Ever since I was a child, I have had an inordinate number of deja vu's-along with this I have had many dreams which foretold the future-exactly. I have kept dream logs and have seen events play out.

In February of 1997 I had a dream that I was terminated from a job-the strange thing about this dream was that the person terminating me was not a superior, and it took place in a different office than the one in which I worked. Three months later our office had been moved and the person who was not my superior in February had been promoted to the position in April. Of course, she terminated me. The new office, the office in which I received the news, matched perfectly the description in my dream log.

So why do I share all this? I believe, and have for the longest time, that all points in time exist simultaneuosly. I have chosen in some manner to live this particular lifetime again, possibly because it was so interesting, or possibly to make some different choices at critical junctures. With all the deja vu I have had, it is the only explanation I can come up with to explain it. When I went to Paris for the first time, I knew exactly where many things were. Strange.

Now I thought my idea was radical and original, but I do know of at least one author who has espounded it-Neil Donald Walsh in the Conversations with God series. While I could never explain the physics of this, I just feel, from my experience, that it explains much that had been unexplainable to me.

What is your concept of time??

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000

Answers

FS, you said,

"I believe, and have for the longest time, that all points in time exist simultaneuosly. I have chosen in some manner to live this particular lifetime again, possibly because it was so interesting, or possibly to make some different choices at critical junctures."

If all points in time exist simultaneously, a better bet might be that you are "seeing" over to a different point in time, rather than reliving it.

Or maybe it's not a time phenomenon at all, perhaps what we view as the total of reality is only like a plane stacked against an infinite number of other planes like pages in books in some giant bookshelf. Then you could look over to the right page and see whereever you wanted (if you knew where to look).

Personally, I think that physical time follows natural laws, as that's the way GOD designed the universe (you know who you are) :-) . But subjectively time can appear very differently (for example based on whether we are enjoying ourselves or bored silly) so a freer definition of time might be applicable to human events. As for deja-vu who knows? But I'd bet it's due to a misfiring of neurons in some way rather than a true glimpse of the future. However, I may have been wrong before, so it's possible I am now...

Frank

P.S. On a time-related topic, Larry Niven once wrote about time machines that it would be impossible to build a time machine due to conservation of time-- meaning that it took less energy for the universe to cause the time machine not to be built somehow than to allow everything to change due to someone going back in time and mucking it up. Interesting at least how HE wrote it. My apologies to the author for mangling his work, but you get the idea. -F

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 11, 2000.

FutureShock,

Let me get this straight.

You believe that all points in time exist simultaneously, and you can't see(from an earlier thread) that Slick Willy Clinton is responsible for various people close to him being killed because the conspiracy just couldn't be that big.

Do you realize how twisted your reasoning is to believe the impossible while disbelieving the probable?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), April 11, 2000.

Yes, Conversations with God is an excellent book. Time is only a result of our changing perception, an illusion. In reality, there is no such thing as time.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 11, 2000.

Yo,

I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of freaks.

The time is 10:40, MST.

-- (Reality is h@rd for some people to .understand), April 11, 2000.

Then of course, there is quantum physics. Time is a thread, and you can leap from spaces on the thread to other spaces on thread, leaping as it were. What a great idea for a TV SHOW....

-- Aunt Bee (SheriffAndy@Mayberry.com), April 11, 2000.

While I accept that a human time sense must in some degree be a function of some part of the human brain, and therefore fallible, I cannot accept that all time exists at once.

Deja vu can easily be explained by a confusion of the time sense. Prophetic dreams are much more difficult to explain. But, foresight is not. Is it not much more reasonable to believe that the same ability that spawns foresight may also be operative in a prophetic dream?

After all, dreams must operate (more or less) within the universe of our experiences, knowledge and imagination -- and these also contribute to instances of foresight.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), April 11, 2000.

I can hardly ever remember dreams and when I can it's always about being unable to correctly dial a telephone. Must be some deeper meaning there.

The physics of time is as dense to me as most physics but there have been some interesting experiments conducted about deja vu. I don't have the citation handy but I remember one in particular that investigated people who have a particular sense of deja vu. In all cases, it was found that these people were simply able to absorb almost everything they read and bring up the memories more efficiently than other people. For example, it may be that you had a sense of deja vu in Paris because you absorbed and then dredged up material from a guide book better than others. Do you think this might be the case with you?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 11, 2000.

Jim, good point, but what do you think memories are? Aren't they just the subconscious levels of our experiences? The fact that we have "memories" in what we perceive to be the present is an example of how the "past" and "present" exist simultaneously. It isn't that "time" is changing, it's just that we are tuning into different levels of our consciousness, which create an illusion of something having been experienced "before" something else, when in reality it has just been moved to the subconscious level.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 11, 2000.

Hawk,

That's the problem with memory. It exists as a physical part of the brain, e.g., it can be destroyed if the the parts of the brain that store memory are destroyed, but it also exists in that nether world of the subconscious. It's how the subconscious processes these memories that makes them real to us. In the study I refered to, those that experienced deja vu on a regular basis were much better at processing those memories as they were in reality than most others. For most of us, processing memories is both softened and eroded by the subconscious which makes those memories rarely accurate.

I went back to a neighborhood where I was raised and lived until I was about 14 a year ago. I remembered the street being wide and the houses having big yards. In reality, the street was so narrow that you could only park cars on one side and the houses were right on top of one another. My ability to remember wasn't defective but my subconscious had processed the memories to more consistent with what I wanted the neighborhood to look like. It's one of the reasons I'm always leary of repressed memories.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 11, 2000.

Hawk,

Good point, but I'd liken memories MUCH more to recordings of something that has already occurred than some sort of viewer of a parallel consciousness.

An example might be of memory experiments I "remember" from *a long time ago* as an undergrad where people were shown the same picture of an auto accident and told it was either an horrific accident with fatalities or a minor fender bender. The people who were later asked if there was broken glass in the picture. The people who were told the picture was horrific tended to say "yes" and the fender bender people said "no".

I don't believe that memory would be mutable if we were in some sense reliving something, but it very much could be so if we put memories together from stored fragments and our own experiences.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 11, 2000.

In response to Jim Cooke remembering his neighborhood being smaller probably has something to do with his size as a child. In a similar experience I returned to my child neighborhood and everything was much smaller than I remember it too. But then I was only three feet tall at the time. Now I am six ft.

-- i was smaller then (smaller @ littleboy.com), April 11, 2000.

Time does not really exist.

It is a man made device attepting to measure what can't be measured.It only has the importance that you give it,schedules divided between daylight and darkness.Time is like God,it has allways been and will allways be.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), April 11, 2000.

For informative articles on time perception, space-time, relativity, and quantum mechanics, check out Encyclopaedia Britannica at www.britannica.com

-- (retard@but.happy), April 11, 2000.

When I was a tot in New England, we had snowstorms that came up to my chest. Now even the heaviest snows only come up to my knees.

Proof positive that we are getting less snow now.

-- (retard@but.happy), April 11, 2000.

Good morning Furure-- I've had many experiences of "weird" things. I never thought to keep a log but have written down some in a little list. I have learned to follow my instincts and MAKE that telephone call when I feel a real urge to do so. On Nov 23, 1981 I walked from the kitchen sink and picked up the phone TWICE. I was LONGING to call home. Both times I told myself I was nuts-- I had called home just the day before--and hung the phone up. My Dad died from a heart attack within a few moments. Wish I'd made that call.

I too can be on a trip and "know" what is 'round the next bend in the road.

My "weirdest" occurred at Lehigh University. We were on our first visit and I was at the end of a long hall taking our young son for a soda. The end of the hall had french doors and two people were barely visible on the other side of them. I said to my son, "Oh look, there's Dr. Draper." Now, Al Draper was from Penn State and it was very unlikely he would be at Lehigh that day. But, I was so SURE of this that I walked forward to greet him. I stood there stunned when it was someone else. Approximately one year later, my son and I were in the SAME spot, again going for a soda and again there were two people coming through those french doors. This time the "time" was right--it was indeed Al Draper and a grad student. Once more I was stunned by events coming full circle and completing themselves.

I think the people who don't wonder about time are the ones who haven't had these types of experiences. I have no answers only experiences. I'm looking forward to reading the postings on this thread.

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 11, 2000.

I think some people work 60+ hours a week and then fill all there free time with entertainment so they don't have to think about things like this.

I also think that time seems to shorten as we get older because we have a longer personal recollection to subconsciously compare it to.

As far as future events go, when you remove the physical universe from the picture and only consider the noncorporeal person who lives on after the body dies, Time is probably all at once and the occasional leak to the physical mind probably occures. We may just be taking a vacation from eternity by living these time based lives.

