Performance Notes
Many thanks for attendence by all who came, including the continued support of the cast of The Wake, Billy the Kid, all the Butlers from wearebutlers.co.uk and the on-going support of the venue.
A warm thanks to anyone who was fooled into thinking I was a lecturer at Edinburgh University, sorry to disappoint you.
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Lecture Notes
(I start with these but they may not reflect the content of the performance)
Deja vu (I put the accents in the title, you can be damned if I'm doing it on every instance in the body of the text) from the French for "already seen" is also known as paramnesia or promnesia. The term was coined by Émile Boira in this book The future of Psychic Sciences.
Deja vu is the phenomenon of remembering that you have experienced the current moment before. It is often accompanied by a sense of eeriness, strangeness, weirdness or Freud's "uncanny." (or as a friend said on Twitter: @MattPlatts Deja vu for me is accompanied by feelings of dread, uncanniness and depersonalisation. Wonder if this is universal.)
Freud's uncanniness (although boo for Freud) is a useful term. It is the idea of something being familiar yet foreign. Although he inevitably went too far by claiming it caused cognitive dissonence that is a form of symbolic castration. But then he wouldn't, wouldn't he?
In scientific terms deja vu is an anomaly of memory. There are many theories as to why this might happen:
- It is caused by an "overlap" of short- and long-term memory, so when the short term memory tries to pass information to the long-term memory, it finds the memory already there.
- Another theory goes that one eye is seeing things faster than the other (although this does not explain experience of deja vu where the other senses are involved such as taste, touch, texture, sound, smell...)
- It could be a form of temporal lobe epilepsy, a form of mild seizure - as epilepsy alters consciousness, it's not a big step to imagine how it could alter the perception of reality.
- It could be a form of hypnagogic jerk (the jerking sensation you get whilst falling asleep as the sleep spindles wake you up).
A severe form of Deja Vu is Reduplicative Paramnesia in which one become convinced that things have been duplicated. One man lay in hospital convinced that he'd had the same accident and recovery twice, but this time the entire hospital was located in the spare bedroom of his house.
There are a few syndromes and disorders related to Deja Vu, I will mention a few:
- The Capgras Delusion - One believes their spouse or close family member has been replaced by an identical impostor.
- The Fregoli Delusion - Various people that you meet are actually the same person in disguise.
- Intermetamorphosis - that people appear to stay the same but are actually swapping internal identities with each other.
- Doppelganger syndrome - That you either believe that you have a doppelganger somewhere in the world acting independantly, or you have a clone somewhere that is living exactly the same life as you.
- Mirrored self-misidentification - The person you see in a mirror is actually someone else
- Syndrome of Delusional Companions - Belief that inanimate objects (such as soft toys) are sentient beings
There are more than one "vu."
Deja vu - "seen before" as previously discussed.
Jamais vu - "never seen" That you have come to somewhere familiar and are experiencing it as if for the first time - that it all seems new to you. Chris Moulin of the University of Leeds led a study by getting participants to write out the word "door" 30 times in 60 seconds so eventually the word lost all meaning - this is called semantic satiation. (technically words have three operations: function, form and meaning. In semantic satiation such as this, we lose all meaning and function and retain only the form.). The Hare Krishna mantra is another example.
Presque vu - "almost seen" Something is on the tip of your tongue. Although I am warned that presque vu rarely leads to epiphany.
Deja vu² - "deja vu squared" Coined by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld series of novels - the experience of experiencing deja vu about experiencing deja vu.
Special mention should go to the Rapport Congruency by which is you play a role (such as bad-guy, suave man about town, superbitch, girl-next-door) the first time you meet someone, people just accept that role and assume that you are always that time of person.
Beyoncé
...released the single Deja Vu in July 2006, a single off her second solo album B'Day. The song is in G-minor, replaced Shakira's The Hips Don't Lie and was replaced by Justin Timberlake's SexyBack in the UK charts.
It runs like this (I have provided some handy notes in italics)
Baby I can't go anywhere
Without thinking you are there (a clear example of erotomanicphobia)
Seems you're everwhere (the Fregoli delusion)
Gotta by having Deja Vu (actually not, the song doesn't really cover much deja vu)
Because in my mind I want you here (she now moves into erotomania herself - commonly known as stalking)
Get on the next plane I don't care
Is t because I'm missing you
That I'm having deja vu?
Boy I try to catch myself (mirrored self-misidentification)
But I'm out of control (a disassociative disorder)
Your sexiness is so appealing (well this seems innocent enough)
I can't let it go (oh wait, Stockholm syndrome)
Voting Results
The crowd turned down a lecture of Nikola Tesla to hear about the philosophy of dating.
Any mistakes? Corrections will be credited.
