For some reason I find myself cruising down highway 5. On a bike. I’m heading down to Mexico. Passing by San Diego and the beach i used to walk everyday. I decide to pull over and walk towards the taco stand. Being here reminds me of Joe.. (The guy I dated, till he had to serve in Afghanistan) Haven’t thought of him for a long while.. would he still be alive? ordering my fish taco, someone next to me says: “One for me too please?”
As I reach for my wallet, I feel a hand on my arm.
“Don’t worry, I got it.”
I look up and guess who? Joe. I don’t even know what to say except.. “Oh my god… Joe!” His reply: “Shh it’s Dave now.” But of course, I should’ve known.. Anyway… as we stand there I realise I’m not hungry anymore. And Joe uhmm ‘Dave’ isn’t either, since the taco’s stand there untouched.
We’re just kinda, staring at each other till he says: So, I got a place right
from the beach here. All I can say is: “That’s hella sweet hon.”
Before I even realise we’re walking up the road and we enter his beach house.
Nothing fancy, just an ordinary beach house. It’s what I like though. J.. – I mean, Dave says nothing, he’s just holding my hands. I say nothing, I’m just letting him hold me. Touch me. Kiss me in the neck. Then I pull back, things are going too fast. He looks at me and says: “It’s just me.. Joe. No one else.”
I can’t help but laugh, replying: “Thought you’re name was Dave?”
He smiles too and says: “Whatever.. what matters is: I didn’t think I would ever get to see you again, hold you again. And now you’re here, in my house. I don’t care why you’re here or how you got here..” He kisses me again, long and passionate. As he always did actually.
It’s only then I realise how much I missed him. Him and that body of his. So I give in, and he knows it. He lifts me up the stairs, with ease of course. There’s no way to deny what’s about to happen. He knows and I do too. Don’t know why, but I can’t hold myself back. I wanna be in control this time.
So I climb on top of Dave, but apparently he’s not in that kinda mood. So
He throws me off. Not gently, though he never was. He pushes me down on the bed again and rips off my clothes, literally. I get wary, tell him to cool down. Only has the opposite effect.
That look in his eyes does not comfort me no longer. Still.. I feel amazing. The rhythm of his thrusting in me soothes me. Even when I can feel him becoming more and more aggressive.. I’m on a high and all I can think of is him, inside of me. And the pain of course. But the pain is good. His nails scrape my skin, I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding by now. But I don’t care.. I’m loving it.. Oh am I loving it.
When we come to our senses again, Dave asks me: “So now tell me, What are you doing here? Why, how?” So I start explaining, I needed to get away from everything and everyone, and that now I was on my way to Tijuana, Mexico.. and I should get going again. I can feel him messing with my mind again. From the moment I saw him felt him taking control of my thoughts. If I stay longer, I know he’ll drag me in again and quick too. So I get out of the bed, grab my shit real fast. Dave doesn’t understand and I can see the rage bubbling up in his eyes. As I walk out of the door I can hear him say: “I love you, please call me babe.” I forced myself not too look back.
I mumble bye and get the hell out of there. I get back on my bike, cycle towards Tijuana. Doesn’t take too long to get there, but at the border costumes was giving me shitloads of trouble again. When I finally arrive in TJ, I walk up to the first shabby motel I can find and check it. Just my luck, they have no single rooms left. So I settle for a double. Luckily all I see in the room is a suitcase. Exhausted from the night before, I undress, take a shower and go to bed.
I awake and notice there’s a guy in the room. I figure he just got back from partying here, just hoping he didn’t bring a girl. Can’t really see much, since I took out my contacts. The guy notices I’m staring at him and says: “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“It’s okay”, I say. “By the way, I’m Léonieke..” There’s a silence.. a silence that lasts longer than it should. Then the guy walks up to me and I’m getting a bit freaked out.
“I know babe, long time, no see.” He climbs onto the bed and kisses me. Happens so fast, I had no time to object. Or maybe it’s just because I’m still sleepy. But as he kissed me I knew. Martijn..
You waste no time and I don’t mind. You’re pretty drunk and I don’t mind. I’m still drowsy, trying to figure out whether I’m dreaming. No, I couldn’t be dreaming cause feels too good and even if I was dreaming, I wouldn’t mind. Feels too good. I give in. I realise I’m easy at giving in. I don’t care. I’m enjoying it. I can smell the alcohol in your breath. God I wanna drink now. You always make me wanna drink. You kiss me and I cannot help but to bite your lip.. I taste the blood. You just smile in an evil way and nod..
You get me.
But all of sudden, everything changes. You enter me again and this time my mind cannot keep up. Feels like its about to explode. I wanna yell stop, I’m not sure if I did, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. You know better than to listen to me. You know to do the opposite. My mind is messed up and I try with all my strength to push you away. You back off for a minute, see the marks of nails on my body. I try to speak, but I find myself unable to. As I sit up, you push me right back down again. I hit my head on the bed. You see my pain, it turns you on. You start thrusting harder, I’m about to loose it and try to get you off of me. I squirm, I bite, try to rip off your skin with my nails. I try to kick and punch you, without success. You push down my hands.. and lay your hands on my throat. And I’m good. I’m comfortable, I’m at ease. Feels so peaceful. I don’t even think I have thoughts anymore I almost go numb. Álmost, since I can still feel you.. I don’t know how much time passes, how many times I felt like going unconscious. I do know you get real caught up in your ‘role’.. If you’re still playing that is..