-- Just passin through (nobody@nowhere.com), April 11, 2000.

I'd like to expand on what Brian and Jim said regarding the unconscious and dreams. There are several good research books on the subject, but unfortunately I don't have the references handy.

One possible explanation about your dream of foresight where you got fired is that in your subconscious you've registered all the clues that would eventualy lead to your dismissal; i.e., you registered elements in the behavior of your co-worker that would lead to his/her promotion, and also registered that that person didn't hold you dear to his/her heart, for whatever reason, that would eventualy lead him to dismiss you as the new boss. Dreams are expressions and a release of our subconscious, but at times in a madeningly bizzarre fashion than what we're used to with our cortex's "real feel", or concrete, thinking processes.

Jim's own dream of "it's always about being unable to correctly dial a telephone." could be his subconscious' expression of fear of inadequacies in a particularly important (to him) situation. Dreams are the subconscious's means to bring to the "top" those fears so that we can confront and deal with them. For example, it is common for children to have nightmares, the more stressful the child's life and the younger s/he is, the more severe the nightmares. As the child matures and many of those fears have been dispelled (monsters in closets, strict teachers the child feels he can't please etc. ) the nightmares begin to subside, and usualy if the child lives in a resonably healthy environment, by adolescence the nightmares have been completely replaced by "normal" dreams, that is, dreams that don't wake him/her in terror or sweat. Dreams can still be either pleasant or unpleasant. By adolescence the child has enough maturity to make more sense of life and his/her environment and feels more power over it than a young child would. Once we understand the role that the subconscious has in our dreams, then it is a matter of starting to pay attention to our dreams ( what our subconscious is trying to tell us) and then work towards eliminating the problem and/or ameliorating our skills and environment. With practice it becomes easier. (Think of the clichi dream of the person who dreams s/he's naked at a party, or naked in front of the boss. That is the expression of feeling totally inadequate. Unless ofcourse you're a pervert who yearns to walk around naked all day long ;-) )

The explanation of dej` vu given by Brian sounds interesting, and in keeping with what I understand of the subconscious. That's something I never really looked into.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 11, 2000.

BTW, one of my dreams is that I try to speak but nothing comes out of my mouth, or only giberish sounds come out. Reading over my previous post which I didn't proof read, gives me a clue as to why I have that dream ;-)

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 11, 2000.

I too can be on a trip and "know" what is 'round the next bend in the road.

You're trippin' now.

Tell us, Pam, how is it you "know" what's 'round the next bend, but got Y2K so wrong?

You people are all nutz.

-- (Re@lity is hard for some people .to understand), April 11, 2000.

yes I constantly experience predictions of the future of the type you describe, some very trivial (as many events are) a lot are "unusual" I vcan tell the difference between an intuitive feel of what may happen and a "prediction" a "message" seems to come to me, I "know" it is a certain preduction

it could be self-deception as chris theorises but I believe that you travel forward in time (or future view) rather than existing in all points in time simultaneously, perhaps a future event sends a ripple back along your timeline and you receive this, your brain somehow knows it is a message rather than a random or other thought

-- time traveller (richard.dale@onion.com), April 11, 2000.

Interesting subject and interesting responses. (I assume your experiences led you to your current "handle" FutureShock?)

Many years ago I had asked my high school pyschology teacher to explain deja vu. I don't recall the specifics but she told how it could be explained scientifically and that it was a momentary "lapse" (for lack of a better word) in the brain's functioning. My impression was that consciousness was temporarily suspended and, upon the brain's return to normalcy, events which had transpired during this lapse were then brought to a person's consciousness and perceived as a "memory". The mind playing "catch-up" if you will.

A quick search on the subject offered explanations which held these two medical definitions as possible/probable causes...

*Temporal lobe epilepsy.

*Delayed intra-hemisphere transmission over the corpus callosum.

The point I'm trying to make with the above "babbling" is that I am convinced deja vu is not a paranormal experience and it can be explained scientifically.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), April 11, 2000.

An alternative to the "time travel" theory is that some of us have a hypersensitive awareness of things currently happening but which are beyond our immediate environment.

FutureShock, the office where you were terminated might have existed when you had the dream, and someone might have known that you would be occupying that office. Your supervisor at the time of the dream may have already made plans to transfer. Perhaps these thoughts or images in the minds of other people somehow reached your subconscious, and brought about the dream. The thoughts of people who had been to Paris might also have reached you through this extrasensory pathway.

Pam, when you had mistakenly expected to encounter Dr. Draper, perhaps you "knew" that he had made plans to visit Lehigh, or that he actually was at Lehigh that day, or that he was thinking about you.

So perhaps these experiences can be attributed to a sort of "space" travel rather than "time" travel.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), April 11, 2000.

Future Shock:

You might enjoy the book 'Eintstein's Dreams'.

Jim & CD:

It was much easier for me to rationalize these things, until I had a strange experience of my own. I was walking down a side canal in Venice, and was stopped dead in my tracks near a bridge that figured prominently in a symbolic dream that I'd had in the past. I'm not an 'airy fairy' type of gal, and rarely even remember my dreams, so I found this experience a bit disconcerting.

No, I could not have seen the scene in a guidebook, and there is not an easy logical spot where I can mentally file this event. As I type this now, I can feel my heart pounding. Very weird.

-- flora (***@__._), April 11, 2000.

Now I've seen it all....

We have here who think they're mind-readers, palm-readers, time- travelers, and prophets.

......and Sysman thinks I'm wacky? :o)

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 11, 2000.

ROFL Laura! Well said ;-D

flora, could you have been there phisically as a baby, such as in a trip with your parents? Enfant brains absorb like sponges but no real memories (the type we can recall) begin until we have learned verbal expression. But sometimes later in life bits and pieces of those memories are brought out, mostly in the form of feelings and emotions. This could be another explanation for dej` vu, not to replace any existing ones given, but in addition to.

There is also the matter of the brain supressing memories, as a defense mechanism, such as traumatic ones. Such memories could surface at seemingly random times. But a study shows that memories are stimulated and triggered by anything from scents, to touch, to sounds.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 11, 2000.

Hi Reality-- Obviously the "knowing" doesn't happen all the time or I's be as rich as Croesus. But is DOES happen. Too bad it didn't hit me when I was buying all those beans.

I have awakened from dreams involving my parents and fires. Next time I talked to them they might say something like, "Had an interesting time this week......" and I was able to tell them the day and time and the details of the two fires. Not deja vu or preconition here----just ESP.

As I said, if you haven't experienced something like this it is hard to believe in. But, after 33 years, my husband with the beautiful, clear, logical, non ESP mind pays attention when I say we NEED to do something or other. He sure wouldn't if I was always wrong.

David--I have no explanation for either time at Lehigh. When I say I was "stunned" that it was not Al Draper, I mean it was like someone punched me or shocked me. The following year it felt like events finally played themselves out. It was pretty weird.

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 11, 2000.

Frank:

There are limits to language when discussing metaphysics-this is how I approach it, anyway, as I do not believe that physics will fully explain certain phenomena at this time(anything paranormal or supernatural). You may be right to point out that "reliving" might not be the best way of describing the experience.

I have read the research which discusses how an event can be experienced subconsciously milliseconds before it registers in the conscious mind-so at the instant the event appears to the conscious mind it is interpreted as occuring "before". I am not sold on this, but I am certainly open to neuro-science one day explaining this phenomena that at times have made me feel estranged from the real.

J:

That was a funny post. I am not claiming to be Jeane Dixon. I am not used by the local police force to solve mysteries. On that thread my main point was that the Clinton hit list is presented as fact without footnotes, and that I would hope I would not be convicted on wildy speculative, circumstantial evidence. I do not believe anything is impossible(at one time scientists thought that exceeding the speed of light was impossible-now they are searching for proof that certain elementary particles do just that). Since nothing is impossible, maybe Clinton is such a thug, but I feel the probability of him being responsible for all those deaths is infintely small.

Hawk:

Can you believe we agree on something?

--:

Sea of freaks? I guess we all live on the timebomb submarine. It is usually the "freaks" andn outcasts who are the biggest innovators in science and the arts.

Brian:

I do not think deja vu can be easily explained; if it were, then the body of the scientific literature would have it eplained-cut and dry. The same thing with dream theory-while the majority may believe that dreams are the "working out" of data input from the day, there is no absolute conclusions on the matter. How can we explain the dream themes which are common amongst us all(falling, flying, breathing under water-and of course my all time favorite-going to take a final exam for a class you have not atteneded all semester!)

Jim:

I did not read any guidebooks for Paris.

