What if deja vu is a form of pattern recognition other than that feeling of "this has happened before?" By pattern recognition I mean... well, think of a stop sign for a moment. When you see one, you know what it is without reading it even if you've never stopped at that sign before? When you see a stop sign you've never seen before, you don't go, "I've got deja vu." You just recognize it as a stop sign.

What if there are certain ways that our existence -- life, world, universe -- is organized? And deja vu is when you recognize these "ways." Maybe our brains have the capability to recognize these patterns and process them, but areas of our brain have been switched off or disconnected. An area of your brain figures out the pattern recognition part, records it, process it, the works. But it's not connected directly to the conscious part of the brain. Maybe it's connected to the subconscious part. Maybe that's why we have that moment of deja vu. Something from the subconscious has leaked into the conscious.

But what are these patterns, these "ways?" The hidden gravity behind being? The train tracks that we all roll on? The strings of time? I can't help but to think of the puzzle game Tetris for some reason. If you don't know, Tetris is a game where different shaped blocks slowly drop from above. You arrange them to fit -- hopefully -- into each other and form lines that disappear. If you don't fit enough together in a certain amount of time, the blocks pile up and the game is over.

I've often wondered what would happen if I stopped having deja vu.

I have a lot of deja vu. I have a lot of deja vu.


  ¶ 2:12 AM