I come back to my senses as the door opens and the light switches on. You, being in a zone, you don’t respond, neither do I. The light blinds me and I hear a guy scream, can’t hear what he’s saying though. Find myself trying to figure out if this is for real or not. Then the weight of your body is no longer pushing me down. I’m confused..
Then my eyes adjust to the light just in time to see you getting smashed into the wall. You practically go through the thin wall. Then I see something shine, in the moonlight that comes through the curtains. It’s in the hand of the guy that just stormed in. Can’t see what it is, my vision is still blurry from the absence of contacts. He stabs you with it over and over while still banging you against the wall. I freeze. I wanna scream, wanna help you, but I can’t move. Can’t talk. It’s like everything goes in slow motion.
Then he drops you on the floor and kicks your head. I can hear your neck break.
The guy walks towards me. Drops the knife on the floor, right next to my bed. I can feel drops of blood falling on my skin. I’m starting to gag and at the same moment I recognise him. Dave.. Joe..
Only thing that goes through my mind is: Fuck no fuck no… what is he doing here?!
So I stutter: “Dave.. what.. what..” He screams to me: “SHUT THE FUCK UP, BITCH!”
Grabs me by the throat and slams my head into the wall. God I’m just hoping to pass out right now. But he knows.. he knows exactly how to hurt me without knocking me out.
I mean, he has a gun – I’m sure he brought it – but there’s no way in hell he’s gonna let me off this easy.
After I blacked out for a second he releases his grip from my throat. I’m still seeing spots but I manage to push out: “Dave, why? What did he do, what did I do?”
Then the grip tightens again. Everything I’ll say will enrage him further. So I say nothing, I don’t respond to anything he does. That also seems to enrage him. He picks me up my the throat and drags me to the bathroom and locks the door. He takes of his clothes and rips off a part of his t-shirt and ties up my mouth with it. I don’t care anymore, let him kill me. Pisses him off that I don’t react the way he wants me too. Infuriates him so much he starts kicking me. Then I hear a crack.. Just before I black out from the pain I realised he must’ve kneed me and broke my ribs. When I open my eyes again I find him staring at me. The white bathroom tiles were no longer white but red. I’m looking at my blood, spread out over the floor..
“Good, you’re back again” .He walks up to the shower and turns it on, really hot. I can feel the humidity from the steamy water already. He picks me up, and throws me in the shower, while whispering to me I’d better keep standing. I know what’s coming.. Of course I’m not able to stand up, the pain is excruciating. I fall to the shower floor. See the water turn red too. Again I feel like gagging. Then, Dave gives me something to really gag. He pushes his dick into my mouth. It was not until now I noticed my jaw’s dislocated. Don’t remember when that happened. It hurts.. he pushes it deep and hard, and every time my head slams in to the wall. I can hardly breathe, the water running over my face. Dave notices I almost black out again.. he picks me up, turns me around and starts fucking me. Even though I’ve been raped before, I was sure this time there would be not the slightest hint of enjoyment. I forced myself to black out, I hold my breath, hoping not to wake up anymore..
But I do.. I’m on the bed.. Again with all the red. And his face hanging over me. “you do like to keep me waiting don’t you? For a second there I thought I lost you. That would be a shame, I like to finish you off myself..”
I see him grab the knife and walk towards me slowly.. It’s hard to keep my eyes open, the blood is clothing over my eyes. I decide to close my eyes again. I don’t want to see. Don’t want to know. I feel him stabbing me in the chest, doesn’t hurt. Don’t know why but I recall knowing, my nerves are probably damaged to much to still feel pain.Then I think: fuck Dave knows that too, for sure. So I try to act like every stab is as painful as the next. Guessing he didn’t buy it, cause he went and sliced open my arms and legs.. Then it stopped. I can hear him walking away. I lie still thinking: he might think im dead. But he knows better, he knows to check my pulse. He knows never to think, only to know for sure, That’s how they trained him. Then I hear the sound, a relieve actually. The click. The safety pin is off..
I hear the blast, deafening numbing.. All goes black. My sight, my hearing, my feeling, my presence.
Then I wake.. Time to start a new day..
Moderated
Moderated
Just had a dream where I was attending a couple different parties, all-in-one elaborate & physics-defying house. It started in this sort of cross-hybrid of two very different apartment/loft settings I’ve been to in NewYork. Then shifted to a reimagining of a rich friends house form high school. At one point I went on a search for food, while everyone was smoking weed in the basement (which was completely unto itself & had little to no basis in reality) which was really just a hallway with many doors each of which has people smoking or drinking or eating or both, there was also a family room for the relatives of whoever was having the party? Anyway, so I go upstairs to get food. While searching through the cabinets, eventually I notice a down-escalator in the living room near the kitchen. Of course I take it & there is a mall in the house, I am heading toward the pet store when a girl i used to date in middle-school i see in my peripheral vision & do that “i’m not going to acknowledge her unless she acknowledges me” social-passing thing. She is shocked to me, welcomes me with open arms & we have a long & drawn out hug. During this hug, i remember thinking that there was “an algamem” of people starting to walk by, my real girlfriend, a guy who kept talking to me trying to find her & pronounce her name, my friend Virtue & his girlfriend, who I really want to say ‘Hi’ to since I havent seen him in a while, just a consortium of past friends start to crowd around.