Retard:

Really-very funny that thing about getting less snow. LOL

Pam:

Thanks for relaying your experience. This will become an interesting thread if people shared their paranormal experiences.

Overall, I posted this to generate discussion. I am not married to my theory, as an open mind drives my existence and I am more than willing to change my mind if presented with existing evidence to the contrary.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

Chris:

I had never been there before in my life. I had grown up around an area in Calif that tried to mimic Venice to a degree. When I had my dream I assumed the location was one of those familiar spots. Years passed, and I was traveling with some old friends. We took a random route, and there I was faced with an odd sense of knowing.

A strange side note to you is that we were in Italy to visit some friends who are cinematographers. They are somewhat famous for films at which they burn essences to trigger emotions and memories. One fellow that they had a curious interest in was named Lucca Commerio [sp?]. He was a criminologist who associated with Mussolini, and did many experiments with murderers and their sense of smell. It was his contention that they were particularly suseptible to the scent of carnation. It's a weird world, eh?

The time of day was different, the 'supporting cast' was different, and the content was not there. Really can't explain it.

-- flora (***@__._), April 11, 2000.

Hi Chris,

I meant to get back to you on another thread and didn't get the chance. I'm gonna muck up this thread a little bit and discuss a comment someone made to you earlier; and me a couple of months ago.

Someone said they thought you were a "good girl" until they heard you cuss. As a rule, I don't cuss too much in real life, and I doubt that you do either, but if we did, do people honestly think that makes us "bad girls"?

I really wish I had time that day to tell that poster that traditionally "good girls" are ones that don't have sex outside of marriage, steal, lie, or cheat. Where does cursing or descriptive writing fall into those categories? LOL!

You BAD girl! Go to your room! I'll go wash my mouth out with soap (make that my typing fingers) and when we come back tomorrow, we can write 100 times on our own separate threads:

I will not type foul language.

I will not type foul language.

I will not type foul language.

I will not type foul language.

I will not type foul language.

Ok, I only have 95 left to go. Maybe I can get my best friend, who is a well-respected professor at a major university, help me with this. She can turn the air blue, so she certainly needs to come here and do penance too! (Laughter)

Later, babe.

(By the way, people. When you believe in things you don't understand you suffer. Superstition ain't the way. Stevie Wonder.

It's my understanding that deja vu is a chemical reaction in our brain that makes us think we're living something that's happened before. We all do it, we all have axons and dendrites that misfire. KAAAPOOW!! Ou Ou! I feel somthing coming on now. Wait! it's....it's....I know! It's a brain fart! (Opps, does that qualify as foul language? I guess it does! Ha, ha, ha ha!)

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 11, 2000.

Laura:

Is there a common thread to the subjects which you feel the need to interject your opinion on to the extent that you hijack the topic?

-- flora (***@__._), April 11, 2000.

flora,

Huh?

Are we going to get in to it again? I haven't forgotten your remarks from last year, ya know. I've tried to be gracious with you, so I thought I could expect a little from you.

Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry if I upset you. My off-topics remarks were directed at Chris, so please scroll past my posts if you don't like what I have to say.

~*~

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 11, 2000.

LL,

Rather than writing something 100 times, try cut-and-pasting. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64. You'd only need to do 7 repeats to "write something" over 100 times. You might find this very useful... ;-)

Helpfully,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 11, 2000.

Laura:

I made that comment to Chris-And I was entirely toungue-in-cheek. I think she knew that. I do not care how one chooses to express what they feel; I DO think that obscenities, most of the time, are uttered because a person cannot express their feelings any other way- Unfortunately, curse words do not convey much except inability to control anger. Hey, that's okay-I do not see any saints on this board.

As to you other comments on this thread, hey, if you want to be a skeptic that is fine; a good thread SHOULD have counterpoint. Counterpoint is most effective, however, when sarcasm is not used to try and make a point.

I would love to hear your opinions-some facts would be good to-and I do not say that sarcastically-I certainly did not provide any links. But if you have links to references which explain all paranormal phenomena with a single brushstroke of science please bring it here.

I do not worship the god of science. Science cannot explain everything. As I said earlier, the best scientists at one time said nothing could exceed the speed of light. This is no longer true.

At one time science was convinced there were only 6 planets-and they were sure of it-but a funny thing happened on the way to the forum- more powerful telescopes proved those facts to be incorrect. I posit that science is an art form, like painting or sculpting, and just as subject to sujective perception. All scientific "fact" is, in essence, forever theory any way.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

CD: you said-

A quick search on the subject offered explanations which held these two medical definitions as possible/probable causes...

*Temporal lobe epilepsy.

*Delayed intra-hemisphere transmission over the corpus callosum.

Wow-I have always known there was something wrong with me-now I know! I spend enough time on this board that I know there is something wrong with me.

And I thought it was the 20 years of drinking and drugging HA. (BTW- lest somebody attribute my experience to this-I have had many more deja vus and prophetic dreams in the 5 years I have been sober-and have had the prophetic dreams since I was a child).

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

Laura:

I hope that you also remember a deleted thread or two where I advocated that you should be able to express yur opinion. I am glad that you are able to do that here.

I wish you would address the topic of you concept of time, or whatever. I agree with Future Shock's opinion reagrding sarcasm in discourse. I also admit to suffering from that sin on occasion myself.

Truly, I felt the subject matter must have made you uncomfortable to return to it twice. Is it perceived FUD again? Don't you live near the 'vortex' capital of the world?

Not flaming, honest.

-- flora (***@__._), April 11, 2000.

We covered this on a TV show in 1957. Dooodooodooodooo.

-- (RodSerling@twilight.zone), April 11, 2000.

One of the underlying precepts of my approach to the paranormal is that there is such a thing as the collective consciousness-THe sum total of all sentient beings. While we all have seperate, corporeal bodies, I believe that there truly is a connection at some level of all human beings.

I do not have the time to reflect who said this earlier, that my experience with prophetic dreaming regarding my job termination could be due to picking up the vibes of others-but I agree with this person.

Another question: Is intuition, or, as someone referred to it, "foresight", explainable in today's scientific terms?? How come I always seem to be able to intuit people's feelings, even strangers? Any ideas, Mr. Serling?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

Well now, this is nice. You guys are going to let me discuss this with you without calling me names or putting on a white, pointy hat. Thank you, I appreciate that very much!

Ok, this might be a relationship breaker for me and Mr Polly, but I have to always say what I feel in my heart... so here goes: I believe in the scientific method. Don't get me wrong, I think life consists of different dimensions, such as sleep, and death...but those things are absolutes that can be proven quantitatively. (When you're asleep, you go through certain stages; we all do. When we die, there are certain things that happen then. LOL!) There are things that are UNEXPLAINABLE, like love, the beginning of time, and what happens after we die; there's even some phenomenon's (phenomena?) in physics that are unexplainable, but those things are best left in a separate category. The things that can be proven using the scientific method shouldn't be ignored because ignoring facts - is just ignorant :o)

I called a long-time friend of mine today, who is a neurologist (a well-known, and well-respected one here in town) and asked him what causes deja vu. He said it's caused by epilepsy. Period. He said there are people who believe it is part of a personality disorder, but he's seen too much medical evidence to believe that. He told me I'm welcomed to come down and copy articles he has, but I'm not going to bother because that's just second or third hand information to you people. However, I did do a pretty thorough check at Goggle, and found these:

Link

To save you a minute, I copied this paragraph:

Simple Partial Seizures. A person with a simple partial seizure (sometimes known as Jacksonian epilepsy) does not lose consciousness but may experience confusion, jerking movements, tingling, or odd mental and emotional events, such as deja vu, mild hallucinations, or extreme responses to smell and taste. After the seizure, the patient usually has temporary weakness in certain muscles.

Link

"There are four types of simple partial seizures:

Where the seizure activity is in the motor area of the brain, seizures that affect muscle activity will occur. The most common motor seizures involve neck stiffening, turning of the eyes in one direction, or partial jerking movements. When a motor seizure has caused a weakness in a specific area of the body there may be other symptoms, for example a person may experience a deterioration in vocal quality if the vocal mechanism is affected.

Sensory seizures involve any of the senses - sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell - and may be hallucinations or illusions. Changes in heart rate and respiration, unusual sensations in the head, stomach or chest, sweating, or goosebumps, may be caused by autonomic seizures.

Psychic seizures, as the name suggests, impact on how the person thinks and feels. They may disrupt cognitive functioning or trigger emotions such as agitation, fear, anxiety, happiness, and depression. Psychic seizures may cause other symptoms, for example deja vu or out of body experiences."

