Precognition.

Any of you ever had those "déjà vu" moments, where you seem to feel as though an event is familiar, when it should not be familiar at all?

Every so often, I get hit with these moments of déjà vu, and each time I feel like I already have seen bits of what is happening in a dream quite a while prior to the event.  The main reason why I bring this up, is that I had one of these small moments of clarity while browsing the forums.  Unfortunately, in this case, I cannot verify my "precognitive dream," but I have had many of these experiences before, so I don't think I'm crazy.

I've come to wonder if there are any other people here who seem to have these "precognitive" dreams?  And those of you who either have experienced them, or at least feel that something like this is possible, what sorts of theories or explanations do you think could account for this phenomenon?

My personal thoughts are that it ties into the "string" theory of time, which I'm sure most of you are familiar with.  I don't know the whole idea behind it, but the gist of it is that there are many alternate "realities," or "worldlines" all parallel and/or splitting off of each other; the closer two worldlines are, the more similar, and of course the further away two worldlines are, the more divergence.

During sleep, brain activity goes nuts.  Perhaps it is possible for certain elements (such as "brain waves") to pass or travel (for lack of better terms) whatever barriers there are between worldlines, effectively allowing you to "see" into the other realities.  Of course, the direction that these "waves" travel would change the "time" that they "communicate" with, allowing you to effectively see into the "future" (or, more accurately, the future of a parallel worldline), and of course see things in the past.

Hell, for all we know, dreams could merely be just the experiences of worldlines that are extremely divergent.  They could be the past or future (or likely even present!) of these far away worldlines, and due to the chaotic nature of the brain activity while sleeping, without any kind of "training," there's not really any way to focus on a specific worldline or point in time of one of those worldlines.

I don't know, just one of the things that I think about a lot.  I personally think it could be possible, but I of course lack any kind of definitive proof.  I just thought I'd share the idea with you folks--some brain food, if you will.

(By the way, I apologize for all the words in quotes.  I don't really have any kind of "specialized" words for something like this, so I just threw in some common ones to get the idea across)

i have them too, meh normally if you think back hard enough you remember that u may have dreamt such a thing...and this may be because u were thinking of it as u were sleeping, and completely coincidental...or it could be scientific...i don't think we'll ever know

I developed a "theory" about deja vu when I was in high school.  If this thread is still active later on I'll post my idea.  But right now I'm going to bed.

I feel like this topic deserves to be in Other Alternative Science.  It is the right kind of cool.

So, to answer your question, yes, I have them often.  I also often have "recursive events", where not only do I remember the experience, but I also remember the experience of deja vu during the experience.

I occassionally am unable to determine whether an event I am currently remembering (and currently not experiencing; not deja vu) is real or is something I dreamt.

A theory I've heard about deja vu is that your memory is storing and recalling the current situation faster than usual, so you get the feeling that you are remembering the present.  Perception of "now" is a fairly nontrivial topic in cognitive science; my personal belief is that you don't really perceive now, but that you store and recall the very recent past.  Deja vu, then, is just an error in how recent the recalled past is.

Lastly I'd like to mentioned falsified memories.  It is known that the brain is quite good at making stuff up.  For example, if you are currently staring at your computer screen, you probably think you can see the rest of the room as well -- you can't.  Your brain is making it up.  I believe that when we remember things, we really remember only the most general points, and our brains make up the finer details from scratch on an as-needed basis.  Dreams are very much like this -- I know that I often remember only parts of them, but then I suddenly find myself remembering more as I'm thinking about it.  How do I know I'm really remembering that?  How do I know my brain isn't just telling me that I remember it?

Very current and controversial issues in cognitive science!

Perception of "now" is a fairly nontrivial topic in cognitive science; my personal belief is that you don't really perceive now

"Now" is the only thing that can be perceived.  Everything else is only remembered.

A theory I've heard about deja vu is that your memory is storing and recalling the current situation faster than usual, so you get the feeling that you are remembering the present.  Perception of "now" is a fairly nontrivial topic in cognitive science; my personal belief is that you don't really perceive now, but that you store and recall the very recent past.  Deja vu, then, is just an error in how recent the recalled past is.

Lastly I'd like to mentioned falsified memories.  It is known that the brain is quite good at making stuff up.  For example, if you are currently staring at your computer screen, you probably think you can see the rest of the room as well -- you can't.  Your brain is making it up.  I believe that when we remember things, we really remember only the most general points, and our brains make up the finer details from scratch on an as-needed basis.  Dreams are very much like this -- I know that I often remember only parts of them, but then I suddenly find myself remembering more as I'm thinking about it.  How do I know I'm really remembering that?  How do I know my brain isn't just telling me that I remember it?

I like my tie in to the string theory better.  

I didn't really intend for this thread to really be hard science, by the way.  Mostly just some imaginative crap to get those thought processes firing.

I've thought about dreams being a possible tie-in to parallel universes before.  That wouldn't really explain lucid dreaming, though.

Taking control of someone else in another reality?  Could explain things like multiple personality disorder!  XD

I have those moments often, but heres the one that messed with my head, it was back in middle school.  I dreamt I was telling someone that her brother was going to beat the shit out of me for what I was doing, I woke up, didn't remember the dream, then when I was I was talking to the girl, I remembered the dream, all the sudden, a few minutes later, the situation came up, and I said it, on cue.  That is why I think there is something more to it.

Here's an abbreviated version of the idea I came up with in high school about deja vu:

We are completely predestined by some sort of omniscient and omnipotent (to us at least) being.  Every event that is ever going to happen in our life is already known in our minds--down to the very last detail.  However, by virtue of the nature of the mind, the information comes to us at a certain time.  When the information bridges the gap into our consciousness a second or two prior to our having perceived it, we tend to think that it has happened to us before.

