What is Deja Vu, and Why Does it Occur
Shyamini Questions:
Situation: You go trough life each day as it is.. somehow, sometimes during conversations had, you feel like you've already heard about a certain piece of news or information or story before this that's just been revealed when in truth, nobody has breathed a single word about it to you before this... not even the media! When you tell the others around you that you've heard about it before this or that the particular info is on the stale side, they give you a weird look and try to overlook this matter. This situation has occurred numerous times in my life. Sometimes i feel weird all around. Sometimes... just plain freaked out. In other words, its like we are having a conversation about a certain topic (that isn't necessarily covered by the media of course!) when suddenly, i feel like i've heard this particular conversation before. Word by word you feel like you're replaying the conversation for real...
Question: What does the above situation signify?
: How does 1 know if he/she is a reborn soul?
: How do you interpret dreams?
After my initial response, Shyamini replied asking for clarification on some of my answers. Her further questions are below. My posted response below will cover all the questions.
Shyamini Queries further:
Moving on to the questions I asked earlier. For the 1st one, u said it was dejavu and that 'we are able to see our near future based on karmas currently sprouting and prepare mentally for them'.
My question(s) this time is:
- How are we able to do so?
- What role does the karma play in this?
As for the third question i posted earlier, you wrote that 'Spiritual advice is that you don't linger on dreams and instead concern yourself with normal life'.
My next question is this:
-How can you just concern yourself with normal life, when you know some of these dreams replays itself from time to time?
- What if these 'dreams' involve real life people you know?
My Response:
1. The situation you mentioned above is known as deja vu. Deja vu in the dictionary is explained as, "feeling of already having experienced the present situation". Scientifically deja vu is yet an unexplained phenomenon, mainly because it is subjective to the person experiencing it. It is extremely rare to find two persons who have the exact same deja vu, what more at the same time.
However there is a mystical explanation to deja vu and it involves the process of dreaming. Dreaming is an essential activity of our life for our well being. Not only does it refresh our mind and reorganize our subconscious, but it also prepares us for our future. There is a mystical process when we dream where we clairvoyantly see our near future based on karmas currently sprouting and prepare spiritually for them. This occurs beyond the normal process of dreaming during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, that is, during deep sleep. Mystically during this time, our consciousness is functioning totally in the spiritual worlds. As part of the natural process of deep sleep we 'go through' what we will experience the next few days in the future (three days according to my guru). Think of it as, the next few days review.
Insight: For a broader understanding of sleep cycles, check out the links below:
This spiritual preparation we undergo when we are in the state of deep sleep is important for our physical well being as well as our spiritual and mental well being. Lets say one misses out on deep sleep for more than a few days, he or she will feel not only lethargic but also generally despondent about life. I must emphasize here that what is important is the quality of sleep and not how many hours of sleep one gets. Even if one sleeps for 5 hours a day, but accesses deep sleep during the sleep, it is sufficient compared to another person who sleeps for 8 hours but does not access deep sleep patterns.
Getting back to deja vu, as a natural process of waking from sleep we usually forget most of our dreams, including the memory of what had happened during deep sleep. However sometimes these experiences during sleep are captured in our subconscious memory. Unlike dreams however we do not remember deja vu type experiences immediately after we wake up. Deja vu only occurs when what is in our subconscious resonates with the current waking situation that we are experiencing. Suddenly we remember that we mysteriously (even spookily) feel that we had experienced the situation before, but we just can't place when. This is deja vu.
Deja vu though is different than a premonition dream. Premonition dreams are dreams that detail a future happening. We remember these dreams as soon as we wake up and if we identify them properly we can prepare for or avert the experience that the premonition detatils. We do not remember consciously events that will trigger a deja vu right after we wake up. It just hits us at the exact moment that triggers the, Deja vu moment. So there is no need to concern with preparing for deja vu moments, they just occur. If anything they remind us of the myteries of life.
2. All of us are reincarnated souls, it is a natural process. If your questions is, is this the first time you are being reborn, I can tell you for sure that this is not your first time. The reason I say this with certainty is because of your natural inquisitiveness into the deeper experiences of life. If you were a soul fresh out of God's 'soul mill' and stepping on earth for the first time, you would be too enamored by the basics of life–all the enthralling materialism of the world–that the last thing you would be concerned with is deja vu or the well being of your soul.
3. Dream interpreting is a very subjective art. There is very little I can say about dream interpretation. My personal practice and one that my guru recommends, is not to linger on dreams and instead concern with waking life. However, there are exceptions. These are dreams that recur and vision dreams.
Dreams that recur (or repeat night after night) have significance. These dreams should be interpreted for indications. They may be premonitions that portend to a future occurrence or may indicate an issue (generally an unresolved problem) in our subconscious that must be resolved to avoid more a calamitous future. The interpretations of these dreams however are very subjective, so I cannot provide general guidelines on how to interpret them. Suffice to say that if the portends of these dreams are not obvious, than seek professional or spiritual advice.
Vision dreams is not technically dreams in that visions are not imagined by our subconscious, as is in the case of normal dreams. Rather visions are experiences we have when we are astral traveling in the inner spiritual worlds. They are experiences as real as any experience we have in waking consciousness. To learn more about vision dreams click here:
Aum Shanti,
Guhanathaswami
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