---------------------------------------

I also looked at JAMA, and the British Medical Library, and didn't find anything at all on the subject. I guess if this stuff is important to you, you'll look it up yourself.

I gotta tell ya, I'm freaking out right now. I can't believe this is happening. I was telling Mr Polly a couple of weeks ago that he and my mom believe a lot in the same things (auras, a "knowing" of what will happen in the future...a lot of the same things you people believe. I don't, and this explains it. My mother has epilepsy, and even has to take medication for it. Right now I'm thinking you guys have suffered one or more of these mild siezures. Since you didn't know it was a chemical reaction, you didn't understand what was going on and you attributed paranormal causes to it. I guess then you continued to believe whatever you thought happened because to you it was real. I'm sure that to you it WAS real, but for those of us that don't have this happen, you guys seem a little bizarre. Please understand that I'm not trying to be mean here, I love my mom and Mr Polly, but this sure explains a lot of things.

The thing that's really freaking me out is that people make life- altering decisions based on how they "feel" because of a medical problem. Man, if we don't learn this stuff, we might as well go back to the days before the Enlightenment Period. To answer your question, Flora: Yes, in a sense this is FUD.

Before someone jumps on me and says, "But, I KNEW something was going to happen, and it did." Personally, I think the sensory/psychic seizure explains this. I think it happens when you're excited about something, and in Mr Polly's case, a coincedence happens.

Cripes, I gotta go. I have to talk to Mr Polly.

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 11, 2000.

"... you guys seem a little bizarre." LOL!

-- (FLUSH@FLUSH.AGAIN), April 11, 2000.

FutureShock,
To quote Albert Einstein: "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

I agree with that completely. Science is essentially a continuous cycle of making observations, using them to form conclusions, making still more observations, using those to fine tune or disprove prior conclusions, and so on. Contrary to popular belief, science cannot prove, it can only disprove.

But within the last century, "science" has come to be commonly regarded as an esoteric discipline that the untrained have no hope of grasping, and further, that science cannot take place without technological aids to observation or data collection. In actuality, the unconscious application of scientific principles is an everyday occurrence, though that application be mundane.

My speculation about your dreams being influenced by other people's thoughts, was an attempt at a theory that would fit your observations. That intuition, foresight or other intangible phenomena can't readily be detected or measured by man made instruments, doesn't mean that they don't exist or that they can't be examined scientifically.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), April 11, 2000.

Don't you live near the 'vortex' capital of the world?

Flora,

I live a lot closer to the vortex capital than LL does and I don't have any extrasensory, bizarre, or far-out experiences experiences.

It must require drugs.

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), April 11, 2000.

FutureShock,

This may seem a bit OT for the others on this thread, but it takes one to know one, as they say.

Much congratulations on your ability to get and stay sober for so long. I am a fellow recovering drunk and addict as well. 12 years clean & sober as of Feb. 22. Keep it green, baby!

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), April 11, 2000.

"ALL RIGHT, I'VE HAD IT!

I'm so sick of people complaining about my posts I could just throw up. It's gonna be REAL hard for me, but I'm not gonna post ANYTHING for a week, and I'll decide at that time if I EVER want to post anything again.

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 07, 2000."

-- (no.concept.of.time@four.days.is.not.a week), April 11, 2000.

Laura:

Great input! I am glad to see your case presented, with links and examples. It is nice to hear you express your beliefs and your feelings-It is much more enlightening than having to read post after post of you defending yourself, or feeling you have to go on the attack.

I have not had any other symptomology associated with a seizure disorder. Deja vu, in this case, is listed as a symptom, and not dealt with in a stand alone manner. Diarrhea can be a symptom of a sinister disease, or it can just be diarrhea(water/fiber imbalance). While I appreciate the research, I do not think it applies here.

I once believed in the scientific method alone-then I went completely theological. Today I try to see the beauty and wisdom in everything, and search and research-always with an open mind. You may be entirely correct in stating science can explain all phenomena(the plural) that occur in nature. I am open to that-but until I see proof which convinces me, I will stay on the course I am on today. I always remember that today's truth can be tomorrow's BS and something I might laugh at myself for later.

David:

Excellant post. You are always one of the more thoughtful folks and your input is appreciated.

Jimmy:

Glad to make your acquaintence. Remember rule 62-we never take ourselves too seriously!!

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

FS:

I'm gonna reiterate the recommendation for Einstein's Dreams as it spawned a conversation in this house about circular time just a couple of days ago. You might checkout Michael Crichton's book about 'Travels' too.

Laura:

I'm glad that you came back, I'm sorry that I responded to you in a harsh way. The only epilepsy in my family that I know of is a half- grand neice who has a slight version of petit mal. I agree that the brain is a fascinating thing, and am following with some interest the new scientific discoveries. What a great time it is to be alive.

Flash:

I've heard strange tales about your area, but then again I've heard strange tales about mine as well. I was wondering if Laura was having a knee jerk reaction to this thread because of proximity to the 'vortex' stuff. I get a bit cranky about hippy dippy stuff myself at times. In case you were wondering, I was stark raving sober during the experience that I'm now sorry to have shared with y'all.

So folks is time linear? Hasn't anyone else had that eccentric teacher who believed everything was happening at the same time?

To Laura, I would like to apologize again. I had second thoughts after I fired off that hasty note {notice all the typos! -too many irons in the fire today}. I had a feeling {- no not a premonition, not deja vu - never had those, nope} -that a medical condition might be involved.

If I hadn't had the experience that I did, I may have been even more judgmental than some of those posters on this thread.

-- flora (***@__._), April 11, 2000.

OK. So we are Wackos.

Several hundered years ago we might have been burned at the stake.

More recently a frontal lobotomy was thought to cure many of the mind's abberations.

Now we are just Wackos. A definite improvement.

The mind is so complex and we use such a small portion of it. Don't you ever wonder what the rest of it is doing? Or what it can do?

Future Shock--I too have wondered about a collective consciousness.

David--most of my experiences have been real time. Sort of like picking up distress calls but from a person.

Lady Logic--Yes, I have acted on my "feelings." However, making a phone call is hardly life changing. I don't think MD's know it all. They know what PhD's have done research on.

Just Passing Through--a neat idea to think about. Might it tie in with the "long tunnel with a light at the end" that has been dismissed by those prosaic MD's. as an operating room light? That may all be a fiction but it is a pleasant fiction to live with.

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 11, 2000.

Pam, that is a pretty trippy experience you had with Dr. Draper! That incident and Future Shock's incident of job termination are supportive of the idea that time does not exist as we perceive it. I agree with some of the more recent understanding of time as "vertical" rather than "linear". This means that as we travel into each experience in our lives, there are actually many possible realities that exist, and we actually choose which one we experience by moving our energy in that direction with the power of our minds. The first time you looked at the french doors, there was a part of your consciousness that was aware of one possible reality available to you in which Dr. Draper would be at the doors. But your consciousness chose to move you into a different reality. The second time you were in that experience, you chose to go back to the reality of Dr. Draper.

Jim, your story about how the roads in your old neighborhood seemed smaller is a very common experience. That is simply the way our perception changes. After experiencing places and situations where the roads were much bigger, your perception now tells you that roads in your old neighborhood are "relatively" small.

Consciousness, that's what everything is really all about.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 11, 2000.

hawk said:

"This means that as we travel into each experience in our lives, there are actually many possible realities that exist, and we actually choose which one we experience by moving our energy in that direction with the power of our minds."

Exactly. Yes. You have said it in a manner in which I was unable. Are we learning as we "live" or are we remembering what we already know? There are so many possibilities, so many futures, and the power of the mind can present all of them to us if we allow it. Meditation has allowed me to touch this truth, but very rarely; I have not experienced Samadhi. BUT I have reached the point on occassion of a sense of oneness, and I do believe, as the hindus do, that a soul can reach a point in evolution where it can be in two places at once.

Our western mind-set and theology will never believe this. Laura will probably just chuckle. More will be revealed.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 11, 2000.

Yes, the higher states of consciousness are aware of more of the possible realities, even what we call the "future", which is any reality available to us that we choose to move into. The lower states of consciousness, or the subconscious, are more like primitive instincts, which are really only aware of the realities we have already experienced. This is why we see animals with certain instictive subconscious behaviors, because over the years the mass consciousness of that species has learned from the realities they have experienced. Memories are not some kind of tape recorder in our brains, they are the part of our consciousness that keeps track of realities already experienced. But all of those realities are still present. There is no such thing as linear time as we perceive it, past, present, and future. Everything exists, now and forever, in the form of pure spiritual energy. As we use our energy to move ourselves into new realities, we think of the ones already experienced as in the "past", but they are still here, they are simply old as opposed to new, or the not yet experienced realities. "Time" is really at a standstill, it is our consciousness and our energy which is moving. Pretty trippy, eh?

