Published by deborah.woehr on 18 Aug 2006 at 07:06 am
A Strong Case of Deja Vu
I’ve experienced episodes of deja vu all my life. Most of them involved real life conversations or scenes that struck a strong chord of familiarity in me. “Hey, I’ve had that conversation before,” I would think whenever this happened. The strongest one occurred in 1987, when I went to the Gold Country with my then boyfriend.
We had been driving all morning and decided to stop at a Dairy Queen for lunch. As soon as his family and I piled out of the car, I spotted this bright red building on the corner diagonally across from the restaurant.
I looked at the building (which I think used to be a hotel) and its surroundings. Even though I’d never been to that area before in my life, I knew that I had not only been there but inside that old building. That doesn’t make sense, I know.
The feeling was so strong and the memory(?) so vivid (down to the color of the sky and the trees) that I wanted to go inside that building and take a look around. But I couldn’t. I didn’t tell my ex or his family what I’d experienced because I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.
We went panning for gold that day, and then we went home. I wished that I had paid attention to the route because I’d like to go back there and see if that feeling comes up again. That’s a lost opportunity now. Maybe I’ll stumble upon that area again someday.
What about you? Do you experience deja vu from time to time?
Lee Pletzers on 19 Aug 2006 at 4:54 am #
I often get tis and it makes one think that life is already planned out, every thought we have, every action we take, it’s all ready been written.
Lee Pletzers on 19 Aug 2006 at 4:57 am #
Another thought, deja vu could very well be an alternate reality and in that reality you entered the hotel, giving you the sense you’d been there (inside even) before.
In an alternate reality, the car broke down and you all stayed in the hotel for the night and had the car fixed the next day.
fred charles on 19 Aug 2006 at 5:40 am #
I don’t really experience Deja Vu too often. I can’t even remember the last time it happened to me.
Too bad you never got back to that location.
Marti on 19 Aug 2006 at 3:25 pm #
Gee, I’m having it right now - LOL
Seriously, I had never been to California until we moved there for husband’s job transfer about 25 years ago. We took a day trip to explore the foothills area around Sutter’s Mill where the big gold strike brought thousands of miners in 1849. We were not on any kind of pre-planned route, just free-form touristing. We wandered around and got lost, and I started telling husband to just go another mile or so to a giant tree and then take a right. And sure enough, that got us back into town. I had the strangest sensation of “seeing” the landscape in my mind. I wonder if we knew each other in a former life up there?
deborah.woehr on 19 Aug 2006 at 6:08 pm #
Lee: I’ve often wondered the same thing . . . about our lives being preplanned. I like your hypothesis about deja vu and alternate reality. Could be possible.
Fred: Yeah, I wish I had been paying attention at the time. That ADD always strikes at the most inconvenient times.
Marti: LOL! That’s possible. This world is so small, and there are too many coincidences.
michaelm on 20 Aug 2006 at 4:06 am #
Even though I’d never been to that area before in my life, I knew that I had not only been there but inside that old building. That doesn’t make sense, I know.
It makes perfect sense. It happens to me on occasion and it always creeps me out a bit.
I think the soul goes AWOL when we sleep and dream at night. God knows where it goes…
~m
deborah.woehr on 21 Aug 2006 at 9:15 am #
That is creepy, yet exhilirating at the same time.