Our brains are looking for associations all the time. Déjà vu is interesting, because it points to a brain mechanism that helps you interpret what you are doing. When you are having a memory, you have the sensation of recollection. It feels like having a memory, and doesn't feel like daydreaming or current reality. Déjà vu is a fault in a kind of cognitive process that is going on in the background all the time. When it goes wrong, it's very striking. At the extreme, patients with permanent déjà vu - dubbed déjà vecu, for already experienced - actually make up stories to make sense of it (New Scientist, 7 October 2006, p 32). While déjà vu is starting to divulge some of its secrets, there is still a long way to go before we understand how we actually decide what is real, imagined, dreamed or experienced, and how these various tags lead to such different conscious experiences. One anecdotal finding is that people who think a lot about déjà vu are more prone to it. I had déjà vu about reading about déjà vu, and researchers have had déjà vu about having déjà vu. It certainly retains mystery enough to justify further study. Dejà vu is one of weirdest brain experiences that normal people have. About 10 per cent of people claim never to have experienced déjà vu, while some individuals report having it regularly.
Children first get it at around age 8 or 9, suggesting that a degree of cognitive maturity is required. Déjà vu happens less as you get older and more when you are tired, anxious or stressed. It is particularly prevalent in people with certain conditions known to produce problems in time perception, such as schizophrenia and epilepsy. Although there is no gene for déjà vu, it is possible that certain versions of genes associated with epilepsy make some of us more prone to it. Just reading this post could give you déjà vu. On 26 Mar, 00:46, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > I was thinking I'd never seen a blue tree, but come to think of it we > have two eucalyptus in the back garden. A consensus amongst nodding > donkeys is no doubt real. > > On 26 Mar, 00:38, Lonlaz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I think 'Kinda' was an understatement, sounded pretty darn blue to me. > > > On Mar 25, 6:35 pm, Slip Disc <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Or Kind of Blue..............http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEPFH- > > > gz3wE > > > > On Mar 25, 6:03 pm, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > ...or as a Picasso period. > > > > > [ Attached Message ]From:Slip Disc <[email protected]>To:"\"Minds Eye\"" > > > > <[email protected]>Date:Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:38:19 -0700 > > > > (PDT)Local:Wed, Mar 25 2009 5:38 pmSubject:[Mind's Eye] Re: Does Blue > > > > Exist? > > > > > It exists as sadness! > > > > > On Mar 25, 4:23 pm, Lonlaz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Inspired by the perhaps strange idea of asking if something exists or > > > > > not. I ask, does anything really exist at all? Does Blue exist, for > > > > > example? > > > > > > Now some of us would say that the very thought of being able to refer > > > > > to something by a name would be common sense proof that it exists. So > > > > > does a general concesus mean that something exists? What about the > > > > > color blind? > > > > > > Now someone may say, of course there is a color Blue! It can be > > > > > measured! Blue is photons oscillilating at 450 nm. But another might > > > > > say, that is a paltry existence, a bunch of transient particles > > > > > without mass waving about, only to be snuffed out of existance by a > > > > > retina. And like the tree that fell in the forest, if the wavy > > > > > particles don't hit a retina, are they still Blue? > > > > > > Muddling the question further, there are those that dispute Blue is a > > > > > color at all. These 'Synthenasist' claim Blue is a taste, a sound, or > > > > > perhaps even a feeling. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