The entire time, through the mall part of the dream, i become ‘aware’ that I am recording my dream, & there is a sort of status bar at the bottom, locating faces, registering their names, etc. Sort of like Terminator meets Wii aesthetic. And it keeps uploading something. Many, many characters (read: people I haven’t seen or thought of in ages) kept popping up. And as the dream faded out & i gradually woke up, having yet to open my eyes, a sort of lucidity stayed with me, &, although knowing I was in bed & reflecting upon the peculiarity of the dream, I was still thinking in terms of it being recorded!![?]!! My mind kept sifting through people throughout the dream thinking “oh, saw him/her too” etc. & a vague image of the status bar would tally them. After a few minutes I realized I actually had awoke & that this was a completely frivolous act. To which I giggled & opened my eyes lightly.
I left my friend to do his work after our banter but as he entered the auto-mechanic shop, I realized that the giant ketchup bottle on the sign was tilting over. For an instance I could not tell if it was an actual ketchup bottle or just a fake one for the sign, but a second later my question was answered when the top fell of and all sorts of ketchup started falling on the pavement. I sat there fascinated by it for a moment, but then went over to investigate. That is when Beth and Leon got home. I told Beth, “Hey I’m sorry about this,” but she said, “That’s okay, you can pay this months rent.” I looked at Leon and started calculating in my head how much that would come to if we split it, but my anger and annoyance finally got the better of me and I just started cleaning the ketchup off the carpet myself. My friend returned from the auto-mechanic shop and started helping, and finally Beth came back down the stairs and said, “Look, I’m sorry, you don’t need to clean that up, I’ll clean it later.” “NO,” I said, “You directly criticized my sense of responsibility, so I am going to clean this up.” She left. My friend had tried to cover up a section of ketchup near a low-hanging wall with stuffed animals, so I removed them and tried cleaning it up for real. The salsa was an unpleasant surprise among the ketchup, but I was soon distracted by the Kermit the Frog with his hands tied behind his back. As I removed a Raggedy Ann with congealed locks, I returned to the Kermit, but my friend was already pulling his hands together in front of his body instead of behind. Still, some hands were painted on behind, and for a moment I could not tell if I just had lived my entire life with the mistaken assumption that frogs had four appendages instead of six, or if it was the stuffed animal itself that was wrong. At any rate, three people started discussing it and decided that there was some significance behind an auto-mechanic shop and a three-legged half of a frog, but they still could not agree if it’s bilateral balanced six-legged counterpart really added anything to the story.
—PolarisDiB
The last dream I remember having was this:
I was not myself, but a jewish girl about 15 years old, me (jewish teenager) and my family were in the car, we had a Mercedez when suddenly a Volkswagen big bus appeared behind us, my dad raised the speed up almost to top. For some reason the bus was a meneace to us. While we were escaping we noticed that someone had put a wall on the middle of the road, so we crashed upon it. I was in the backseat and I was alive and conscious but everyone else in the car wasn’t, I turned myself left and saw the bus passing us by another lane.
Later I was myself again, and I was working out on the gym when a spider walked all over my arm, and I wouldn’t do anything but standing still because I didn’t want to drop my weighs so it bited me and I started bleeding and I passed out. I was in a hospital bed and still suffering drug effects from anesthesia or something when my best friend came into the room, she gave me flowers and then hugged me.
And just to avoid misunderstoods, I have NOTHING against the jewish community nor Anne Frank.
Noel (:
Ah! and some weeks later I had a Déja Vu for the first part of my dream, I saw the Volkswagen bus behind us and then passing the car by the left lane. Luckily there were no walls involved, and it was a nice sensation to know where I had seen that scene before.
It starts off and I’m analyzing porn with my friend Rachel and two others I don’t remember. Rachel is my only friend who is my age not older (and also our friendship is 100% platonic), and I know the other two we’re with are acting as older, authority figures. By analyzing porn I don’t quite know what I mean. But we’re analyzing it as if it’s a Tarkovsky movie I bet. So afterwards we are sent away to go see a movie (non-porn). But while in the car I’m still horny from the porn and so I tell Rachel I have to go to the bathroom and ask if we cans stop by my house. So I go into my house and into my bathroom and I just touch my penis, which is not hard, and cum goes everywhere. Annoyed because I didn’t feel anything but made I mess, I just clean up and then go back out to the car.
So we drive to a movie theatre I do not recognize, and once I get out of the car Rachel has run off and is no longer with me. On my way to buy tickets to the movie I stumble upon this small circle of people. I start talking to these strangers, two of which are a brother and sister, and the sister is my age. The brother is joking about how their mom is so strict on his sister that she never goes out and as a result has never had a boyfriend, and so everyone thinks she’s gay. The girl gets embarrassed but I say that I totally understand (even though in real life that is not my situation) and then she calms down. And I’m just enjoying talking to all these new people
I then realize that the movie I want to go see is not playing at this theatre, but there is a bus coming to the theatre soon going to another theatre that is playing it. Just then Alison, and Rachel, and a ton of my friends walk by and tell me I should just go see the movie they are seeing. I ponder this decision for awhile and then decide to just get on the bus. I believe that circle of people from before follow me and I believe when I get on the bus it’s filled with my friends from Italy.
