Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Been There Done That



I like to think that most times I have some sort of control over my life. And while external forces undoubtedly impact my existence and path, I am typically steered by my (good or bad) decisions. What I have been experiencing lately though disturbs me greatly over the enormous sense of lack of control that it causes.

I am speaking about that seemingly universal human experience of déjà vu. Most people on the planet have had a similar experience and the most common type of déjà vu is that you have already experienced something before. The latest time for me came the other night when Bud was reading a kid’s French book to work on his vocabulary. He asked me what a word meant and passed me the book. I was suddenly flooded with the feeling that we had had this conversation already, that I had seen the picture in the book before, that I had contemplated its meaning and that all this had happened while I was sitting in the same position on the couch and in same relative position to Bud.

When this happens my heart tends to seize up and I get an uncomfortable feeling almost like I have come unstuck in time. Its incredibly disconcerting. Of course, I am not able to pinpoint the moment when this happened before since this feeling is not one of recognition but of repetition.

And I hate it.

I am sure that there are a myriad of psychological or physiological explanations for this phenomenon and I am not about to speculate that it could be something paranormal (Matrix-like or otherwise), but whatever the theory that there is, I find it to be a disturbing psychologically traumatic moment. And it seems to come for me in waves. For long periods of time I won’t experience it at all, and then suddenly I’ll have a déjà vu moment a number of times in the same week.

This is sort of linked to another emotion that I get near stairs or railings. I always have this impression that someday I am going to oddly lose my balance going up some stairs (always up…) or walking by a railing and tip over it. Maybe its just the psychological backlash of being tall. But while this one is more of a pre-cognition type of emotion it doesn’t bother me. Can’t control the future. But the déjà vu experience where it seems like I am repeating things in the exact same way makes me feel almost like I have already experienced the future and have now gone back.

But this is all linked to time. Time has often been one of the most fascinating concepts to me. The correlation of time to speed interests me on an intellectual level. If time slows down the faster you travel (according to Einstein at least), then is time linked to the speed at which the Earth rotates at all, the speed at which we walk/run, the speed at which our hearts pump? To me time is probably to most interesting concept of physics that I can’t quite grasp and yet its impact on me is ever present.

5 Comments:

Blogger jjd said...

I swear I saw that picture before.

I have the exact same fear/issue with stair railings, and more recently in the new house with walking past the stairs that lead between the first and second floor (positioned in a way that I walk past it on my right in the hallway) and always have this fear I might teeter to the right a bit and tumble down the stairs.

2:42 p.m.  
Blogger Poz Mikey said...

I have deja vu a lot(iT might be from my meds). Don't worry bro it just means your on the right path. Btw Can I be there and do him (The pic?)

10:32 p.m.  
Blogger tornwordo said...

My guess is that you dreamt it but don't remember dreaming it, only that you experienced it before when it really happens.

That's what I've boiled it down to in me anyway. I finally had a couple deja vus where I remember dreaming them before. (Plus, I've come to the conclusion that our dreaming consciousness is not constrained by time as our waking consciousness is)

There's so many great mind blowing books out there on the topic of time/physics/reality. I'll be happy to turn you onto them.

Did you know that the predominant view of physicists these days - extrapolated from Einstein's work - is that we live in a block universe, where past, present, and future all exist simultaneously?

It gives new meaning to the Oracle's words in The Matrix when she tells Neo, "You've already made the choice, now you've just got to understand why you made it."

6:59 a.m.  
Blogger Rye said...

Love to have a few book titles from you tornwordo!

9:13 a.m.  
Blogger tornwordo said...

Well let's see. Time, Space, and Einstein by Kennedy is an awesome read and discusses all the current theories and paradoxes. You can get it at the big library at Berri Uqam. It's not in print at the moment. Also, a great visual explanation of Einstein's concepts "comic book" style is "Einstein for Beginners" where you can "see" how time slows down whenever we are in motion relative to another object.

Start with one of those, and then I can turn you on to more......

7:44 a.m.  

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