Goosebumps

I’ve finished my pool aerobics in the heat of a Vallarta summer. Clouds suddenly come over as I exit the water. The breeze picks up. It feels chilly and I get tiny bumps on my skin. What’s going on? I think back to recently listening to Whitney Houston sing I Will Always Love You.  Goosebumps and a slight chill came on just like the experience at the pool.

Last week INSIGHT explored Nostalgia and memory. I wondered if memory was also involved in other phenomena like goosebumps and Déjà Vu? What does science have to say?

Goosebumps are a physiological happening. We have a tiny muscle attached to each of our hairs. When this muscle contracts down, tiny bumps arise from the depressions created. This was amazing to me. We know so little about ourselves. It seems these human reactions are hard to study. They are certainly fleeting and unpredictable. Perhaps even unsettling at times. When science has few or no explanation, it is labeled mysterious or unexplained. We don’t know why or how Déjà Vu occurs.

Déjà Vu is therefore fascinating to consider.

When a scene or person is similar to an earlier experience is our brain checking out our memory?  Our brain collects memories so we can make better decisions if faced with a similar situation. Deja Vu is less common with aging, and both genders experience it equally. Research indicates that travelers have Déjà Vu more. Also when we are tired or anxious.

When I noticed a tall, very slender woman passing by me on the Melancon ocean walk it triggered memories and visions. Amy, Diane, Rhonda, Gina, and… (no last names as she might be retired in PV). Perhaps a prom date I recalled? A person we traveled with? A place we have been? A fabulous Montreal dining experience or that lobster roll sandwich in Maine.

These intuitive experiences are common, and a special opportunity that is exciting and unnerving too. We feel a sense of momentary exhilaration, a knowing. Déjà Vu comes from the French, “already seen.”  

In Charles Dickens’ 1850 novel, summarizing David Copperfield, “We have some feeling that comes over us occasionally, that what we are saying and doing I’ve said and done before. Ages ago there were the same faces, objects, and circumstances that we suddenly remember.”

Fast forward to 1979 for the words sung by Dionne Warwick, “Come to me; Feel Like I’m Home; In a Place I Used to Know; Long Ago; Déjà Vu”. There’s also a Katy Perry song in 2017 with the words; “Running On A Loop; Déjà Vu, Déjà Vu.”

While this experience is hardly new, people were reluctant to describe it for fear of being judged abnormal. Its mystical image was clarified around 1900 when terms like false memory were objected to, and Déjà Vu was felt to be more accurate. Once this sensation was no longer being called a neurological disorder, new theories emerged.

Colorado State University psychologist Anne M. Cleary wrote that there are two kinds of recognition memory, recollection and familiarity. When the event has been previously experienced, such as seeing the same person on the street, that’s recollection based. If we see a familiar face but can’t remember when it happened, she believes that is familiarity-based recognition. We are sure we identify with the situation but aren’t sure why. Canadian researcher Stefan Kohler’s small study of Déjà Vu suggested to him this process was the brain’s way of checking our memory system to reduce misremembering and keeping the brain healthy. Freud wrote that in Déjà Vu we seek to accept something as belonging to our ego.  C. G. Jung described such experiences as meaningful coincidences, taking another point of view.

Recent theories on energy fields surrounding us suggest two other possibilities for when an event is very familiar, but we don’t know where or when it happened. (It can also be labeled a Vallarta Happy Hour malady)

The first intriguing connection relates to “past lives” descriptions of people, places and events told by people under hypnosis.

This going back to one’s past is often done as a psychotherapeutic process. Through hypnosis, the goal is to resolve past events believed to be interfering with a person’s emotional wellness. It seems that earlier experiences might be a connection to Déjà Vu in our present life. It’s a mind stretching thought for sure. We don’t have to believe in reincarnation to consider this possibility.

A second connection to Déjà Vu really pushed open my acceptance window. With sciences atom accelerators tracing smaller particles, we learn more about vibrations and frequencies. Spa music, Beatle songs, brass bells, and ancient chants have frequencies that our cells respond to. Various levels of these sound waves are energy, and known to affect healing, emotion and creativity. Other species may tune in to such frequencies. While we can get a taste of this (you remember those “special” brownies or cookies a friend baked!) through hallucinogenic substances, we normally are conscious of a very limited range of frequencies in our three-dimensional world. Much like AM and FM radio stations, they are not clear unless we tune to a specific station. If we could, through meditation or chemistry, connect to higher vibration levels, we might discover that many universes exist parallel to each other. If it happens to us, that experience would likely be retained in our subconscious, and could be activated and seem familiar as a Déjà Vu sensation. Wow! Forget Netflix, I need to get back to making brownies!

There are over forty theories explaining Déjà Vu. Einstein suggested that there is no such thing as “time.” It’s a human creation to help us keep order and communicate. What if the past, present and future are occurring simultaneously? Maybe Déjà Vu moves us into a greater state of consciousness. Then we can sense more than one experience at the same time. It’s a marvelous mystery we can all consider and enjoy!