What I do know is as I get on the bus I turn to the bus driver and say “Is this a magic bus?”. And right after those words leave my mouth I wake up.
I had a pretty good one the other day… I was dressed like Che Guavara and was directing my girl friend in a film…
So I went back to sleep since its Saturday. The alarm went off at 11am. Then I had the weirdest dream until noon…
It started with me & a friend & a couple people I havent talked to in years driving to a Walmart to get food. The Walmart was massive though, shelves to the ceilings, & at some point we decided to shoplift, but, instead of putting it in a cart or on our person, we decided to put it in this dog we had with us. The dog’s back unhinged & we put all the stuff in there, then left. I was trying to get the stuff out of the dog but it kept jumping around the car. And everyone kept saying that I was the one that stole, which wasnt really true, it was a group effort. Either way, we stopped at this strange house, parked & they all got out really quickly. It’d be wrong of me to say it was a haunted house, because all these strange people were just hanging out around & within it. It was more of a house in another dimension sort of thing. So I go in & start wandering around & it is the weirdest place imaginable. All kids of unspoken rules. Ropes tying off certain rooms, where, if you go past them, your feet start to balloon & grow thorns, or your neck suddenly twists around & gets taller. That kind of haunted. No real threat or danger persay, just alot of creepy people, very calm, who clearly own the house, and are fine with you wandering through it, who are just going about their day in their house, very used to outside visitors. Alot of strange things happened I cant precisely explain or remember in detail. I remember going outside to the sideyard for a bit. And there were strange, half trash-metal half plant-objects, breathing. Inside there were many many more ‘trap’ rooms where if you did one thing ‘wrong’ something completely fucked would happen. None of it particularly dangerous though. All if it just very, very surreal & eerie.
So eventually it became understood throughout the house that it was time to leave, & at I make my way to the front porch, where the ‘family’ of owners are hanging out watching visitors leave, they’re not really a family, just a group of visitors who have decided to stay for good, but there are definite ‘father’ & ‘mother’ figures who are top-tier owners of the house, who i gathered had been there the longest.
Anyway, so I decide to fly away, I bid them my goodbyes & it’s actually very peaceful, they welcome me back anytime & i even think “yeah, maybe i will come visit again” & thank them for letting me stay for a day. I jump off the porch, fall a little, then pick up some wind & fly upwards. It’s a great feeling & as I fly away, over this very basic suburban landscape, I can see/feel the ‘mother’ watching me, I sort of do a U-turn after I decide to go and thank her personally, I fly back & chest-land on the little grassy hill that leads down to their yard. Everyone quietly asks “waht are you doing? you need to go.” i tell them i wanted to thank her & they say she already went inside & that was my one chance to leave. I dont believe them & try to fly off again as the sunsets. Flying doesn’t work. They say I better go inside & find a place to sleep. Now I remember all the fucked-up traps inside & ignore their warnings & walk off into the subdivision. It becomes clear that I can’t jsut walk & have to fly off far enough before the sunset, into some sort of dimensional wave to get back to the normal world. To be clear, the dimensional wave is definately not a blackhole, but a sort of sheath around the entire dimension. As if this little suburb were in a globe & the wrapping around the globe is a transparent film or coating that can be penetrated through, you can even see the difference of the outside world through it.
So, I try to just walk away anyway, but the farther I go it becomes increasingly difficult to climb over the houses (why I didnt try to just walk through the yard or sidewalk, I dont remember) because the houses keep shifting & parts of them disappearing right under me. It comes to my attention that this whole dimension must be the matriarch’s imagination & her imagining of the suburb she’s lives in only goes so far & is only so strong to maintain a certain boundary. So I reluctantly start to head back the house mid-sunset.
There is a cute redhead girl in a driveway caddy-corner to the house. She lures me over, we start making-out, & very soon I am not only having sex with her, but also doing anal, during which she… doesn’t start to puke, exactly, but a slow stream of color-changing bile or that excess-saliva pre-puke starts to slowly faucet out of her mouth. I can smell the faint memory of the scent of vomit. The sex finishes & she sort of thanks me in a mean way. Then tells me I better get over to the yard, becasue it gets really cold at night. She is smoking a cigarette & i ask for a drag. She says “Maybe tomorrow” hinting that she wants to see me again. I smirk & take the cigarette from her. It stays in her mouth & i somehow grab only the butt of the cigarette, still lit, & take a drag & cast it aside. She smiles evilly & curls up on the driveway to sleep. I say I’m going to sleep in the house & she says that’s impossible now & i have to sleep on the grass. I remember there’s my car there, so I resign to sleep in it. I remember the dog is in there still with all the food in it & I hope it’s okay. I rush over. But when I get there the car’s gone. Which I mentally blame on my friend, thinking he must’ve driven away before sunset, he drove me here after all. So i try to get in another car. But the car starts & angrily drives down the street. I try to get in a truck, same reaction. I do this several times to increasingly larger trucks & they are all alive & all pissed that I’m trying to get in them. An overly-large buff man with fat little missles attatched to his shoulders comes to the door of the house & tells me to stop. To just sleep on the grass. I somehow manifest a cover, but no pillow. I am pissed about having to sleep onthe grass when he had just opened the door to the house & couldve let me in. So i start to touch all the cars & make alot of noise. He comes back tot he door, pissed, & tells me to stop. I yell back at him something to the effect of “Whatever! You’re just part of a dream!” And of course I wake up. Very, very weirded out, & very, very glad I went back to sleep after the alarm went off. It was such a… singular experience. Very strange & very strong. Most of it inexplicable & forgotten.
