
Déjà vu so extreme that I can’t tell what’s real - daddy_drank
https://mosaicscience.com/story/my-deja-vu-so-extreme-i-cant-tell-whats-real-any-more
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04b03
I once had this feeling while being stoned. It was maybe my fourth or fifth
time smoking marijuana. For a good two or three hours, every moment I
experienced, every conversation I had, I had the feeling that I've lived
through it before. A constant Deja Vu.

I knew I was stoned, but it still freaked me out. After talking to my friends
about this (while still being high), I was able to enjoy and explore it. I
asked my friends some questions to which I didn't knew the answer. Still, when
they answered me, I _knew_ with great certainty that "I've heard this before".
My friends came up with all sorts of fun experiments to further explore my
state.

I later read that this feeling (i.e. a normal Deja Vu) presumably is caused by
the brain storing information immediately into long term memory, instead of
keeping it in short term memory first. When the information is in long term
memory while you are still experiencing it, you get the feeling that you've
experienced it before.

Scratching the surface of how my own brain works (and can be rewired), was
extremely profound and quite unsettling. I stopped smoking since.

~~~
Ductapemaster
I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For
example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend
or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again
to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before
or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't
even remember the dream and I have the same feeling. I usually catch myself
while telling them whatever I am sharing, and ask "Have I told you this
before? No? Ok...". It's supremely weird, and I've just learned to either
ignore it or catch myself.

Also, with the same frequency, can't distinguish if something (realistic)
actually has happened to me or if it was in a dream. Something as simple, for
example, as going to the beach and playing volleyball with my friends. I will
catch myself going through a memory of something, only to realize it actually
was from a dream. The memory is as real as any others I have - vivid detail,
feelings attached to it, etc. I have to think back on what I've done that week
to see if it actually happened or not.

Observing the inner workings of memory and the brain as symptoms is one of the
oddest things in life, in my opinion. I've learned not to be scared of it and
instead enjoy it as part of the human experience!

~~~
OscarCunningham
There's a hypothesis that this is why we (normally) forget our dreams; it
prevents us from getting confused about what's real.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
My hypothesis is that dreams don't actually happen as we sleep, just that the
conscious state "arrives" in the brain before the cleaning/storing processes
have completed. The brain then creates a memory to explain what's hanging
around from the clean-up. So the dream happens during waking, the brain
inventing new parts as we try and recall the dream so that the dream state can
be established from a logical timeline.

Analogy: a magical secretary is tidying your desk and files. They pull out
some files to re-order, put some files you were working on away, lift it
pages/images to see where those files should go, etc.. You interrupt them and
they scuttle away. You don't believe in magical secretaries so you quickly
(and inconsistently) imagine that you were working on the files that were out
making a story that explains how those files came to be there, in that
arrangement.

Presumably if scanning techniques can show images of what we see in dreams
that provides some evidence against this hypothesis, however it doesn't defeat
it unless it shows we _experience_ those images through the period when we
suppose we're dreaming.

Evidence that refutes this idea gladly considered.

~~~
stonesixone
If you've ever experienced lucid dreaming, I believe your hypothesis can be
considered refuted _while_ you are in a lucid dream (for the same reason that
the phrase "I think therefore I am" carries any weight). After the fact
though, it doesn't seem possible to distinguish between a real memory of a
lucid dream and your idea of a created memory of a lucid dream.

Another possible argument against is if a partner next to you observes you
tossing and turning and possibly speaking in your sleep over time, and then
you wake up and describe a dream you were experiencing consistent with what
they saw. How would you explain the tossing and turning and talking in one's
sleep in your hypothesis?

~~~
gpderetta
People have been able to communicate to the outside when lucid dreaming (via
eye movement mostly), during controlled experiments.

So at the very least lucid dreams happen in 'real time'.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I've not heard of this phenomenon, communicating with a person in a dream
state: could you cite it?

People saying things could be like the images appearing in the visual cortex
that I tried to address in brief. They can appear, be processed, provide
external output and such without necessarily being part of a dream experience
happening at that time.

Back to my analogy, the magic secretary plays back some sound files, which
maybe someone in a different office hears and attributes to you being present,
but which you aren't "there" to experience. When you start to wake to
consciousness you see the files and infer you were working on them, your
partner mentions utterances consistent with one file and your brain meshes
that in to part of the "story" it is writing of the dream experience ( _a la_
deja-vu).

~~~
gpderetta
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24171230](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24171230)

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orthoganol
I experience intense moments of deja vu probably 2-3 times a year. I'm 90%
sure it's connected to dreams for me, because even on one occasion, waking up,
I made the mental note "remember this intensely specific dream, and see if you
get deja vu", and I actually did, in the middle of a presentation. I'm
guessing it's because when dreaming my mind goes through a vast volume of
possible scenarios, so statistically I'm bound to encounter something that
it's internally 'rehearsed.' Maybe I sleep too much though, perils of
freelancing.

~~~
imaginenore
Unless you write it down, it could simply be your brain fooling itself,
pretending you took a mental note. I had the exact same hypothesis, and so I
started writing down the details of my hyper-real dreams. So far none of it
came back in the déjà vu form.

In fact, if it turned to be real, it would have far reaching consequences on
the nature of reality.

