A recent observation

[edgitarra]

Hello guys, and a late Merry Christmas !

I would like to tell a story about one of my recent observations. Actually it is dated way eariler, but I it didn't become so often and never at my command. In the last two months I have been experiencing at my own wish, also with a bit of focus, what is called "jamais vu".

"Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for
the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before."

The reason I decided to post here is because in one way or another it really helps when one is having a hard time coping with anything. A sense of joy comes because you actually get to see things like a "baby", without labelling anything; objects around you can easily transfer deep emotional impressions, even a cup of coffee, or a cloud.
In the same time, whenever I experience this phenomenon my energy levels increase and also the creative abilities. The body becomes more fluid and aerodynamic. I want to mention that I am pretty sane, I've been meeting with a psychiatrist/psychologist :)

If anyone has experienced this feeling, I would be glad to hear from you!
Thank you
And Happy Holidays

 

[MusicMan]

Caesar's Greetings to you too edgitarra.
As for the 'jamais vu', (to me it translates as 'never seen') I have had similar incidents.
When I was 17 yrs old, I was walking along a street in Alice Springs when I heard the strains of music, it was the tune of 'Little Boy Lost' and I just had to stop outside the house where the music was coming from and listen. I had gone to 'The Alice' because my mother had organised some work during my University holidays for me on 'The Ghan', the train which travelled in those days from Port Pirie to Alice Springs. I was on my own and didn't know any one in the town, and it was a Sunday and everything was closed. It was a very poignant moment in my life, and I remember it vividly now, 50 years later.

 

[monotonic]

In some cases I think this is the result of an unusually complete forgetting. In other cases I think it is because our assumptions and way of seeing things has changed. Occasionally I have found myself going around in circles with things that I simply kept forgetting I had seen before. Some things are so profound you never forget them. That is, until you forget some of those things, and then you wonder how you could forget something so profound.

 

[MusicMan]

I must say it is peculiar how I can remember so vividly something that happened 50 years ago, but I walk into another room and for the life of me I can't remember why I went there!
To get back on topic, another thing that triggers the 'jamais vu' is odours. No specific examples, but sometimes a particular smell tells me 'I've smelled that before'.

 

[lainey]

In some cases I think this is the result of an unusually complete forgetting. In other cases I think it is because our assumptions and way of seeing things has changed. Occasionally I have found myself going around in circles with things that I simply kept forgetting I had seen before. Some things are so profound you never forget them. That is, until you forget some of those things, and then you wonder how you could forget something so profound.

This has happened to me so many times. I have re learned so many aha moments but couldn't for the life of me name one here. Sometimes the changes in being are so subtle and you learn things without even realizing at the time. It's not until you take stock and look back at how far you have come that you realize how different things are now.

I must say it is peculiar how I can remember so vividly something that happened 50 years ago, but I walk into another room and for the life of me I can't remember why I went there!
To get back on topic, another thing that triggers the 'jamais vu' is odours. No specific examples, but sometimes a particular smell tells me 'I've smelled that before'.

Haha, yes, then you have to go back to where you were in order to trigger the reason you were going again. Even if it has nothing to do with the room you came from. It's like the train of thought gets left behind in the first room.

 

[MusicMan]

It makes you wonder whether these are not 'karmic lessons' that we are 're-learning', and because we have 'recreated our universe', we have to go through 'the forgetting' again.
Hence 'jamais vu'.

Oh, and the version of 'Little Boy Lost' I referred to was that of Slim Dusty, not the other song by Johnny Ashcroft. I discovered the different songs when I was checking up on the lyrics.

 

[trendsetter37]

I'm not sure if this is an example of jamais vu or not but today when I got in the car something strange happened that made me pause.

I got in the drivers seat and looked down for my lighter only to find the upholstery pattern moving. It appeared as though it was moving towards me and then retracting at the same time.

Witnessing the movement was eerie to say the least!

Now, I have seen these seats a thousand times and that never happened but for some reason this time my brain didn't process the pattern in the way it usually does. Finally I had to look away and then back after maybe 30 seconds of being caught in this strange experience.

It turned out that the small colored rectangles woven into the black fabric gradually decreased in length (ever so slightly) and then increased subsequently in such a way that it illustrates an inside out sphere on a 2 dimensional surface. Well up until today I saw this as just some random patterns.

I guess my point is that even though I had seen the pattern in the seats plenty of times before, for some reason this time it was and appeared to be something totally different and consequently unrecognizable. It was strange but after reading your post I could understand how you must have felt in your experience of 'jamais vu'.

 

[lainey]

I'm not sure if this is an example of jamais vu or not but today when I got in the car something strange happened that made me pause.

I got in the drivers seat and looked down for my lighter only to find the upholstery pattern moving. It appeared as though it was moving towards me and then retracting at the same time.

Witnessing the movement was eerie to say the least!

