View Full Version : Déjà vu
For about a year I've been getting episodes of Déjà vu, or maybe it's Jamais vu, about once every couple of months. I'll be somewhere I've been many times, like at my desk or on the train, doing something mundane, and suddenly it will hit me.
It's like Deja vu but sometimes with feelings instead of memories... and I don't understand the feelings because they flick through my head so fast and then they're gone. Recently it happened as I was walking around an area of the city I walk through frequently. Suddenly I felt strange and lost, and for the first time ever, physically shaken up, and then a minute later I was fine.
In the past I have felt that the feelings were somehow related to my dreams, but I seldom ever remember my dreams so I don't know.
When it happens I desperately try to understand what's happening as fast as possible, but I always run out of time because the episodes only last a few seconds and after that I hardly remember them. I try to determine if the memories/feelings are real or false - but I never manage to work it out.
A couple of times at work recently I have suddenly became really aware of my surroundings. I was just sitting there working as normal, then suddenly my brain goes "YOURE SITTING IN AN OFFICE" and briefly all my peripheral vision will get much clearer and I'll see all the things around me that my brain was blocking out because I was focusing on work. It makes me feel like a drone. It's not scary, but I would say it's unwelcome purely because it interrupts the flow of my day for no reason.
The other symptom I've been having a lot this year is joint pain particularly in the hands but sometimes in the knees too. I actually thought I might have arthritis at one point.
Are these anxiety symptoms?
I've had exactly this all my life ! It doesn't happen often, but every month there will be one of two episodes for a few seconds. Well, the 'feeling' is a few seconds and then I spend ages analysing it. This is the first time I've heard someone describe what I have had though. I have tried to explain to my husband but he doesn't get it.
What I eventually put it down to was that my senses were being momentarily stimulated in a way that had happened at some time in the past, a sound, smell, sight, feeling (or all together), then my mind was 'almost' able to connect to something locked deep inside. Ok, I'll try to say that again...:D...it is as if connections are made in the brain and it leads you to almost be able to feel/be in whatever place you were when those connections were last made.
The most annoying thing I find though is that I can't actually recall exactly what the situation was that I am feeling; I feel the same way as I did a time in the past, as if I am at that time again, and it is clearly an exact time that meant something, but I can't get my head to take that final step to have the total memory - just the feeling. I personally don't think it is anxiety, I think (well, imagine) other people have it too. I have been told that my perceptions and observations of things are very sharp, as if all my senses are always on 'high' and I wonder if because of that some sensory situations are stored in my brain and I can get taken back to them.
This is sounding like drivel now :roflmao:, I can't even really describe it. It is hard to find the words as it is pure 'feeling' that happens, and no matter how I try and find what I am actually remembering it seems to be that something taps me straight back in to emotions of a time in the past. I get irritated as I often feel so close to recalling all the detail of the place and time I am having 'deja vu' about !
I get this feeling all the time too, although to me it feels like I'm "remembering" something that is going to happen. (If that makes any sense!) I get the feeling of deja vu, which is then replaced with dread. Like I know something bad is going to happen, however nothing bad has actually happened after one of these episodes. It's such a weird feeling to shake though!
I can sympathize with you Carys because it is incredibly hard to explain it.
"but I can't get my head to take that final step to have the total memory"
It's the same for me. But in your case you are sure that the total memory would be a real memory of something that actually happened to you. In my case I'm not sure.
And I don't spend very long analyzing it because the feelings are strange and alien to me and then they disappear before I can figure out what they mean.
But in your case you are sure that the total memory would be a real memory of something that actually happened to you. In my case I'm not sure.
Yeah, fairly sure, as I don't have psychic powers to see into the future. :winks:
What do you think the feelings are about, something that might happen ?
No it's more a case of not being able to figure out what they are about. They are very vague and fleeting, as if they suddenly occupy my conscious mind out of nowhere, and then vanish.
I'm not sure that time (past/future) has a lot to do with it, so maybe I was wrong to describe it as Déjà vu but that's the best way I can put it into words.
I had a very traumatic upbringing, but I don't feel that the feelings are related specifically to any trauma. I guess they might be but I don't feel like they are.
No it's more a case of not being able to figure out what they are about. They are very vague and fleeting, as if they suddenly occupy my conscious mind out of nowhere, and then vanish. I think we are talking about a very similar thing, but using different semantics about something that is hard to explain. I never figured out what they are about either, it is like the emotion/feeling is there for a moment, it wooshes in fast and then it is gone. It is as if in a purely sensory way I am in a different time and place for a short time. Then I spend time trying to work out what I am connecting back to.....but never manage to. It feels so real, as if my inner being is suddenly transported to 'something else.'I didn't have a traumatic upbringing at all, sorry to hear that you have though.
Anyhow, I think we are getting tied up in words...well...I know I am :winks: I know what you mean about the 'deja vu' aspect of it though, that is part of what it is about.
I only mention trauma in case its relevant. But I guess not if this happens to you too. It does sound like a very similar thing if not the same thing. Do you think it's related to anxiety in your case or not?
No, I personally have found it unrelated to anxiety. It has happened all my life, well, during my adult memory anyway. Does yours happen at times if anxiety ?
---------- Post added at 22:33 ---------- Previous post was at 22:31 ----------
Hey Lizerie, I can relate to words in your post too ! Though, the sort of thing you are talking about does happen at times of anxiety I find. Aren't our brains complex things !
It was only recently suggested to me that I am suffering from anxiety, I had never considered it before.
The stressors in my life are of a long term nature, I feel like there's a "background level" of anxiety and depression that builds up gradually over time and then suddenly manifests as irrational fears or paranoia, and a tendency to over analyse every small detail, to try and piece together a full story out of limited information and then believing the story to be true until I calm down and realise that I took a few trivial facts and blew them out of all proportion.
I have a tendency to churn facts around in my head. I do a huge amount of thinking and introspection, not just about bad things but about many different topics that I'm interested in. I probably spend at least half my waking life just thinking about things.
When I'm concentrating hard on an idea I tend to repeat the same phrase in my head over and over. I also have a tendency to compulsively re-read things I've written, sometimes many times in the same sitting. I read all my emails after I send them which I recognize as being a fairly pointless thing to do with my time.
There is no coincidence between those events and the deja vu events though.
I also have a tendency to compulsively re-read things I've written, sometimes many times in the same sitting. I read all my emails after I send them which I recognize as being a fairly pointless thing to do with my time.
Snap ! Good luck in finding an answer to your questions about anxiety. I also have some levels of OCD, and my compulsion to re-read emails and read and re-read letters I viewed as being part of that condition.
Is it possible that I've been suffering from/describing Derealization?
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