Déjà Vus

I’ve felt déjà vus many times in my life. I wouldn’t say I get it a lot, (maybe a dozen times in my life), but judging from how déjà vus is portrayed in movies and TV, I guess I get it more than script writers or directors or producers. Maybe they’ve never felt it. Or maybe I’m feeling something else, and I’m misusing the term?

In movies and TV, déjà vus is identified when something happens again. I mean, actually happens again. Like in The Matrix, when Neo sees the cat walk past the doorway, and then he sees the cat walk past the doorway again. <Keanu Reeves>”Whoa, déjà vus.”</Keanu Reeves>

That’s not how I’ve felt déjà vus. My déjà vus isn’t actually seeing something happen again. It’s almost totally just a feeling of having experienced something before. Being a feeling, I don’t think it could be accurately portrayed in any kind of visual medium, like movies or TV.

Yes, I know that many people call, “déjà vus” when something actually does happen again — like when they see a second person trip over a cord stretched across the floor in a high-traffic area. But that’s just using the term to be funny. Right? Like saying, “I read your mind,” when you predict what someone else is going to say. You didn’t really read their mind like a psychic. Right?

I’ve walked into a room for the first time ever and had the gut-level feeling that I’ve walked into that room before. The feeling only lasts for a few moments, and it’s not a memory. It’s a weird sensation. I remember the first time I ever felt it: I was at the home of a friend of my parents, (I was probably 11-12-13 years old), and I was standing in the kitchen looking out into the living room. Someone walked across my field of vision, and the sensation struck — it was like momentary blip in reality. It wasn’t disorienting, or disturbing. It was just a sensation of, “this moment — everything around me — has happened before.” And then the feeling was gone.

Have you ever felt real déjà vus? Is my description what you felt? Or am I the one who is weird?

Bullgrit