Déjà Vu.

Déjà vu refers to the feeling that you have already experienced your present situation. While it is a fairly common experience for many others, for some strange reason, I have not had that kind of experiences other than just a few times.

The first time that I experienced déjà vu was way back in the mid seventies when I had gone to North Kerala on a business tour. I spent a night at a Dak Bungalow which was located on a cliff top adjacent to the Arabian Sea. One could not go down to the shore directly from there but one could hear the sound of waves crashing on the boulders strewn below the cliff. This was the background music to my experience. It was a moonlit night and my local Agent, our local Sales Representative and I were on the lawn having our evening pre dinner drinks when an elderly gentleman came up to me to enquire if I was interested in buying some real estate nearby. It occurred to me then that I had experienced this exactly same experience in exactly the same place before. I had however not been to the town ever before, at least, not in this life time. I mentioned this to my companions for the evening who in turn shared their experiences of déjà vu. Their stories were fascinating to me for the reason that I had none other to share with them.

The next time was a decade later when I visited the Amer Fort in Rajasthan on holiday. It was not restricted to just one experience however and during all the three occasions that I went there I experienced the feeling that I had been in the fort before with vague uneasy feelings of dread.  Perhaps in a previous birth I was a soldier defending the fort!

Other than these experiences, I have never experienced déjà vu as defined above. I have tried to understand the phenomenon through google search but am unable to come to any conclusions about my specific experiences. I have certainly had the attentional varieties which focus on attention. The basis of these theories is that a scene is briefly witnessed without full attention being given. Then, shortly after, the same scene is perceived again, but this time with full perception. The second perception matches the first and is accidentally assumed to be older than it truly is, thereby triggering déjà vu. It is like trying to unlock the front door mechanically and being distracted by some activity on the road and returning to unlock again when it occurs as though one had done this before.

On discussing this with some friends, I found that I could possibly get some information about the Rajasthan episodes from a Past Life Regression Counsellor. I haven’t however found the necessity to go to one. Not as yet anyway!

An interesting topic thought up by my co 2 on 1 Friday blogger Shackman. Please do go over to his blog and see what he has to say on the subject.