Deja Vu

I had deja vu yesterday. I've had deja vu before, but this was especially vivid. I volunteered at a triathlon, and there was a point where Mom asked me to pick up something on the track. I got up, put it in the trash and washed my hands with ice from the cooler. Then, I sat down next to A and she put a cold water bottle on my leg. I'd seen that moment before. I actually remember it, I was laying on my bed and daydreaming. This vision hit me, and it felt so real. I knew it wasn't a memory. It was a flash-forward. Super weird.
As many people may know, time has a direction. It runs one way, and physics says it is impossible to change. This makes deja vu impossible, according to the laws of physics, and those govern everything, right? I don't know. This is not fitting into my worldview. Wikipedia?! (What I wouldn't give for an interrobang!)

Definition: Déjà vu, literally "already seen", is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced, has already been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not.

Explanations: Memory: Research has associated déjà vu experiences with good memory function. The similarity between a déjà-vu-eliciting stimulus and an existing, but different, memory trace may lead to the sensation. Thus, encountering something which evokes the implicit associations of an experience or sensation that cannot be remembered may lead to déjà vu. In an effort to experimentally reproduce the sensation, Banister and Zangwill (1941) used hypnosis to give participants posthypnotic amnesia for material they had already seen. When this was later re-encountered, the restricted activation caused thereafter by the posthypnotic amnesia resulted in three of the 10 participants reporting what the authors termed "paramnesias".

Explanations: Dreams: One theory of déjà vu attributes the feeling of having previously seen or experienced something to having dreamt about a similar situation or place, and forgetting about it until one seems to be mysteriously reminded of the situation or the place while awake.

Links with Mental Disorders: Early researchers tried to establish a link between déjà vu and mental disorders such as anxiety, dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia but failed to find correlations of any diagnostic value. There does not seem to be a special association between déjà vu and schizophrenia.

The strongest pathological association of déjà vu is with temporal lobe epilepsy.This correlation has led some researchers to speculate that the experience of déjà vu is possibly a neurological anomaly related to improper electrical discharge in the brain. As most people suffer a mild (i.e. non-pathological) epileptic episode regularly (e.g. a hypnagogic jerk, the sudden "jolt" that frequently, but not always, occurs just prior to falling asleep), it is conjectured that a similar (mild) neurological aberration occurs in the experience of déjà vu, resulting in an erroneous sensation of memory. Scientists have even looked into genetics when considering déjà vu. Although there is not currently a gene associated with déjà vu, the LGII gene on chromosome 10 is being studied for a possible link.

Very interesting, very, very interesting. In summary, I'm not crazy, but scientists believe that deja vu is related to fuzzy connections in the brain. This means that it doesn't conflict with physics! Which is good. I'm just going to take my not-very-crazy self off to the kitchen. I want food.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chorus of the Day!

when everything, everything, everything you

touch turns to gold, gold, gold

everything, everything, everything you touch

turns to gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold

Last Chorus of the Day:
Violet Hill by Coldplay

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
La! ~SCP