Santropez, don’t you love having deja vu and knowing specifically that you had seen it in this particular dream? What a great feeling that is.
My theory is all deja vu is remembering dreams… Yes this means I believe our subconscious somehow knows the future…
NEH, Thanks for adding some life to this thread! When I get a chance today I’ll read your dream and comment. :)
Drew. your theory is understood & believed by others. Including myself. I’ve had too many instances of deja visite & deja vecu where I can specifically recall that this was a dream I had weeks or months ago, & often I can even recall the surreal haze that my imagination built around it, before & after the actual premonition.
The most major time it ever happened, a deja visite, the people in the lucid dream (easier to remember, no?:)were people I had not met yet (but would), & in a place I had never & could never have been to (since it was the grandparents house of the people I didn’t know yet). And it was one of the strongest, longest deja vu experience of my life. Where I legitimately felt the sense of lucidity, while awake, as if my brain in the past were somehow connected to my brain in the present, accessing my senses of sound & vision.
The implications are uncharted & infinite.
I had a dream where everything stay the same, Just lf had continued my life while I was sleeping, A dream without Surrealism, without weird things, without subconscious ideas, just ordinary life.
Sad realistic explanation of deja vu that nobody believes but is in fact the current scientific explanation avec evidence:
Sight and taste are the two most commonly linked senses to memory, but taste is more linked to recall (thus while snacking during studying and then snacking during the examination is a good habit for recalling facts) and vision is more linked to visceral memory, the part of the brain that is associative and the subject of Pavlov’s experimentation re: positive and negative reinforcement. “Sixth senses” inputs center around this section because it’s memory and association working in conjunction to wordlessly create a visceral feeling of unease that allows the body to stay away from negative or pain-inducing things in the environment that was never consciously recognized.
So, to deja vu then. Occassionally our brains get tired. We all know this. All of us have experienced points where we did not think straight, thought we saw something we didn’t, suddenly came up with a solution to a problem previously written off and forgotten, remember a commercial jingle while searching for the lyrics to our favorite punk song, and remember to buy a tuxedo for prom after passing children playing in the park. Synapses misfire, get mixed up. This is why the brain is so hard to map, because there’s millions of them and they do not regularly do the same thing, because they are constantly adapting to new input and reappropriating old input.
Sometimes when our brains get tired, they tend to read input, especially visual stimulation, as memory instead of current. This creates a cognitive dissonance that snaps the brain awake, resulting ironically in hyperalertness, so that whatever input triggered the dissonance suddenly seems more crisp and clear, because it’s reinforced . Our logical minds decide this reinforcement is awareness of “happening again”, while the memory synapsis getting fired off tells our brain that it HAS happened before. Meanwhile, as your brain is working through all of that, the surreal and confusing feeling of displacement also brings up the associative weirdness and subconscious exploration of dreaminess, so in many cases the person experiencing deja vu decides that instead of it “happening before”, it must have “been in a dream”. But really it’s your brain mistakingly inputting visual stimula into memory and then, upon hyperawareness of that mistake, rapidly reorganizing that input into the best way it can make sense of it, which is to rewrite the instance as memory and tie it into dreams.
Here’s the good news, now that your metaphysical beliefs have been directly deconstructed: deja vu has been shown to occur most often in intellectual and hyperkinetic people, whose active brains sometimes “trip” over themselves as they get tired. The image of the absent-minded professor is a good representation of this, where someone’s mind is so filled with cerebral stuff that the character forgets to put on pants and enters the wrong classroom without noticing.
So deja vu is not signifying your subconscious’ magnificent ability to predict the future, but it may signify that you’re a real thinker. Congrats and enjoy it.
—PolarisDiB
NEH, Why do you think the government doesn’t want us to know about our ability to predict the future?
And now Drew implies that I’m the government. This obviously reflects on Drew’s brain’s rationality and reliability!
As I said, this explanation, published by scientists and reported on in Time and Newsweek , tends not to be believed by most laypeople I explain it to. My personal theory is that it is because since the brain rewrites the input as memory, the memory is there and the person does in fact remember it, even though it didn’t actually happen before. Because people are unwilling and uncomfortable with distrusting their own brains, they would rather believe their own “rational” or “logical” explanation (built in the very same brain that definitely and clearly remembers this happening) that it happened before.
Other typical counter-arguments are “We just don’t know very much about the brain so who can tell?” (Yes, because we don’t know a whole lot what we do know is entirely wrong—like how Newton’s 3 Laws are entirely wrong because he didn’t know quantum physics and they don’t apply at the quantum level, so we should just discard his notions completely!), and “But _______ (enter metaphysical or religious influence here) could be doing it and there’s totally this long tradition of people in the forests of Buba-Buba who are able to do it at will and it’s been proven trufax I was there !” (which is flim-flam).