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 11, 2000.

A very few times in my life I have had similiar semi-psychic experiences. Thinking back, they always occurred when I was in a state of agitation and high anxiety.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), April 12, 2000.

Ok here's one for Laura;

Have you ever had the experience with someone whom you share a passionate connection with - where you both arrive wearing the same outfit? {For example, each wearing white pants with red shirts}.

-- flora (***@__._), April 12, 2000.

"Everything exists, now and forever, in the form of pure spiritual energy. As we use our energy to move ourselves into new realities, we think of the ones already experienced as in the "past", but they are still here, they are simply old as opposed to new, or the not yet experienced realities. "Time" is really at a standstill, it is our consciousness and our energy which is moving." -Hawk

Energy is vibration. Every thought we have, word we speak and action we take sends a vibration out into the universe. Like a wave in the ocean that never breaks.

Take sound for instance. Jesus spoke and his words/sounds sent vibrations out into the universe. If we had the ability to travel faster than sound we could eventually "catch up" to his words/sounds and "hear" him presently. His words (and ours) are still "out there" and always will be. In this way there is no past. It is all present.

Now, what about the future? If we can actually re-experience our past by moving out into the universe could we not "re-experience" our future by "moving" in another direction? Any thoughts?

Hawk-

-- Debra (time@space.com), April 12, 2000.

There are some people here who have posted descriptions of their own experiences, others have cut and pasted psycho-babble to explain it, the problem is that when you attempt to discuss the "paranormal" you get ridiculed, I know of so many examples with myself and others that I know it exists, one day the paranormal will be explained by accepted scientific theory, but it that day will never come if people suppress open discussion

-- temporally challenged (richard.dale@onion.com), April 12, 2000.

My mom has had both "explainable" and "unexplainable" experiences. One that I still consider "unexplainable" is the morning she woke to tell my dad that she'd dreamt the car had been stolen. He didn't think anything of it until he walked the block or so to the complex parking lot to find the car gone. My mom DOES have acquired epilepsy, BTW.

I think it's a little too early in the "mind" game to conclude that certain phenomena can be totally explained scientifically. We've only touched the surface on how the brain works. Theories will abound until more proof comes in, and more proof will come in later to dispute the original proof. In the meantime, Scully and Mulder will continue to offer two sides of the coin, and I'll still enjoy every minute of the debate.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), April 12, 2000.

flora,

Have you ever read the "Sedona Journal of Emergence". Although there is a lot of kinda far out stuff in it, there is also enough of interest to cause me to keep reading it.

I am open to any and all possibilities and try to cast a wide net without making pre-judgements. It allows for an interesting life.

FutureShock,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I'd be interested in hearing more about them.

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), April 12, 2000.

Debra,

Your comments regarding each entity sending vibrations out into the Universe by thought, word and deed is correct. Rather than having to "catch up" to them, such as your example regarding Jesus, some of us can simply read them. (I ain't one of them, BTW)

In many religions, there are references to the Book of God's Remembrance, or the Akashic Records. Some even believe that the Akashic Records are the Consciousness of the Holy Spirit. Simply put, each life form has a unique rate of life-energy vibration. Every thing we think, say or do causes an "impression" in the Akashic Records. If one is pure of thought, they can attune their rate of vibration to the impressions left in the Records by others, such as Jesus, and "transcribe" their life. This was purportedly done by an individual named Levi back in the late 40's. The book of Jesus' life that he transcribed is, "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus, the Christ". A fascinating read which fills in the missing 12 (or 18, I can't remember) years of His life that the NT is silent about.

If you do a quick search on dogpile under "Akashic Records", you'll find a wealth of information. There's a lot of crap there as well, but if you sift through with care, there are some gems.

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), April 12, 2000.

What is really interesting to look at concerning people's sensitivity to these things is the placement of certain planets and the water element in a person's astrological chart.

An example would be a person with the moon in Pisces. They are like psychic sponges. The dream theory above would fit as this is a person who is very sensitive to their environment.

Then I think there could be dreams that break the "sound barrier" and are prophetic. As in an appointment made on Sunday to meet on Friday, a "sensitive" picking up on Sunday's conversation on Wednesday, thus having the "prophetic" dream about Friday. (make sense?)

"You are sending off energy--emitting energy--right now, from the center of your being in all directions. This energy--which is you-- moves outward in wave patterns. The energy leaves you, moves through walls, over mountains, past the moon, and into Forever. It never, ever stops."

--from Conversations with God

Neale Donald Walsch, author of the 3 Conversations with God books, now has a book called Friendship with God. Anyone read it yet?

How many people have experienced the things being discussed here and brushed them off as a coincidence? If you read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield you may begin to think differently about things that happen.

"He examines a hundred years of discovery in physics and psychology to show an inevitable synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas. The unmistakable message in this convergence is that human history is purposeful, that both miracles and scientific discoveries are part of the same unbroken chain of evolution."

-- Debra (time@space.com), April 12, 2000.

Jimmy-

We posted at the same time. The idea of a wave in the ocean with no shore to crash on helped me to understand the way vibrations go on "forever" in an endless universe. Catching up to a specific wave helped with the idea that the past is not but the present is always available. I used it here to add to Hawk's comments that "Everything exists, now and forever..."

I agree-once we are aware (or we "catch up") to this life-energy vibration and have attained pure thought then everything is available to us for "reading". The potential for us to read the Akashic Records have always fascinated me.

I have not read "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus, the Christ". Thank you for suggesting it. If anyone has read the Celestine Prophecy they will understand why I will purchase and read this book.

I wish I could stay all day and participate in this conversation but I should have been to work an hour and a half ago. I look forward to talking to everyone tonight.

P.S.- This board is really "home" and there is NO OTHER PLACE that compares to it!!!

-- Debra (time@space.com), April 12, 2000.

Debra:

Thanks for your comments. I have read the first three conversations with god books, and I started reading Friendship with God. I got upset with Neale when, early in the book, he seemed to lift a concept always word for word out of one of the Celestine books-The way Redfield describes a life review at the point of death. Someday I will probably finish that 4th book. Both authors capture a large part of my own thinking.

As an astrologer, I can concur with your short comments on water. I have a Neptune-Sun conjunction in Scorpio, and Mars sits in that sign, also, all in my 6th house(that stellium is also joined by a mercury-venus conjunction in libra!). Water, throughout time, has symbolized the whole from which the individual has sprung. Neptune rules Pisces(your reference to a pisces moon), so a strongly aspected Neptune in a water sign could lead to increased sensitivity and empathy. Also, strong placements or aspects to a person's 12th house (Pisces domain) can aver someone to having psychic phenomena.

This all give me an idea for a book! Thanks, Debra for your comments.

BTW-here is a url for another opinion on deja vu to counteract the link provided earlier by Laura:

http://mentalhelp.net/perspectives/articles/art03965.htm

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 12, 2000.

Future Shock-

I am sooooo late for work but I'd like to quickly ask your thoughts on the following:

What is the intent and how may it play out?

South node in Gemini in the 9th house (it's opposite) along with North node in Sag in the 3rd house (it's opposite). These two signs and houses themselves being about the trees (Gemini) and the forest (Sag). In one way they may cancel each other to a certain degree but if a person is interested in the potential of this placement what may that be? The conflict would be great? (Do you see the nodes as the past and the future?)

Same chart has the ascendant in Virgo which of course has to do with detail while it's opposite Pisces has to do with the bigger picture.

Maybe I'm too rushed to ask this question in the right way. Thanks.

-- Debra (time@space.com), April 12, 2000.

Flash:

Haven't read it, can barely keep up with this joint! I have a relation without a metaphysical bone or spiritual bent in her body. She had an experience down there that had such an effect on her that she no longer has her deep seated terror of thunder & lightning. Happy as a clam in tornado alley now. Anecdotal, I know, but we all have stories like these I bet.

Pisces moon, scorpio rising here. Not even going into the sun sign.

Richard:

Have you read Crichton's book about 'Travels'. The short chapters alertnate with adventures into the 'external' world, contrasting with quests for the 'internal' { for lack of a better description}. Scuba diving with the hammerhead sharks, and climbing Everest alternate with trips to psychics of varying skill. I think recall he writes about a visit to a Brit, it seems that folks over there take this stuff a bit more in stride.A friend of mine likes to go for high tea and then try to read the leaves for fun, I gave her a reprint of an old guide that I found. Do you know if this is practiced much anymore?