Now, I have seen these seats a thousand times and that never happened but for some reason this time my brain didn't process the pattern in the way it usually does. Finally I had to look away and then back after maybe 30 seconds of being caught in this strange experience.

It turned out that the small colored rectangles woven into the black fabric gradually decreased in length (ever so slightly) and then increased subsequently in such a way that it illustrates an inside out sphere on a 2 dimensional surface. Well up until today I saw this as just some random patterns.

I guess my point is that even though I had seen the pattern in the seats plenty of times before, for some reason this time it was and appeared to be something totally different and consequently unrecognizable. It was strange but after reading your post I could understand how you must have felt in your experience of 'jamais vu'.

Like your awareness of the car seat had bumped up a notch perhaps?

 

[axj]

The 'jamais vu' may be a form of seeing things from another perspective. According to Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan, a slight movement or rotation of the 'assemblage point' will do that.

 

[monotonic]

Actually it sounds more like the opposite happened, he saw an optical illusion created by the pattern on the seat. He had to think about it to see through the illusion. If so then I would say he was in an open state of mind, which lead him to notice an illusion, and then see through it. States of mind such as this are usually hard to control or change because they reflect deeply subconscious attitudes. That's what it seems like to me anyway.

 

[axj]

Actually it sounds more like the opposite happened, he saw an optical illusion created by the pattern on the seat. He had to think about it to see through the illusion. If so then I would say he was in an open state of mind, which lead him to notice an illusion, and then see through it. States of mind such as this are usually hard to control or change because they reflect deeply subconscious attitudes. That's what it seems like to me anyway.

I was talking about the phenomenon of "jamais vu" in general, which has been described as:

"Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for
the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before."

If it was just an illusion then it is not a true "jamais vu", I think.

 

[edgitarra]

When it happens that I do it on purpose, I whether look at the sky, or simply try to feel the "roundness" and the "wholeness" of the planet. I then enter in this state where I realize I am so small, and then I experience the so called jamais vu.

 

[trendsetter37]

Like your awareness of the car seat had bumped up a notch perhaps?

I'm not too sure if I would classify the experience that way. I would think that a heightened sense of awareness would be less confusing or strange than what I experienced but I could be wrong there with that assumption.

It actually felt like monotonic's description

Actually it sounds more like the opposite happened, he saw an optical illusion created by the pattern on the seat. He had to think about it to see through the illusion. If so then I would say he was in an open state of mind, which lead him to notice an illusion, and then see through it. States of mind such as this are usually hard to control or change because they reflect deeply subconscious attitudes. That's what it seems like to me anyway.

As a matter of fact that was the conclusion I came to during the drive afterwards. It was an optical illusion. But I couldn't quite remember the word optical illusion as the description

That is an interesting point about illusory perceptions (whether internal or external) being connected to the subconscious. I usually only thought of that affecting one's internal landscape and neglecting the fact that that is not the only way it could manifest.

 

[lostinself]

The reason I decided to post here is because in one way or another it really helps when one is having a hard time coping with anything. A sense of joy comes because you actually get to see things like a "baby", without labelling anything; objects around you can easily transfer deep emotional impressions, even a cup of coffee, or a cloud.
In the same time, whenever I experience this phenomenon my energy levels increase and also the creative abilities. The body becomes more fluid and aerodynamic. I want to mention that I am pretty sane, I've been meeting with a psychiatrist/psychologist :)

If anyone has experienced this feeling, I would be glad to hear from you!

I'm not sure of the origins of the "jamais-vu" concept but this phenomena more often than not is associated with depersonalization/derealization states which are quite common symptom of neurosis. In such states the internal tension a person lives with, when amplified by a stressful situation, causes this person to feel disconnected from emotions and reality (emotional and physical centers?). Usual places may appear unreal and alien; well known people may look and talk like foreigners; even perception of one's body may temporarily change. In my case it even got to the point where the fact of having a body of this particular shape seemed totally off to me; there were moments when i felt like my body wasn't a part of me but an external device i controlled remotely (sort-of). Not an euphoric or refreshing feeling at all :-|.

By saying this i'm not suggesting you suffer from a hidden form of neurosis or anything like that. It's very possible that there are "positive" jamais-vu's to be experienced as well. Just reporting my experience and the usual context i see the jamais-vu thing mentioned in.

I don't think jamais-vu has any hyper-dymensional background, like it seems likely for the opposite phenomena of deja-vu. It's possibly just a neurological thing.

 

[monotonic]

I don't think jamais-vu has any hyper-dymensional background, like it seems likely for the opposite phenomena of deja-vu. It's possibly just a neurological thing.

I think that being aware vs. being unaware and seeing only what you want to see vs. seeing something as it really is, are neurological phenomena that have hyperdimensional implications. So I would say that it does have a hyperdimensional nature, but not much moreso than anything else that is connected with discernment and awareness.