Interestingly enough, the same impulses that the brain has developed for survival that has transferred to seeing stories in stars and meaning in bird droppings is posited also to be the same associative pulling together of disparate environmental noise into meaning that underlies conspiracy theory. Psychologically, our brains have specifically developed to turn chaos into order. So yes, Drew, it’s the government that doesn’t want you knowing your special powers.
Trufax, it happened, I was there.
Edit: and yes, I know you were just being humorous. And so am I, in a very dry way.
—PolarisDiB
1. It has nothing to do with the government.
2. DiB, none of that explains how I was able to become lucid in a dream, with a bearded guy I had not met yet, in a very specific environment I had never seen before, & months later actually being there, having then met the bearded person, & had the feeling of lucidity while awake.
I’ve heard other ‘explanations’ for deja vu before. All of them run counter to scientific theory because they all go into their experiments with the intention of disproving. There is an initial bias to discount a metaphysical explanation for deja vu, so they conjure rationalized ‘reasons’.
I’m gonna go see Sanjuro in a theatre, but I’d love to continue this when I get back.
NEH makes points to argue deromanticizing life. I make jokes.
He must have more deja vu than me. ;)
Seriously though my issue is I don’t really believe in science which is a point I can’t argue and gets me crucified when I say it. I just think there’s a lot science can’t explain.
@NEH
It’s great, it’s a weird but warm and nice feeling, it keeps you from breaking your own head trying to remember where you saw that.
When I was in college I did a lot of lucid dreaming. I came up with the theory “If you ask the question ‘Am I dreaming’, you will always come up with the right answer.” Dreams don’t make sense. There’s always something wrong. A week or two ago I realized I was dreaming, because I had lucid dreaming on the brain following Inception. I was in the house I grew up in, and my mother told me there were presents for me, down by the washer and dryer. I opened the presents and there was nothing in them.
Another interesting dream I had a few months ago. I had just bought a few CDs and started playing them while lying in bed. I fell asleep. The Prodigy came on. In the dream, I was listening to the same CD, talking to a friend who I knew didn’t like that sort of music. It’s like, what I was really hearing, I could hear in the dream, but my dream explained for me why I could hear it.
@Drew: To quote Asimov, “It’s not that I trust a scientist to be right, it’s just that I trust a non-scientist to be wrong”.
I agree deja vu is often remembering dreams, but that doesn’t mean you subconsciously know the future. It means your memory of the dream is incomplete, and you’re filling in the gaps with the present.
I neglected to mention that for years while living in California, I used to smoke this Native American dream herb called Calea zacatechichi, & purposely go to sleep thinking: “I want to see where I’ll be a year from now” or “I want to see where I’ll be by this summer” or “when I’m 25” ad infinitum.
I attribute its long-term effects to my ability for improved dream-recall & higher probability of lucidity on average. I have seen the results, studied the statistic scientifically, with my good friend whose PhD is in Cognitive Psychology, & even he cannot diminsh the results of the gradual improvement of my dream memory over the years. This has been a very long project, started in 2005.
There is an intensity to the lucidity I have experienced that I cannot deny. A direct connection.
When you wake up in a dream, are aware of the dream, many of the ‘crazy’ things around the base image dissipate & the act of ‘filling in the gaps’ becomes moot. Because you see time & space clearly. The environment become pure.
Of course I’ll trust any scientist on an innumerable set of topics, over any layman.
Regardless, with our FEEBLE EARTH BRAINS, we cannot possibly know all there is to know about the cosmos, nor the quantum & metaphysical realms. Which I dare say exist & exist in tandem & peripatetically so that we have access to them, awake or asleep.
I do not giveany ‘experts’ too much credit to say that their answers are the definitive in anything.
Which is not to say I discredit them. However, in some fields, especially ones which by their nature are not resricted by Earths laws of physics, it is foolish for anyone, scientist or no, to profess an absolute.
I’m in the City of London and I’m talking to some bloke. Can’t remember what the conversation is, exactly, but I end up going to this place to steal something for him. I walk into this room through a dirty looking corridor, into what looks like a public toilet. Only it has a safe in one corner, and all these girls I know from RL are cleaning stuff inside the cubicles. So I head over to this safe and this man opens it for me. There are jewels inside, I grab them and start putting them into a bag, then a rozzer walks in and takes me out. I start grassing up the person who sent me, all the while thinking to myself “Why didn’t I just slide them back in?”
I had another one before hand where I was semi-lucid (knew I was dreaming for a short while, but not enough to control the dream). I was racing some relatives to a supermarket. I took a different route to them, and couldn’t tell whether I was ahead or behind. Then I ended up in some building where the dream involved stealing paper with some other people (I distinctly remember getting shouted at for suggesting we take A3 instead of A4), getting caught by the owner of the building (around this point I was semi-lucid, but it soon stopped), getting placed in a lightbulb, then having to float out and find my own body.
I’ve never dreamt about stealing stuff before, then I have two dreams about it. Bizarre.
@ NEH: " none of that explains how I was able to become lucid in a dream, with a bearded guy I had not met yet, in a very specific environment I had never seen before, & months later actually being there, having then met the bearded person, & had the feeling of lucidity while awake."