-- flora (***@__._), April 12, 2000.

<Check this out

-- liu (lookitup@dictionary.com), April 12, 2000.

Check this out

-- liu (lookitup@dictionary.com), April 12, 2000.

Don't know if it was already mentioned, (skimmed a lot of the flaming above) but try reading Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five, or The Childrens Crusade" if you prefer the PC name. It focuses on the Main charachter Billy Pilgrim and how he is 'unstuck' in time, capable of having his conciousness travel through the span of his life, from birth to death, and right back again. Magnificent book really. I highly recommend it. Give a great overview of some startling psychological attitudes of humanity.

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan101st@aol.com), April 12, 2000.

Debra:

The author Howard Sasportas, in his book "The twelve houses" gives the best descriptions of the nodes:

"The house occupied by the south node of the moon is a sphere in which, for better or worse, we act instinctively and from habit. The house in which the north node is placed requires the exercising of the solar, heroic principle."

The ninth house is the natural house of ideas, religions, spiritual theories, philosophy, all codified systems of collective thought, and is also the house of long journies and international affairs.

In case of the ninth house south node for you, Debra, it means that you have probably always escaped in books when things were going rough, and probably still do today. If not books, then prayer and/or meditation have probably been practiced extensively. Daydreaming may also be part of your coping skills. The challenge of this node placement is to stay in the here and now and look for practical answers-not to find the ultimate theory of things to explain how to tie a know in one's shoes!

The third house is the house of our immediate environment, the house of how we view the way in which things relate, communication, and, notoriously, siblings. With the north node here, the virgo ascendent actually helps; your way of approaching the world, the door through which you wal out into the world, is one in which you can make fine distinctions verbally and mentally, one in which you can easily classify things. Your challenge still is to find solutions in your immediate environment-you can be the hero in solving a family problem with siblings(I would suspect you have already-more than once). You may also be the hero at work(at least not today with how late you were!) by finding ways to communicate things that no one else in your group could-You are able to look at the work flow and find the inefficiencies in rapid manner.

Overall, I am not a reincarnationist astrologer, so I do not hold to a strict "south node is the past life, north node is the destiny". Do not worry about not being able to see the forest but for a few of the trees?? One last thing, if you are looking at potentials with a 3rd house north node-anything in the realm of psychology or bodywork (Reiki, acupuncture, etc)-your discriminating mind is excellant in helping other sort out their ideas-If this is not something you have done and you are interested, it could really be a good thing for you.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 12, 2000.

Man 'o man, what a difference a day makes.

FutureShock,

I went to that site you posted and read every word. Because I read every word of it, I noticed that article is 4 years old. Back then, Dr. Funkhouser stated he believed epilepsy wasn't related to deja vu. I'm wondering if he still thinks that, so I e-mailed him and asked him to join us. I'm dying to know what he thinks now! Since I gave him the name of this thread, and I don't know when (or if) he'll get time to come here, I'm going to keep this post active by posting something simple on it for a week if no one hasn't already posted on it. (I gave him the link to the "Recent Answers" page.

Anita,

That was interesting about your mother. My mother has had a similar experience, and as I said earlier, she has epilepsy also.

flora,

My heart sang when I read your post. Thank you for being so gracious. I think we could be friends in real-life because you have the ability to apologize and overlook other's shortcomings.

To answer your question about showing up in the same outfit: I don't know. If it did ever happen, I wouldn't have noticed it, or attributed anything special to it because I would have just thought it was a coincidence. However, with Mr Polly, I've been noticing some uncanny things happening that can't be coincidental. I guess when things happen often enough I have to say I was wrong, and admit things can happen that I never believed possible.

After talking to Mr Polly most of the night last night, and a couple of hours this morning, I do believe that seizures have a role in psychical abilities because Mr Polly told me that he's had some. However, maybe that's what enables people to experience phenomena that I don't? I don't know, but I'm sure finding this stuff interesting.

As a matter of fact, I'm not nearly as skeptical as I was when I posted yesterday. For a while anyway, I'd like the right to reserve judgment and I'll go back and s-l-o-w-l-y read everyone's experiences with an open mind. Right now, I'm thinking they believe what they believe, and maybe there's more to this stuff than I ever imagined.

See ya'll later!

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@...), April 12, 2000.

To add in the line of thought that Laura started, alcoholism can cause seizure disorders.

See "Subacute Care Forum" for details at:

http ://www.ascp.com/public/pubs/tcp/1996/mar/subacute.html">

also see this site for a medical technical explanation of seizure disorders:

http ://www.ascp.com/public/pubs/tcp/1996/mar/subacute.html I'm probably biased since I am in the medical field, but to me neurology seems to be on the right path to explain some of those phenomenon, such as dej` vu. But then again, we should all agree on a detailed definition of "dej` vu". Since Future Shock started this thread and mentioned the term, I'd think it appropriate that he sets his own detailed definition.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 12, 2000.

Laura:

Good dective work. I admit I did not look at the date of the article. I certainly do not believe everything I thought I believed 4 years ago. How dreadful that would be.

Chris:

I will take a little time to come up with a definition which best expresses the experience, taking into consideration medical definitions. As far as the alocholism, yes, I have seen many who have had seizures and/or seizure disorders-I know I declared myself earlier in this thread-Again, I will say that I do not and have never had a seizure disorder-it may be that there is a bio-chemical pathway that is common to the deja-vu experience-what remains to be discovered is wether or not a human being is more than the sum total of his bio-chemical reactions-this problem has vexed philosphers since humankind could think-Do we have a soul, and what is that soul, and how does it's journey take place, and can we experience anything that takes place beyond the realm of the physical place in the brain.

My feeling is that there is more to me than the sum total of neurological processes; with epilepsy, a pathway might be open to the experience of other realities that myself and other on this thread have experienced in non-seizure states.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 12, 2000.

Thanks for your thoughtful response FS. In light of what you said, I should mention that I have another relevant bias; I view myself as a Scientific Pantheist, which really means I'm an ethical Atheist. Therefore, I don't believe in the "spiritual soul" commonly thought of by monotheists. To me, the brain is an organ like all the other organ, but that like any other organ, it has it's own unique functions, and the fact that it is the only organ that enables us to think and be who were are. This "who we are" to me is this "soul" of common monotheistic views. My view is that as mamals, we are of the same "value" to the universe as any other mamal, and this "soul" or "who we are" because it is the most complex of mamals (in our view) is still driven by the same mechanism of neurotransmitters, electrical impulses, hormones etc.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 12, 2000.

The origional question was...What is your concept of time??

Steven Hawking has posed questions such as...How real is time?....Will it ever come to an end?...Why does the universe go through the bother of existing?

In the beginning there was a void, a vacuum, a nothingness..containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. One scientist, Hugh Ross, has written...Time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place..If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos.

I believe time is a measuring stick for cause and effect and is a one way street going one direction only. I think the reptile part of my brain contains a collective consiousness (instinct) that sometimes makes me think...been there and done that before. Time for ME began at conception and ends with death.

-- fauna (x@yy.ed), April 12, 2000.

Fauna:

Thanks for your thought-provoking post. Your opinion is appreciated.

Chris:

I will not have my definition(s) until the morning. This board is just lighting up today, and now that I have caught up, I am too tired to formulate what I want to say.

Hey Debra, any feedback on the astrology I gave you??

I am so pleased that we have had this party, with many opposing views and there has been virtually no flaming, with all views being expressed in intelligent, non-condemning manner. To the lurkers I say thanks for reading and not muddying up the thread, and to the posters I say BRAVO-this is the kind of debate I love-opinions all over the map with no ill feelings!

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 12, 2000.

I agree FS, keep this up and you'll have an excellent forum!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 13, 2000.

Thanks, hawk. One quick question: you do mean "you" as in the collective plural, right? Or do you mean me? or did you mean to say thread instead of forum? Or did you mean...........................?

Way too tired. I do not know if my life will ever be my own again since I got sucked into this board-good night, Hawk.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 13, 2000.

FS, thanks for the follow up. I empathize with you at the moment, I too am way too cought up in this forum at the moment, and also tired, should have been in bed long ago.

Not trying to put pressure on you, take your time responding, no rush.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 13, 2000.

No tricks FS, I just meant that if all the threads could be this interesting and civilized, this would be a very "consciousness-raising" forum, instead of.. well, the way it has been.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 13, 2000.

Hawk:

Did not think there were any tricks :). I was just confused. There are so many interesting ideas on this thread that I may not be able to respond to those I have read in the last 12 hours until much later (Then again it could be in an hour!).

Chris: Will we ever get out of this quicksand?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 13, 2000.

