir des sciences psychiques ("The Future of Psychic Sciences"), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", "weirdness", or what Sigmund Freud calls "the uncanny". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience has genuinely happened in the past.
But then, I had the ever familiar sensation of Déjà vu a few days ago. We were in an EMI/EMC familiarity lecture conducted by a colleague in a training room. The design of the training room is not much unlike the design of present day JEE coaching classes in Mumbai – small, with slightly uncomfortable seats. And during this training, we were shown an image of a EMI/EMC testing room which triggered the déjà vu. I felt as if I had undergone this training before, and knew the topic pretty well. I could even feel the déjà vu persisting for the next few moments. But then, on careful reconsideration, I recalled from every bit of past experience, that I have never been in any session involving EMI, and I sure as hell don’t dream about it either.
What had actually happened was I had seen the photo of the EMI testing equipment a while back, and I had been in the coaching environment for two years in my past life. In such a situation, probably the image of the tester got registered in my subconscious mind and I did not pay much attention to it. I probably saw it, and forgot it. But, when it came back again in that environment, it struck as if I’d done it before!
Hence, Déjà vu can probably be explained as a juxtaposition of past, but distinctly time and space varied content and the environment, tickling the subconscious mind and forcing the conscious one to correlate as to where this event has occurred before, and the subconscious mind overpowering the conscious to believe that this event has happened before. If the conscious mind is strong enough in such situations, Déjà vu can probably never occur. What follows in the subsequent scenes is that the conscious mind now completely believes that the event has happened before and tries, in vain, to figure out when, since the event has never happened. Of course, all of this might be non-sense, but this is my 2 cents worth of thoughts.
I do not claim to be a psychologist but am deeply interested in phenomena concerning the human mind. The theory proposed in the following post in entirely my own and has not been researched. Professional psychologists may feel free to adapt this theory in any form. But as is the painful disadvantage of posting stuff on the internet, I cannot legally claim to be the proposer of this theory, but out of common courtesy, it would be great if appropriate credit is given. Theory released under the Ramu Public Licence (RPL).
**************************************************************************************************************************
The human mind is trained to correlate. Right from birth, we teach our young to recognize and remember. The child first relates to its family, its surroundings and its possessions. As the child grows older, it recognizes experiences - trying to enjoy the good ones and avoid the bad ones. All these experiences and acquaintances add to the child's personality, ever so increasing its correlation and memorizing skills. The subconscious mind plays an important role in assimilating these little encounters as a vital part of one’s personality.
Coming back to the topic at hand, Wikipedia describes Déjà vu as:
Déjà vu (literally "already seen") is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917) in his bookL'Avenir des sciences psychiques ("The Future of Psychic Sciences"), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", "weirdness", or what Sigmund Freud calls "the uncanny". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience has genuinely happened in the past.
But then, I had the ever familiar sensation of Déjà vu a few days ago. We were in an EMI/EMC familiarity lecture conducted by a colleague in a training room. The design of the training room is not much unlike the design of present day JEE coaching classes in Mumbai – small, with slightly uncomfortable seats. And during this training, we were shown an image of a EMI/EMC testing room which triggered the déjà vu. I felt as if I had undergone this training before, and knew the topic pretty well. I could even feel the déjà vu persisting for the next few moments. But then, on careful reconsideration, I recalled from every bit of past experience, that I have never been in any session involving EMI, and I sure as hell don’t dream about it either.
What had actually happened was I had seen the photo of the EMI testing equipment a while back, and I had been in the coaching environment for two years in my past life. In such a situation, probably the image of the tester got registered in my subconscious mind and I did not pay much attention to it. I probably saw it, and forgot it. But, when it came back again in that environment, it struck as if I’d done it before!
Hence, Déjà vu can probably be explained as a juxtaposition of past, but distinctly time and space varied content and the environment, tickling the subconscious mind and forcing the conscious one to correlate as to where this event has occurred before, and the subconscious mind overpowering the conscious to believe that this event has happened before. If the conscious mind is strong enough in such situations, Déjà vu can probably never occur. What follows in the subsequent scenes is that the conscious mind now completely believes that the event has happened before and tries, in vain, to figure out when, since the event has never happened. Of course, all of this might be non-sense, but this is my 2 cents worth of thoughts.
Comments
"Space-time is a curved surface. You feel Deja Vu during an event because you have already seen the event happen some time before when it got reflected on this curved surface"
:D :D
--"The human mind is trained to correlate...The child first relates to its family, its surroundings and its possessions. As the child grows older, it recognizes experiences - trying to enjoy the good ones and avoid the bad ones."
From a behavioral perspective (forgive me, I'm not an expert, just a studying graduate student), the idea of "correlating" that you describe could be understood as the environment of a child coming under stimulus control of operant behavior, and the operant contingencies that follow. A simple way to understand it can come from the ABC model of operant conditioning, which is often used in introductory courses. An antecedent (A) sets the occasion for behavior (B) to occur, and behavior is followed by a consequence (C). This consequence serves the function of either increasing or decreasing the future probability of that behavior being performed in that particular antecedent setting.
So, You have two people that a child interacts with: Lucy and Sarah. Lucy smiles at you whenever you pass her in the lunch room, and you smile back, leading to a great conversation. In the future, whenever you see Lucy (A), if you smile more often (B) than you did in the past, then the consequence of that event (conversation with Lucy) could be interpreted as positively reinforcing. However, let's say you smile at Sarah in the lunch room, and she yells at you, and in the future, whenever you see Sarah, you don't smile at her, then Sarah's yelling could be interpreted as being positively punishing.
--"The subconscious mind plays an important role in assimilating these little encounters as a vital part of one’s personality."
From a behavioral perspective, we do not accept the notion of a "mind", or of a "personality". These are outside the realm of experimental analysis, and do nothing to further science. A "mind" doesn't exist in any dimension of time and space. It causes problems when we use the "mind" as an explanation for events in the physical world, since it cannot be studied, or even proven to exist.
For "personality", this topic causes problems because of the explanatory function personality often serves. For example, you might say that your roommate is lazy because they don't go to class. Later, when asked why your roommate never goes to class, you might offer the explanation that they are lazy. This creates a circular logic, and is not helpful in scientific analysis of why people behave the way they do. Instead, I would look at the interaction of your roommate's behavior with his environment, and look for external sources of control.
As a side note, thoughts are considered to be internal behaviors. While they are behavior, we choose to not include them in our experimental analysis of behavior because they are not able to be directly measured and studied by anyone other than the person having them.
--"Sigmund Freud calls "the uncanny"."
Sigmund Freud did a lot of cocaine, and liked to describe the "mind" in terms of the "id", "ego", and "superego", whatever those are. Psychoanalysis (his branch of Psychology) is often looked down upon by most other branches of Psychology (Cognitive, Developmental, Social, etc.) We don't agree on much, but we often agree to ignore Freud's theories.
--"What had actually happened was I had seen the photo of the EMI testing equipment a while back, and I had been in the coaching environment for two years in my past life. In such a situation, probably the image of the tester got registered in my subconscious mind and I did not pay much attention to it. I probably saw it, and forgot it. But, when it came back again in that environment, it struck as if I’d done it before!".
I would explain this as complex stimulus control (or antecedent control) of "memory". This would take a while to explain, so I'll leave it at that for now.
I think your thoughts on this subject are very interesting, and are quite reflective of the general population's view on psychological processes (although I think you gave it more thought than the average person).