Yes it does. It means you remember the dream, not that it actually happened. Lucidity doesn’t matter either way because it’s the same end effect.
“I’ve heard other ‘explanations’ for deja vu before. All of them run counter to scientific theory because they all go into their experiments with the intention of disproving.”
Eh, that’s as biased an assumption as the claim it’s making of the scientists. But fine, we want to go “counter to scientific theory”, how ‘bout the fact that your special abilities are not replicatable in any lab? Metaphysics are interesting but rely on perception and happenstance. So yes, a disconnect between science and metaphysics underlies any conversation about this because metaphysics is more representative than physically observable. We can argue words forever—pointing to something and saying THAT is just not going to happen here. I am talking about something that scientists observed in physical scans and mappings of brain activity. It certainly could be wrong, there could be other explanations (for instance, the mechanism underlying the input confusion could be metaphysical), but it doesn’t change the fact that your claims cannot be supported by any evidence but my trust of you versus my trust of a system of observation. I’ll take the system over you, sorry. On that note,
“To quote Asimov, “It’s not that I trust a scientist to be right, it’s just that I trust a non-scientist to be wrong”.”
+
“romanticism”
The thing that I find peculiar about these arguments is that these so-called “rational” explanations people read as being “unromantic” or lesser in, I don’t know, world fascination and magic than metaphysics. I personally don’t find that to be the case at all. I find the idea of perceiving vision with a non-visual part of the brain to be absolutely magical. It can rework your ideas of what actually happened, but it doesn’t change the potential of what the brain or the person is capable of. Yet people resist, resist… They want to stay back in this mode, and not look forward to that mode. What if it’s both?
For instance, here I am running the rational argument. Yet I’ve had my share of experiences where people have been like, “Where the fuck did you ever come up with THAT?” Just ‘cause I like physics don’t make me uninterested in metaphysics. However, I find metaphysics to be more symbolic and psychological than other people—BUT that doesn’t make them less useful or “real”, just changes their nature and opens up other opportunities.
“I used to smoke this Native American dream herb called Calea zacatechichi, …I attribute its long-term effects to my ability for improved dream-recall & higher probability of lucidity on average. I have seen the results, studied the statistic scientifically, with my good friend whose PhD is in Cognitive Psychology, & even he cannot diminsh the results of the gradual improvement of my dream memory over the years. This has been a very long project, started in 2005”
…. “For years I’ve been taking mind-altering drugs. My mind, as a result, seems to be operating completely outside of regular statistics. Also, focusing on dreams for five years has made me more capable of remembering and controlling dreams. Even my PhD in Cognitive Psychology can’t explain why my altered mind is different than non-altered minds.”
Again, there’s a rather fond subculture of people who believe drugs’ mind-altering effects can expand the mind/open possibilities to uncharted uses. There’s an element of truth and an element of banality to that statement. The element of truth is that when your mind starts functioning differently, you do indeed develop new behaviors and cognizant patterns. The element of banality is simply that if drugs altered minds in any regular and consistent way, we’d all be taking them for the evolutionary leap…. well, provided those alterations were beneficial, which is still not known. Again, not discounting the idea, but seriously dude, people’ve been taking mind-altering drugs for fuckin’ decades (actually, centuries) and don’t seem to be walking geniuses as a result of it. Yeah, those LCD experiments in the 70s? Hugely successful. Those marijuana communes? Transcendent.
And don’t give me the “corporate history” argument, if you’re thinking it (you certainly didn’t bring it up so I won’t assume it’s your response, I’m just citing a very typical one I cross often). I know many people who were involved in that history and I know many of the children of the people who were involved in that history who also have found a taste for mind-altering drugs of various types, effects, and potencies. Nobody’s bent a spoon yet. But the ones that “survived” (as in, with brains not fried) do make interesting conversationalists, so I won’t discount drugs’ warping of imagination (though I do disagree with drugs wiring of imagination as a separate issue—the only people who come up with imaginative things while on drugs were imaginative in the first place, the drugs just play a bit with it).
So here we have it. Counterposed from your perspective, I too spent a good many years studying these issues, specifically because I had severe insomnia in high school and spent the time awake studying insomnia, dreams, drugs, and a little psychology (psychology’s a soft science anyway). Your five years is similar to mine. My explanation is backed up by the wiring of the brain and can be seen in scans. Where’d your prophecy come from, and how can we do it again?
—PolarisDiB
“Seriously though my issue is I don’t really believe in science which is a point I can’t argue and gets me crucified when I say it. I just think there’s a lot science can’t explain”
See, the thing is, science isn’t a belief system, it’s a critical process. As mentioned in my response to NEH, just because it provides a “rational explanation” doesn’t negate the phenomenon, it just transforms it into a different set of possibilities. That is why I’m so perturbed by people’s automatic rejection of scientific explanation with “but that didn’t fit my perception!” Of course it didn’t, your perception isn’t replicatable. However, what potentially is, and this is where it gets exciting, is the idea that perception can be altered.
Perception is not, by the way, subjectivity, nor is it relativity. Relativity relates to frames of reference, perception to input, and subjectivity to the messier and uncharted world of relationships. I will go back into this further later, if you please, but right now I’m talking about perception.
A regular customer once came up to my desk and said, “Hey DiB, I saw this one movie (forgotten title here), and it was fantastic!”