Concept of TIME? There is never enough!

Future Shock-

They are good descriptions of the nodes. Thank you for taking the TIME. Ever hear of Shamanic Astrology? "In that TIME before there was TIME, there was Grandfather Fire..."

Hopefully tonight I will have TIME...

Hawk-

-- Debra (time@space.com), April 13, 2000.

Fascinating thread, guys...

How long is the "present?"

I remember a long conversation I had with my dad and brother about attempting to define whether the "present" is itself a span of time. If it is a span of time then it must be broken up into segments. Those segments would actually consist of our memory of the very immediate past moment and the real "present." But how can we hone down the real "present" to consist of no span of time at all? Would it then become an impossibility or a contradiction?

Or is what we think of as the "present" is simply our memory of the immediate past? If that's the case, then the future would slip right into the past and the 'present' wouldn't really exist!

Geez, if only I'd have put this down in my philosophy final -- I could have proved since the present didn't exist, neither did my professor...:)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 13, 2000.

Eve:

Excellant questions! Here is a quote from TS Eliot's Four Quartets: "If all time is eternally present, then all time is unredeemable".

My interpretation of this is it perfectly captures a yin-yang idea of time. In my view, all time being eternally present is another way of describing my original idea in this thread: All "events" exist simultaneously-all points in time exist simultaneously. Yet, if all time is unredemmable, then we cannot revisit any point in the infinite field of points in time. I have not yet been able to crack this paradox.

This is why I meditate. I have had experiences in meditation where I can truly say I was living right here and right now, where any concept of time moving in a straight line vanished-Various disciplines have called this the "still" point. It is a fascinating place, devoid of fear of the future or regrets of the past. I DO believe in this still point, a point which by it's definition cannot be divided. A good author to check out on this topic is Krishnamurti.

One more thing Eve, if I remember correctly, you do not believe in astrology or at the very least are skeptical. I would like you to check out this url: http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=002xZa(titled Vindication) and read LunaC's original post a few months ago.

While many have predicted the Bubble would burst for what seems the longest time now, this poster seems to have been the closest in terms of timing-If one had bought short with this advise they would have reaped the profits!! FWIW.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 13, 2000.

Eve, the present is all there is, and it includes everything, but time does not exist. As FS said.. "All "events" exist simultaneously-all points in time exist simultaneously"

The key is energy, and planes of consciousness. As physical human bodies, we do have limitations on how far we can go with our energy before we are no longer physical bodies, as Einstein explained in his theory of relativity. During our low energy levels of sleep, we wander through the subconsious levels of reality, usually visiting realities that we have already experienced. Higher levels of energy are required to raise our consciousness to the point where we are actually bending space, creating the illusion of travelling into the future, but in reality we are just becoming so aware that we can see the many different realities that are possible. So as physical beings we seem to be restricted by relativity, but this does not prevent the consciousness of the "soul", using spiritual energy, from exploring these realms, which is what FS alludes to with meditation. Many think that there could be other hyper-dimensional beings surrounding us, but we are simply not capable of sensing them until we can increase our energy vibrations to the higher planes of consciousness where they live.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 13, 2000.

Eve,

It seems to me you're asking Zeno's paradox applied to time: Originally, You couldn't swim the length of a pool without swimming half-way first. You couldn't swim half-way without first swimming half of that, etc. Basically, you can't swim across the pool at all as you can't get started.

It's been a long time since calculus, but it was solved using a summation from 2 to N where 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8, ... 1/n ends up equalling one and so proving one can swim across a pool.

Likewise, some math oriented person could likely show (without looking it up) that regardless of how small you want to slice time (defined in seconds or something tangible, of course), you could still make a "whole" present of whatever size you wished.

Regards,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 13, 2000.

Eve,

I just had a thunk. I bet it was (1/2)^n with n= 1 to infinity. This would give 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 .... 1/n = 1.

A little better,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 13, 2000.

With the thought that this thread is getting super long I started a concept of time 2 thread. A continuation of all of the thoughts re time, deju vu, etc could be placed there to speed up the dialogue and scrolling time.

This is one of the most fascinating topics of discussion I have seen of the forum.

In the physical world of time NOW never exists. NOW is now, or is it NOW?

-- tc aka fauna (tc@webtv.net), April 13, 2000.

FutureShock,

Hi -- you said that all points in time exist simultaneously. I think that whether they do or not in physics/reality, though, wouldn't invalidate the chronological concepts of the past, present and future that we use for practical purposes.

Your "paradox" of all points in time existing simultaneously and at the same time being inaccessible seems more like a contradiction to me -- a logical impossibility.

Yes, I don't believe in astrology. As I mentioned to you on another thread, that would make sense, as I'm a Virgo and Virgos don't believe in astrology. (canned laughter, Monty Python-style, i.e., lasting about 2 seconds, then abruptly cut off) But thanks for the URL, though.

Your experiences in meditation sound tantalizing. But could I embark on this path? Oh, if I only had the time...

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

Hawk,

With respect to your first paragraph: See my response to FS -- what do you think?

On your second paragraph: I wouldn't disagree with you to the extent that we can access different levels of our previous experiences, from our subconscious memories. The rest of your ideas appear to be conjecture, though. Maybe I need an elaboration.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

Frank,

My math is really rusty, but it sounds as if your solution approaches one but never equals one.

And you said,

[Likewise, some math oriented person could likely show (without looking it up) that regardless of how small you want to slice time (defined in seconds or something tangible, of course), you could still make a "whole" present of whatever size you wished.]

This is captivating; could you elaborate?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

tc aka fauna,

First, should I be posting all these responses to the new thread?

Anyway, you said,

[In the physical world of time NOW never exists...]

Does this mean that you never typed your post because there was never a "now" that allowed it to happen? As Ricky Ricardo might say, " 'splain this one to me, Loocy. " :)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

Eve:

I reread what I posted and maybe you are right-maybe it is illogical. The problem might be in my interpretation of what Eliot meant by "unredeemable". I will give this some more thought and get back to you on it. As I said on the new thread, I am not abandoning this one.

As far as meditation, it really does not take a lot of TIME to get started. I personally started with 3-5 minutes at first and at my peak I was able to sit still for about a half hour at a time. The major residual benefit of this practice, even if ther is no "spiritual" experience, is that it will serve to reduce stress.

I know how difficult it can be for a virgo to sit still. That discriminating, categorizing mind of yours is not going to like slowing down and being told to stop the chatter :).

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 14, 2000.

Eve,

I agree that the true nature of the universe does not invalidate our subjective perception of time... past, present, future. Time is an illusion that the mind creates in order to organize our experiences, perhaps because we are not yet psychologically and emotionally prepared to accept the Everything of the All in the Now. Like a type of protective mechanism. Of course my ideas are conjecture, but there are some individuals that seem to substantiate that the future is accessible to the consciousness in the present. I explained this a little better on the part 2 thread. All of our thoughts and feelings become indellibly imprinted in the energy of the universe, part of All that Is, available to us Always, if we are able to "tune in". I prefer to think of our memories, not as a type of tape recorder that can store and "replay" previous experiences, but rather, a part of our consciousness that is able to tune in to the the vibrational energies of these realities. It works both ways, as some people are able to pick up on realities that we perceive to be in the future, but they actually already exist.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 14, 2000.

Eve,

Well, my point was that the "swim across the pool" problem was a mind puzzler until it was "solved" by calculus showing how you can define the *whole* volume of something even if it's broken down into infinitely small parts.

I think that you could do the same for time on a physical level. If you wanted to define the present as being one hour say, you could break that hour into infinitely small parts and still prove the sum would equal one hour.

That's kind of an engineering answer, not a metaphysical one, but on one level we're physical beings. Our neural reactions take place over time, not instaneously, so in order for us to perceive something, SOME time needs to elapse, implying to me that a useful definition of the present has to be kind of loose, but definitely over some measurable span of time.

Now I don't know if I'm still answering the question or not, but I do think the math works.

Frank

P.S. I guess we could define the present as the smallest instant we can perceive, but how useful would it be? We would never be "experiencing" in the present, as as soon as we recognized it, it would be the past.

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 14, 2000.

Eve:

Wonder of wonders...I can still scroll down this far.

Now.. is a split second if at all...an infinitely short time span. It's gone before I can capture it and already become the past.

If you focus your attention on a watch, when really is now? When the second hand moves across a certain number? But wait, that time is gone, in the past, so it can't be now.

-- tc (tc@webtv.net), April 14, 2000.

Hawk,

Does the "Now" of your "Everything of the All in the Now," have a span of time?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

I wonder if time is analog or digital.

