I was recently reading an article entitled The Psychology of Deja Vu written by Joshua Foer and published on September 9th 2005 edition of Discover magazine. In this the author argued that the more educated, wealthy and well-travelled an individual is the more likely that they will experience a deja vu sensation. The logic is simple; the more experiences that somebody has the more likely it will be that they will subliminally recognise a set of circumstances now being experienced with a set of similar circumstances they have experienced in the past. There is a feeling of recognition and a sensation that at some time in the past the actual circumstances have been experienced. This is argued to be a simple error of memory. This experience is given the splendidly technical (and therefore authorititive) name of Reduplicative Paramnesia. So there you go, the boffins have explained something again by giving it an impressive label. Indeed the logic presented here is, indeed, powerful. Just one HUGE problem, virtually every survey has shown that the experience of deja vu decreases with age. So, in effect, a person is MORE likely to have a deja experience the less life experience they have. This contradicts totally the argument that deja vu is related to being better educated and more widely travelled. However the author of the article totally misses this logical problem even though in the very next sentence after he makes the point about wider experience he writes As people grow older, the frequency of déjà vu trails off dramatically. The average twentysomething experiences it about three times a year; middle-aged people rarely experience it more than once a decade without seeing just how contradictory this is. But then again the article is all about how there is nothing at all paranormal or odd about the deja phenomena and the scientists have totally got it sussed. Indeed in an earlier paragraph he quotes the psychologist Alan Brown who wrote in his book The Deja Vu Experience (which I have read by the way) that “The field has been contaminated with paranormal theories. It’s been a hot potato for scientists. We’re trying to extinguish that bad rap. We’re trying to bring it into a more legitimate framework.” Note the use of the pejorative word contaminated as if in some way any interpretation other than that approved by the scientific thought-police is intellectually of no worth and actually contaminates the acceptable work being done by those who follow the rules ..... However what really irritated me about the article was not this arrogant dismissal of anything outside of self-ordained correctness but the way in which the actual empirical experiences described by those who actually perceive deja sensations are simply ignored. In the article Foer cites a description by one of the earliet researchers in the field, Morton Leeds who wrote: “Awake, active. Extremely intense. Stood still for a moment in the shop. Then the feeling grew and grew. One of the most complete I have ever had. As the awareness grew, the feeling of being able to predict the next scene also came. It was so strong it almost nauseated me.” Note the words the feeling of being able to predict the next scene is powerful and precise. Leeds was experiencing a precognition. Later we have another quote a person who experienced epilepsy and was in his (or her) aura state ... “A wave would sweep over me, and I had the distinct sensation that I knew what was going to happen in my immediate environment,” and another again makes the point as strongly as possible that these experiences are precognitions not recognitions: “It is like I know that my arm will move before it does.” So why is it that nobody feels the need to actually check whether these precognitive sensations are proven by subsequent events? It is clear from many reports, specifically those reported by TLE experiencers with regards to their aura state that they not only perceive what is about to happen next but also what is about to happen next ACTUALLY COMES TO PASS!!! But this part of the experience is carefully ignored. Why? Because it doesnt fit in with the present scientific paradigm and anything that contradicts the paradigm (a White Crow) is ignored. You would think that after the discovery of the quantisation of energy with regards to another White Crow (Black-Body Radiation) you would think that science would have learned. But no, that is not the case. Maybe it is because physics learned the hard way and embraced the unacceptable and in doing so created a whole new understanding of how the world works whereas psychology is still trapped in the shadows of functionalism and the legacy of Skinnerism. We must listen to what those who experience deja vu tell us about the sensation and incorporate these empirical sensations into the model .... and then, and only then, will we really have an answer to this great enigma ...
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 12:26:56 +0000
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