DiB: “Oh yeah?”
RC: “Yeah, but you know what I really loved about it? The soundtrack!”
DiB: “Neat, yeah, sometimes soundtracks can be the best part of movies.”
RC: “Yeah so I guess I’m off to Best Buy to get the soundtrack!”
DiB: “What? Why not just buy it from here? You’re here already, I think we actually have it.”
RC: “You sell soundtracks?”
DiB: “Yeah, in our music section.”
RC: “What music section?”
(a pause)
DiB: “The music section in the very center of the store.” Gesticulates “See?”
*RC grips desk, sways."
DiB: “Whoa, you okay?”
RC: “Wow. You have a music section. And, what is beyond it?”
DiB: “That’s the cafe and the book section.”
RC: “How long have those been here?”
DiB: “As long as I’ve been working here, which is three years” (this was about a year and a half ago now)
RC: “I… I never knew that part of the store existed.”
DiB: “You’ve been coming here for a while…”
RC: “I know, but… I guess, whenever I’ve entered the store, I’ve just been focused on the Video section. I… I guess I’ve always just looked left.”
DiB: “That’s crazy. But uh, yeah, we have a music section and a book section and a cafe, so, uh, have at! I guess…”
RC: “Oh no this is pretty sweet to know, saves me a lot of time. It’s just, I can’t believe I’ve been coming here so long without having seen an entire two thirds of this store, not even knowing it exists. It just didn’t register at all.”
Perception. No amount of metaphysics denies an extant Hastings with two other whole departments of media, but to one person, it simply was not a part of reality at all because he was so focused on video and purchasing what he got from video at the front that he never paid attention to a whole two-thirds of internal space.
Parallel universes? Strange temporal movements? Doesn’t matter. Science’s job is measuring and mapping the area, and if any question or debate arrive, anyone can return to that area and measure and map it all over again to double check. RC’s impression of what the store was cannot be measured. Yes, science doesn’t “explain” that, but what it can do is provide a map on how that perception may have worked.
So what I’m saying is that your dreams are your perceptions. But just because science provides a rational explanation doesn’t mean they negate your perceptions, it just means that it’s your perception. I’ve always been fond of saying “Science provides the How. What and Why is up to debate—and What it means is up to the user.”
—PolarisDiB
“Yes it does. It means you remember the dream, not that it actually happened.”
No, DiB, you don’t understand. I had the lucid dream, remembered it clearly & thought it odd upon waking up.
Then, legitimately, months later, I experienced deja while awake, in that environment.
Be a skeptic all you want, but don’t tell me that it didn’t “actually happen” when I was at a place with friends for a weekend & we sat there, awake, talking about the experience, while it was happening.
I literally stood there, in real-time, telling my friend, “I’m having deja vu right now. It’s incredibly surreal. I had a dream just like this a few months ago.” My friend was enthused, & kept asking me questions, & each question was another memorable trigger, reinforcing the deja vu.
Again, be a skeptic all you want, but don’t tell me that it didn’t “actually happen”, once in a dream & once in real life.
For crimbles sake, I even have recorded footage of that weekend on a DV tape somewhere.
Also, i don’t know where you drummed this one up: "Even my PhD in Cognitive Psychology can’t explain why my altered mind is different than non-altered minds.”
Was this meant as sarcasm, or repetition/alteration, since it is not actually a direct quote of mine?
Seriously though my issue is I don’t really believe in science which is a point I can’t argue and gets me crucified when I say it. I just think there’s a lot science can’t explain.
You shouldn’t believe anyway. Science is a bunch of models. They are useful though so pay attention of what your doctor says and so on.
Alright, I won’t.
And if you’re going to get upset over it, I will back off, because it’s not as important to me as it is to you. If you want to continue the dialog, there are other questions I asked. If you don’t, I remain “skeptic” of this phenomenon for reasons already listed. Though documentation of you talking about the dream before the deja vu would be very interesting to see.
—PolarisDiB
What were the other questions you asked?
Drew.
Ladida, Well I love listening to dreams just as much as telling them, so I don’t know what to say. Don’t read this thread, I guess…
Kriz, Please do tell. Those can sometimes be the most interesting.
Here is one from a little while back that I’m copying out of my dream journal…
November, 2009
My dad is taking me and a few friends to a whorehouse. I really don’t want to go, but I don’t want to seem like a loser, and let my dad down. We walk in and he has to sign a paper giving permission for us since we are underage. He says something like I hope his dad is ok with this while signing in my friend. The lady says that his parents have to give approval. I take this opportunity and say something like I don’t want to do this and I ran away. Outside, I’m in a parking lot, and then eventually I am sitting next to this girl I like. We are talking and one thing leads to another and we kiss. She then starts mumbling something about how she actually really likes me but she shouldn’t or something and then she gets up and leaves. I really have to pee so I get up and go to a bathroom in a store nearby. I walk up the urinal, and start peeing as I’m unzipping my pants and then even when they are unzipped I continue to lack control and the pee is going everywhere, including on this kid’s (who looks about my age) face who happens to be sitting in the bathroom (despite it being for one person). He is working on this new, strange type of musical instrument. He plays it and I compliment him (figuring its the least I could do since I peed on him). He gets a smile on his face and runs out of the bathroom.