Déjà vu

I have no idea whether it's autism, or craziness, but I have always got deja-vu a lot too. I have a hunch that my autism, or possibly attention deficit, has something to do with it, for a few reasons...

• My sense of time is incredibly bad. I'm terrible at putting memories in the right order, and often have little sense of how long ago an event happened (unless I specifically remember being a child, for example.)
• I can sometimes very clearly remember doing something which I haven't actually done, but had spent a long time planning in my head.
• I live a lot of my life by routines, and I seem to be able to do many of them without much conscious awareness of it. For example, if I go out on a walk, but have something eating away at my mind, I can get home with no memory of where I went or what route I took. I call these my "autopilots".
• The routines mean that there are very many days which are almost exactly the same. I'm very struck sometimes by how the deja-vu very powerfully tells me "exactly this very moment, this very thing", then, when I think about it, the scene is really completely unremarkable.

I read an article in New Scientist about deja-vu that was rather interesting a while ago. What they suggested is that our brains are constantly running a little simulation of what is about to happen next, to predict the result of our actions. This gets compared with what actually ends up happening, and our mind uses any differences to correct itself. The hypothesis was that deja-vu is a little peek into this process working; for some reason, the simulation gets mistaken for a memory, so if reality matches the simulation very closely, it seems like reality has happened before. Not so different to the explanation in the "Matrix" films, in some ways!

The things I mentioned above certainly make something along those lines ring true to me, and I wonder whether the executive functioning deficits often found in autism might explain these, or similar, strange memory effects.

Thank you Trogluddite for pretty much saying exactly what I would have said myself, we do share quite similar mindsets in quite a few things!

The disorganised memory is by far my nemesis, it is fragmented so although most of the things I need to remember are indeed in my head, it is finding them and putting them altogether straight away I fail at, some get lost altogether, other less important things just get stuck up the front of the loading/dispatch bay,,, working memory area. It cannot hold the information so files it way back in the big warehouse, somewhere! 

I also lose time ,,, I can travel huge distances and block out a lot of the journey as peripheral and not needed,, but it’s the time passed that doesn’t register,

 now back to de ja vu, MGT1982,

I constantly feel I am just reliving events, I can pretty much know exactly what is about to happen, or a conversation word for word, I often stop and say “ have I already told you this?” Quite often the other person has no recollection of the event.

one thing that is different is my apparent ability to see into the future, I am no mystic but freaky events do happen quite often.

 I can be just chatting away to someone and an event will pop into my head, a memory so specific it seems relevant to share, the next day or two I am told, “ you know what you were telling me!, well I have just been asked to price a  Job in that exact same place,,, not nearby,, exactly where you said,, so how come you knew?”.

My boss actually  said keep having these memories as it means more work for us,, it happens a lot. Not always exact areas but connected in some way,, for instance I will suddenly start talking about a job years ago that involved specific machine and type of work,,, pile driving for instance,, then suddenly an enquiry for a piling job?.

Or creating a wetland reserve using machinery and artistic license,, suddenly a job to create one or maintain one I built years ago.

The memories are random,, I do not plan them, just sudden memories which I just have to share, 

There is more to this world and the human mind than we will ever understand fully.

For now I just accept I am from a different planet and time zone.

I have always felt I was not from this planet, and it seems those that know me agree whole heartedly.

take care all. 

Thank you Trogluddite for pretty much saying exactly what I would have said myself, we do share quite similar mindsets in quite a few things!

The disorganised memory is by far my nemesis, it is fragmented so although most of the things I need to remember are indeed in my head, it is finding them and putting them altogether straight away I fail at, some get lost altogether, other less important things just get stuck up the front of the loading/dispatch bay,,, working memory area. It cannot hold the information so files it way back in the big warehouse, somewhere! 

I also lose time ,,, I can travel huge distances and block out a lot of the journey as peripheral and not needed,, but it’s the time passed that doesn’t register,

 now back to de ja vu, MGT1982,

I constantly feel I am just reliving events, I can pretty much know exactly what is about to happen, or a conversation word for word, I often stop and say “ have I already told you this?” Quite often the other person has no recollection of the event.

one thing that is different is my apparent ability to see into the future, I am no mystic but freaky events do happen quite often.

 I can be just chatting away to someone and an event will pop into my head, a memory so specific it seems relevant to share, the next day or two I am told, “ you know what you were telling me!, well I have just been asked to price a  Job in that exact same place,,, not nearby,, exactly where you said,, so how come you knew?”.

My boss actually  said keep having these memories as it means more work for us,, it happens a lot. Not always exact areas but connected in some way,, for instance I will suddenly start talking about a job years ago that involved specific machine and type of work,,, pile driving for instance,, then suddenly an enquiry for a piling job?.

Or creating a wetland reserve using machinery and artistic license,, suddenly a job to create one or maintain one I built years ago.

The memories are random,, I do not plan them, just sudden memories which I just have to share, 

There is more to this world and the human mind than we will ever understand fully.

For now I just accept I am from a different planet and time zone.

I have always felt I was not from this planet, and it seems those that know me agree whole heartedly.

take care all. 

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