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loader
Check out this past thread about theories on the potential connections between
Déjà vu and short and long term memory.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14075757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14075757)

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Scene_Cast2
I've had recursive deja-vu. In them, I remember having a deja-vu (about a
deja-vu about a deja-vu ...) in the exact same circumstances. During those, I
typically try to do something different than last time, only then
"remembering" that I've already tried it in the N-1st layer...

~~~
firethief
I get it too. We have to break the loop somehow.

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Lambdanaut
My wife gets a kind of de ja vu.

She's had a peculiar persistent condition ever since taking a very large dose
of lsd with me.

On a near-nightly basis for the last two years her dreams have been entirely
different in quality to before her trip.

Prior to the trip she always dreampt in third person, as if watching a story
unfold. Now she often has first person dreams.

These first person dreams are so much more real to her than her prior dreams.
Indistinguishable from reality.

She often will learn things in the dreams that she doesnt know in real life.

When she woke up from the time she was dreaming as an autistic Vietnemese man
during the Vietnam War and started talking Vietnemese to me, that was weird.
Pulling out Google translate and having it accurately translate.

Or when she mentioned acute details of a person that neither of us had met
before, but soon would be introduced to by a mutual acquaintance of ours. She
knew this person because she had a dream where she was that person. The girl
was described as chubby with dark hair and had a missing ring finger since
birth, as well as being a mutual acquaintance of the friend who would
introduce us.

It would take me days of writing to capture the adventures we've been on since
this strange phenomenon began. Too many of her "alternate lives" for lack of a
better word. And to be honest neither of us talk about it much. Even our
closest friends just know the vague superficiality of it. Who would believe
us? Most would be incredulous or write us off as nuts. The last place I'd
expect this comment to meet welcoming eyes is a place like HN, and for good
reason. There's no evidence of this nonsense outside of anecdotes. My wife
certainly can't control her dreams to do a repeatable experiment. However now
that I mention that, I wonder what lucid dreaming could be like for her.

Neither of us believed in psychic phenomenon before this, but now we just sort
of accept that there are greater mysteries than the narrow lens of materialism
is now focused on.

We can't explain these occurrences.

~~~
ham
I've had the sensation of deja vu on and off (particularly when tired) over
the past 10 years. This began after experimenting with lsd in my early
twenties and has sort of tapered off since. On one of the first occasions
trying the drug I had a momentary (and vivid) recall of what felt like the
hundreds of times in my lifetime I had the sensation of deja vu. Sort of like
some circuit for deja vu related memories was activated. For many of the
memories, I had remembered them previously as being about the sensation of
deja vu (so in one sense I could at least validate some of them were correct
when recalled agian). There were many others I couldn't be sure were actual
fragments of my past that were being recalled for the first time. Fleeting.

The persistence of the sensation has broken over the years. Only when
jetlagged or exhausted will the deja vu filter reappear.

Another thing I've noticed is that if I'm super tired - that type of tired
when you can fall asleep in 10 seconds - is that one half of me will fall
asleep faster than the other. If I'm woken in those few seconds I awaken with
what feels like two sets of memories for those few seconds that goes with a
strong sense of deja vu.

* I've been to doctor and discussed this. Had MRI & EEG (nothing unusual), and removed a lot of stress my life combined with a good diet and exercise. I've had little in the way of such strange experiences in a long while except a little deja vu every now and again.

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nv-vn
One of the weirdest things about Deja Vu is that (in its most intense form) it
can often seemingly create future memories. My first experience with Deja Vu
that I can remember involved what I could only describe as predicting the
future. While the events I "predicted" didn't end up happening, it felt as
though I knew exactly what "path" I was on and what would happen next. It's a
very scary feeling that makes it seem as if you've been sent back in time or
you are presently dreaming.

~~~
rajathagasthya
My deja vu situations are usually not pleasant and I feel exactly the same way
as you do!

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pmoriarty
_" It was a pleasant and extremely vivid recollection. The problem was that it
never actually happened. What I was experiencing was an extreme form of a very
common mental illusion: déjà vu."_

It's possible that he dreamed this, forgot his dream, and then remembered it,
causing the feeling of having been there before. He had been there before, in
his dreams.

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arikr
Sounds like derealization: "a feeling that one's surroundings are not real,
especially as a symptom of mental disturbance."

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roryisok
I've been having an experience very similar to deja vu, but not quite the
same. I've developed some kind of accidental mental hack where reading nursery
rhymes to my kids makes me fall asleep. I could be wide awake but I'll
literally open page one of a book and yawn immediately. My wife thinks this is
hilarious.

As I'm just reaching the edge of losing consciousness, my brain starts to
manufacture false memories about whatever nursery rhyme I'm reading. For
example if I'm reading "sing a song of sixpence" my brain will say "ah yes, I
remember this one, the king and the maid are having an affair, and the queen
learns about it and has her killed". Then I'll shake off sleep and realise
that it was a false memory

It's an odd feeling.

Similarly, sometimes when drifting off I'll find myself at the end of a train
of thought which _I did not have_. I don't know how else to describe it. It's
like my subconscious was having a train of thought and i jumped in and claimed
it.

~~~
cko
I've had many similar experiences right before falling asleep as well, though
I wouldn't have known to describe it as well as you have, but yes, I'd be mid-
thought in something and forget the thoughts leading up to that one.

