Thread: Psychic-y stuff

Scientifically speaking, our memory is perfect, as demonstrated when under hypnosis. Access to our memory however is limited, as demonstrated when you try to remember your dreams but can't, but suddenly along the day the memory pops up... it's because it's always been there and doesn't go away. Access to memory is associated to a certain state of mind. When you dream you can't access your waking memory, when you are awake, you can't access your dreaming memory. Knowing that our memory works through association (when I you see a heart, you think love), you could conclude, that the triggering of a dream memory only could happen when that dream memory is similar to the waking experience, which would explain the deja vu phenomena.

You could also explain deja vu's as a day dream you had in a flash, your subconscious predicting the situation and dreaming an outcome. But I really fail to understand how you can explain deja vu's as a mere glitch when they are so accurate? If deja vu's were a glitch, they should be random, not predicting exactly what is going to happen right? Instead of trying to explain deja vu's most people seem to be trying to explain deja vu's as a glitch. It must be a glitch. It can't possibly be that our human brain actually can predict the future! But that's exactly what happens right? Maybe there simply isn't any explanation, and our subconscious mind is simply able to predict a possible future, just like we are able to do so with our logic and reason.. for example it's not hard to predict that atleast one person is going to disagree with me

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Scientifically speaking, our memory is perfect, as demonstrated when under hypnosis. Access to our memory however is limited, as demonstrated when you try to remember your dreams but can't, but suddenly along the day the memory pops up... it's because it's always been there and doesn't go away. Access to memory is associated to a certain state of mind. When you dream you can't access your waking memory, when you are awake, you can't access your dreaming memory. Knowing that our memory works through association (when I you see a heart, you think love), you could conclude, that the triggering of a dream memory only could happen when that dream memory is similar to the waking experience, which would explain the deja vu phenomena.

First of all this is wrong. When you are sleeping you can most certainly access your "waking' memory. You can even remember what day it is in the real world. Memory is not "perfect" and Hypnosis merely enhances memory and not even to a large degree. Furthermore hypnosis has been known to produce false or distorted memories. Memory of dreams is similar to short term memory of anything else in the world.

I'm assuming you base this assumption on the fact that some people can "remember" some things from their past that is very long ago with things like hypnosis and electrical stimuli. But the thing is it only demonstrates that some things are kept as long term memory. It doesn't demonstrate that everything is kept as long term memory.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

You could also explain deja vu's as a day dream you had in a flash, your subconscious predicting the situation and dreaming an outcome. But I really fail to understand how you can explain deja vu's as a mere glitch when they are so accurate? If deja vu's were a glitch, they should be random, not predicting exactly what is going to happen right? Instead of trying to explain deja vu's most people seem to be trying to explain deja vu's as a glitch. It must be a glitch. It can't possibly be that our human brain actually can predict the future! But that's exactly what happens right? Maybe there simply isn't any explanation, and our subconscious mind is simply able to predict a possible future, just like we are able to do so with our logic and reason.. for example it's not hard to predict that atleast one person is going to disagree with me

What do you mean deja vu is accurate?

Deja vu is the opposite of accurate. It is an extremely vague feeling of "I feel like I've done this before." There are no real predictions made by deja vu but rather people fooled into thinking they have made a prediction. For example someone might say "oh I had deja vu I knew you were going to say that" but yet in the same scenario if they had been pressed to they wouldn't have been able to finish the sentence.

We already know memory has its faults and can create odd experiences. Why say that a thing which obviously has its root in memory because it revolves around "remembering" something is anything more than an odd experience caused by how we process this memory?

As I said, certainly you can have a dream of a thing happening before it happens, but this occurrence would be extremely rare, and certainly there are normal things that happen in your day to day life from the past that are far more similar to what is happening than what was in your dream of which things are constantly dissimilar to reality.

In other words, why not leave it at memory problems and nix the idea that the only memories deja vu deal with are dream memories?

Maybe for you, deja vu is a very vague feeling, for me its a very clear memory and even to the point I can sometimes say the words before the other person can. That's why it seems to me that it's not just a glitch. And that thing about perfect memory is not an assumption. You can see this in the case were people are born handicapped, giving them unlimited access to their memory. Sure, you could reason that these handicapped people suddenly leaped ahead 100000 years in evolution and therefore have superior memory than the average human, or you could reason that normal human beings already have a perfect memory, but for evolutionary purposes our brains limits access.

EDIT: Screw it, this conversation isn't going to go anywhere. It is just more of this person who makes an unsubstantiated claim vs. someone wanting them to prove it. Believe what you like Chayba, I don't care if you prove it to me or not anymore.

Errr.... I was going to say I just had a deja vu today and actually said something totally off the wall that happened a few seconds later..... but uh back to psychicy stuff I guess..