Is it analog in one dimension? A flowing. Or is it analog in N dimensions?

Is it easier to consider discrete particles of time? The digital "now".

Does our perception of "now" depend on our concentration? I have had two, short intense periods of pain where I lost all track of time. One moment I was stepping off a curb and the next I opened my eyes and saw macadam parking lot. I had no idea how long I had been lying there. The event was so all-consuming that I had no sense of the passage of time.

If we internally digitalize time in order to lead our regular lives, what might we become if we could live in analog time of N dimensions? Does meditation, concentration, and even pain as the concentrator lead us beyond regularly percieved digital time?

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 14, 2000.

Frank,

Yes...I'm aware of what you're getting at with the calculus, and the extrapolation to time at the physical level. And it makes sense.

Later you said,

[Our neural reactions take place over time, not instaneously, so in order for us to perceive something, SOME time needs to elapse, implying to me that a useful definition of the present has to be kind of loose, but definitely over some measurable span of time.]

So, for practical purposes, our "Now" (let's call it the "Practical Now") must of necessity be a measurable span of time. That's a good point, as far as it goes.

But, ultimately that "Practical Now" would by definition have to include a past, present and future at any given moment (please don't ask me to get into what is a "moment." I'm already getting a headache from this). And after we strip away the "past, present and future from the "Practical Now" to get an "Ultimate Now," what then are we left with? And does that have a span of time, only smaller? Or what?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

tc,

Your post nicely captures the problem that we're working on. I'm just trying to get down to what is "Now" or "The Present" in the most infinitesimal sense possible -- to that which cannot possibly be reduced further. And then to see how we can grasp what is its nature if it has no span of time at all. Or would it instead have to have a time span?

Perhaps the only reasonable answer is that it could not possibly have a time span, because you'd be adulterating the present with pieces of the past and the future. But then, how could it exist without any span of time involved? Doesn't existence necessarily imply some sort of span of time?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

Here is something that fascinates me. I went to visit my old home town last year. I hadn't been there in 25 years. Behind my old house is a creek we used to play in. When I walked back there, I remembered being a child, playing pioneer down in that creek..catching "fish" (rocks) and making pretend fires over which to cook them.

This was probably when I was 7 or 8, essentially 30 years ago. I hadn't remembered this in that long time. How does a brain keep this memory,.. not a life changing moment (like child birth,..Id expect one to recall that) but just one day playing in a long life. And how is it that after 30 years of NOT remembering it, suddenly it's there fresh in my mind? That day, that moment, stayed hidden in my mind for 30 years???

What else is in there that I don't know about, waiting for the right moment to suddenly pop into the forefront, and what makes it pop? A related memory..the creek itself? Are there "subfiles" under "creek, ..and I have to bring up one to get to the others?

Also, on the subject of epilepsy bringing on "knowing". I have "knowing" in the period before I get a migraine. It is accompanied by an aura, and lasts about 20 minutes. It's akin to being between dimensions, and doesn't feel right. I've had good and bad experiences with paying attention to what I see and hear during that time, mainly bad. There are things among us that you don't normally see, and there is a really good reason for that. They're frightening.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), April 14, 2000.

Eve,

"Does the "Now" of your "Everything of the All in the Now," have a span of time?"

No, it includes Everything that ever Was, Is, and Shall Be, Forever. It also includes the Nothing and the Never. It is hard to put into words, so you need to rembember that at the very core of our existence, we are purely spiritual beings.

You know how when you dream, you have no concept of time? That's because you are tapping into the consciousness of your true existence. The subconscious is able to tune into the energy waves of everything you've ever felt and experienced. When we learn to develop our superconsciousness, we will be able to sense everything that exists, and always did. In a sense, I think we are being held back by the limitations of our physical bodies, that's why many claim to have had awesome "out-of-body" experiences. Time is merely an illusion created in our minds as a way of measuring the amount of energy we require to move the matter of our bodies into new experiences. It is a distortion of reality.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 14, 2000.

Eve,

By what I BELIEVE you're saying, the "ultimate now" wouldn't be very big! I agree that to *experience* "now" one really filters in past experiences, and probably future expectations as well (i.e. leaning into a wind that is gusting intermittently).

If you took away the past and future inputs, maybe all "now" would contain would be sensory input without interpretation?

Again, this is only from a human reference point though, I'm assuming that "now" in a third person sense will continue regardless of whether or not I'm here to experience it.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 14, 2000.

kritter,

A couple of seasons ago, whiffing the cherry tomatoes from the garden blasted my memory back over thirty years to the white picket fence of my aunt's house where her cherry tomatoes grew in the hot sun. Hadn't even thought about it since I was a wee tyke. It was quite intense.

-- flora (***@__._), April 14, 2000.

kritter and flora:

Those hidden memories that can lay dormant for decades and come up in an instant always stop me in my tracks. I am in awe of the human mind. It also makes me wonder if a person in a coma still has any activity at any level in the brain....and what is really happening in the brain of senile person. BTW, any of my senses can trigger the recall. I've been lucky that all I can think of have been pleasurable.

Eve:

Right NOW I'm going so settle for NOW being the exact moment it registers (from my senses) on my brain receptors.

I expect failures henseforth with my webtv reaching the depths of this thread. Hope to see you on Part 2........

-- tc (tc@webtv.net), April 14, 2000.

kritter and flora,

I drove down my old block in northwest Detroit a few years ago...I saw my playground and grade school a block or so away from my old house. To take a line from Field of Dreams, the memories came back so thick I had to brush them away from my face. I recalled my dad mowing the lawn with his push mower, my mom calling me in for supper, the neighbors, the kids I used to play with, the vegetable and fruit truck with its open sides going down the street, hop scotch markings seeming almost to reappear, the boys who teased me, and more.

I think that these things will somehow always be there for us...I agree with tc -- they're lying there dormant, just waiting to be picked like ripe fruit. I fill up with awe and wonder just thinking of it.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

OK you guys,

I'm throwing out a request here. I'm going to travel tomorrow to take care of my elderly Mother for a bit, while her barely younger man has surgery. She suffered some heart attacks at the crest of the new year, and has suddenly begun to rapidly lose her eyesight. She's a scorpio's scorpio, I love her dearly, but am the oddball runt of the bunch { which oddly enough gives me room to move, and them too}

Her ties to the distant past are stronger than her ties to the 'present'. I am looking forward to this as a challenging, meaningful opportunity, and thought y'all might have some valuable ideas for me to take with me on this journey.

Go for the gestalt {eve, I know ya been there}

-- flora (***@__._), April 14, 2000.

Hi flora,

The first thing that comes to my mind is whether it's possible to take her for a ride to your (and her) old neighborhood, maybe visit an old familiar park where you can have a picnic and talk about the times past. Bring cards and other games for the evenings or if the weather's nice at night, sit and talk on the front porch.

If you're talking home care for her, let me know, as I've done this for my mom...but I would need more info on her condition. I'm not a medical person, but I might have some suggestions for you.

(Btw, the scene I described in my post above was from the mid-to-late fifties)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 14, 2000.

Flora:

Bring Love-In your heart, your words, your soul. Take care of yourself-you can best help when you are in a solid spiritual condition. Whatever it is that you do to relieve stress continue to do so, and if you have not been doing it, start up again.

My best advise is do not lose track of yourself and your needs-this is not selfish-it will help keep you at the ready to help your mom.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 15, 2000.

Hi Pam,

I think that regardless of whether time is "analog" or "digital," when we to reduce it to its essence, it seems we should end up with the same result.

Regarding your experience in passing out: I agree that our perception of "now" in practical terms could depend on our concentration -- i.e., a part of the context. But an ultimate reduction of the "now" or "present," as I was attempting to analyze, is something else altogether.

Your "analog" versus "digital" time idea, and your last paragraph, are provocative, though. Could you expand on your thoughts here?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), April 15, 2000.

Hello eve-- I've read all the posts--both threads

For me, the breakinging down of time segments into ever smaller segments doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I think we live our lives this way because it is easy to handle the concept of discrete intervals of time all hooked together in one dimension---rather like a line on a paper.

Hawk suggests time is vertical with multiple choices at each point on the line. I see this as two dimensional time.

Just Passing suggests all time exists at the same time. It is multi- dimensional with leaks from other times coming into our own "now" occasionally. I would call this N-dimensional analog time.

I'm not sure how we might reach N dimensions since even a fourth dimension is hard for me to really think about. However, we ought to be able to do more with our brains than we do. Soooo, maybe meditation or extreme concentration might lead us there.

And maybe not. After all--the weird blips in time that I've experienced took no concentration at all as far as I'm aware.

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 15, 2000.