Deja Vu

I have a slew of strange little beliefs with seemingly little or no origin. Did I read it somewhere, did I piece it together or did I make it up? I can't be sure.

One of these beliefs involves the true nature of the phenomenon known as deja vu, translating literally to "seen before".

"We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!"

-Charles Dickens, Personal History of David Copperfield.

The scientific cats in their scientific coats explain deja vu as "an anomaly of memory" - it's your brain playing tricks on you, didn't you know?

"Hmm," I say. "Maybe."

But what kind of new age quack would I be if I didn't have an alternate theory?

Here goes..


Before we're born, we make a little road map of where we'd like to get to. We mark off the rest stops, the main attractions and we make notes about the people who we'll meet up with at various stops and we highlight the twists and turns. Only, because life on the other side is much more advanced than life here we don't have to write it all down, instead we can see it. I don't know if we see it in our minds' eye or if there's some kind of universal jumbotron - but we 'see' the journey we're about to make, before we make it.

It's like Tiger Woods 'seeing' his swing through before he steps up to the tee.

Okay, so we're all visualized and ready to go. We're born. And not everything will happen the way we 'saw it' - some of us might downright veer off, maybe take the wrong highway. But most of us just take little detours from the main path, I imagine.

Okay so back to "deja vu" - are you starting to see where I'm taking you with this theory? I imagine a "deja vu" to be exactly that - it's a moment in time you've already seen before, back when you were visualizing your road trip. Your memory isn't playing tricks on you - it's remembering something from a time before you were born into who you are now.

So whenever I catch myself in a deja vu moment, I take note of who I'm with, what's happening in my life at the moment and I relax knowing that whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm on the right track. Even if it's an insignificant pit stop. I'm where I need to be.

It's possible that it's a ridiculous theory - but it rings true for me. And might for you. See what you think next time you have a deja vu.