Deja –vu ---Representative of collective unconscious of human existence and experience

The feeling and phenomenon of deja-vu relates to ESP, parapsychology. Deja –vu is French word and its literal meaning is “already seen” It is a very uncanny feeling which the person feels or senses as if the place that is one seeing at present actually had been seen by him before sometime ago. It is the experience of very uncanny feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, thought the exact circumstances of the prior encounter were uncertain or imagined it is mysteriously strange weird and eerie feeling of frightening nature. The element of super naturalism seems to be involved in this feeling. The experience and sensation of déjà vu is usually accompanied or characterized by

A compelling sense of familiarity

Sense of eeriness, weirdness, strangeness, uncanniness

The previous experience is most frequently attributed to a dream.

Pierre anet was the first psychologist to describe and analyze the nature of this weird and uncanny feeling. According to Pierre one may remember certain features of new experience that have been met before. Certain emotional responses may be like this. Pierre mistakenly generalized that whole situation is the repetition of past event. He also called the deja –vu effect as false recognition (fausse reconnaissance) suggesting that it represented and ability to respond appropriately to the pressure of the present, which could only be accommodated by enforcing on it a similarity with the past in other words Pierre calls it as escape mechanism for those who could not face reality

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The theory of Pierre and such other theories may account for few pathological cases of deja –vu, such as accompany with epilepsy or other such mental illness. But such type of experiences can not be accounted for the déjà vu experiences of normal persons. The uncanny feeling which most of the people describe is somewhat similar and reminiscent of the feeling that accompanies intuition or other extra sensory perceptions. The second hypothesis put forward to explain and interpret this phenomenon is that the combination of excitement and nervousness could stimulate an unconscious desire to find something similar and familiar in the new experience. Déjà vu sensation occurs when one has the feeling that something which one is ostensibly doing for the first time has happened before.

Such unexpected feelings are apt to occur at strange places, places which seem uncannily familiar. Some psychologists have counted other such places as funerals, marriages and job interviews. In their opinion the feeling of excitement and nervous on such occasions may generate such feelings. This seems to be very imaginary and impractical hypotheses as we all face such situations of excitement and nervousness and never experience such feeling of déjà vu. Even if one thousand persons attend a marriage, funeral or interview none gets such uncanny feelings. It can hardly account for any known case of déjà- vu another hypothesis put forward by orthodox psychologists is of synchronization. According to the view point of this hypothesis our two hemispheres of brain, May sometime act out of rhythm and synchronization, so that data from external world is processed by one part of the cortex in advance of the other. By the time the slower hemisphere had responded to the sensory input, it had already received information from the other hemisphere and new data therefore seems similar. This theory also seems impracticable and highly hypothetical.

There is no reason to assume why two hemispheres will act dys synchronization or at different speed; and if it is so why not lack of synchronization occurs often? Some scientists call it as anomaly of memory. Some call it overlapping of neurological systems responsible for short term memory and long term memory. The events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of brain even receives the input and requisite information and processes it.

The folklore tradition of explanation seems more appropriate from psychological view point. The most popular explanation of this phenomenon is that the place which seems so familiar has been visited in a previous life time or there are similar past life connections with the person one is meeting. It is people’s way of interpreting this phenomenon.

Jung and déjà vu

Let us try to understand this phenomenon in the light of the analytical psychology of Dr. Jung. According to Jung’s theory of psyche, there exists a collective unconscious beyond the domain of individual consciousness. The individual conscious may be identified with ego. The collective unconscious is wider part of our psyche. It is reservoir of our “psychic inheritance.” It may be symbolized by “deep unfathomable sea” or “deep dark dense deserted forest” It is the dark side of human psyche and Jung calls it “shadow”. It may be referred as “psychic blueprint” of our life or existence. It contains the inherited unconscious, shared racial memories and the sum total of all knowledge acquired by humanity. Human body has pre –history of million of years so also the psychic system. All the archetypes of human existence have evolved from this collective unconscious. It is the storehouse of mythology and religious symbols ceremonies and customs. Jung has inexhaustible knowledge of mythology, folklore, religion, alchemy and philosophy. Though “Philemon” as active imagination was Jung’s guide to collective unconscious but Jung himself is the archetype of “wise old man” for humanity to delve into and search into collective unconscious.

Collective conscious eternal burial ground of million years of human existence along with his psychic processes. It is the storehouse of ancestral wisdom. All the remains of human existence and experience are buried deep in this ocean of collective unconscious. It is the monument of million years old memories. Every individual is connected to this collective unconscious via individual conscious. Its domain starts where the domain of individual conscious ends. The collective conscious is of two types

Domain of black side (shadow)

Domain of sun light or illumination

The shadow is marked by “dirty and filthy” side of human existence and experience. It is the capital of demons, saitan, monsters, ghosts and dragons etc. It may be equated with desert place where all our dead ancestral live. Evil spirits are hovering around in this domain like vampires. Occasionally, under some emotional response, when the conscious ego of man is blocked or switched off for moments; Man is stunned and dazed. It is dream like altered state of consciousness. In which he feels as if he had come here before this speaks of the past experience and connection of the individual soul with that place. So long as man’s ego is strong he can not feel this uncanny feeling. Ego is strong wall between individual and his unconscious. It is priori for the ego to be dissolved to feel this uncanny feeling. When the collective unconscious so grips or overwhelms the conscious ego for seconds, the process of déjà vu happens. Beyond this dark domain of human existence there is domain of universal consciousness. Man is part of this super or supreme consciousness. Déjà vu, “love at first sight” and “demoniac possessions” are some of the experiences that show the existence of collective unconscious more than any other phenomenon of mind. .

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