That's the general gist of it.  If necessary, I'll expand on this idea later today to explain further (because I know with the version I just gave we'll have some problems).  Good conversation.

I have those moments often, but heres the one that messed with my head, it was back in middle school.  I dreamt I was telling someone that her brother was going to beat the shit out of me for what I was doing, I woke up, didn't remember the dream, then when I was I was talking to the girl, I remembered the dream, all the sudden, a few minutes later, the situation came up, and I said it, on cue.  That is why I think there is something more to it.

I've never had one that close to the time it happens.  Most of the time, my alleged precognitive dreams are months, if not years in advance of the event.

The one I will always remember most, is I had a dream at one point while I was living in Georgia, about being in a school, surrounded by a bunch of people I had never met.  In the dream, a "friend" asks me something, and I reply "I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up," and then I step outside the classroom and around the corner to see my mom coming in the doors.

Almost a year later, I found myself in that familiar situation; in a school that I hadn't ever seen prior to my dream, with people I hadn't met prior to that dream.  But there it was.  My friend Derek asks me something, I reply, and step outside, to see my mother coming in to pick me up for a doctor's appointment.

I had experiences like that before, but that was the first time I really considered the possibility of having some sort of precognitive ability.  Another one I remember pretty vividly was "predicting" my grandparents in Georgia moving away, which was another strange occurance.

The bits from dreams that occur tend to only be small portions of the dream, and then go of into other tangents that obviously dont' happen.  But for those small moments of clarity, I feel so strange.

I have considered the possibility that the "dreams" are merely falsified memories, and some sort of "mind rewind" phenomenon cues the false memories to occur, though.  Which sounds reasonable, but I have a feeling that if I had kept a dream journal my whole life, I could provide plenty of evidence (at least to myself) that I do indeed experience some sort of precognition.  Unfortunately, I cannot be arsed to.

I do know of one event that for the life of me, I cannot remember if it truly happened, or was a dream.  When I was learning to ride a bike, I did so by myself, and was trying to race against a couple other kids in the neighborhood (this was on Base housing on Hill AFB in Utah).  In this memory, however, I can recall running over a baby, which at times I've wondered if that actually had happened.  I can seem to remember seeing the child again at a later time, with oxygen and various "casts" to try to mend the infant's broken bones.

It's very, very frightening thinking about this memory, not knowing if it was real or a dream.  It is, however, something that has haunted me for a very long time.  

Well, I hold a totally naturalistic viewpoint, so I think it's likely nothing more than a minor brain fart. That said, there's no reason why it can't have a much more convoluted (if still natural) explanation; perhaps the vibrational qualities of cosmic strings allow the transmission of future data as brainwaves? I'm a firm believer in the idea that everything in the universe is derived from basic 'laws' of physics, but I have no problem with those most basic laws being much deeper than the ones we currently know. So, paranormal phenomena would be governed by the same laws that, at a fundamental level, govern falling objects.

digital, from the experiences you're talking about put into the model I've developed, it sounds like the information is just coming to your consciousness more than a second or two earlier (instead, months and years earlier).  I would probably argue that your consciousness can decipher between the "real" event and the "dreamt" event at the time of it's occurrence.  If you were somehow able to exploit your ability to come to this information prior to the events occurring, you would essentially be a fortuneteller.

you would essentially be a fortuneteller.

Shh!  Don't tell Rev. Phelps!

I like my tie in to the string theory better.  

You may be taking string theory (it's not even technically a theory currently) too seriously.

...imaginative crap...

Exactly.  

So, to answer your question, yes, I have them often.  I also often have "recursive events", where not only do I remember the experience, but I also remember the experience of deja vu during the experience.
*snip*
Very current and controversial issues in cognitive science!

Interesting. I'm extremely dubious of anyone claiming to experience "precognition", but trying to understand the cognitive causes behind deja-vu or the illusion of precognition is very intriguing topic.

There is, in fact, already an accepted theory as to why it happens. I apologise for coming up with a rational explanation for deja vu, but its accepted that there is a perfectly rational explanation for it.

Basically, the brain is just a very complicated computer, it has paths of electrons that fill in for wires, for example.
When you experience an event, your brain first puts it into your short term memory, and then if its worthwhile, into your long term memory.
The deja vu occurs if your memory "Short Circuits" due to ranbom movement in the brain. The event will enter into your long term memory a fraction of a second before it enters into your  short term memory. This means you will feel like you "remember" the event when in fact you have just experienced it once.

There is, in fact, already an accepted theory as to why it happens. I apologise for coming up with a rational explanation for deja vu, but its accepted that there is a perfectly rational explanation for it.

Basically, the brain is just a very complicated computer, it has paths of electrons that fill in for wires, for example.
When you experience an event, your brain first puts it into your short term memory, and then if its worthwhile, into your long term memory.
The deja vu occurs if your memory "Short Circuits" due to ranbom movement in the brain. The event will enter into your long term memory a fraction of a second before it enters into your  short term memory. This means you will feel like you "remember" the event when in fact you have just experienced it once.

That might explain some of them, however I feel Digital has presented evidence indicating multiple types of Deja Vu occurences (in addition to your "accepted theory").

However I have had what I feel to be BOTH forms of Deja Vu explained in this thread.

Most of my experiences are most likely from the above quote, however I have had one or two that I could link to a dream that I had on a specific date a week or so prior to the event occuring.

I would suggest that you explore dreams as much as possible Digital. Work with what you have been given to work with is my motto.