Deja Vu and Its Four Kinds

Most people have had it. You walk into a room, someone says a particular sentence, the light falls a certain way, and for a second or two you know you have been exactly here already. Then it is gone, and you are left standing there feeling slightly odd.

Most people also put it down to a trick of the brain and move on.

I do not think it is one thing. I have identified four different kinds, and I have given each one a name so they are easier to understand. Once you know the four, you can start to work out which one you had, and that tells you a good deal more than "that was weird".

1. The Long Moment

This one needs a little explaining, because it starts with time.

We live in a very narrow window of time. I am not exactly sure how long that window is, but I suspect it is less than a second. Everything you experience passes through it, one sliver after another, a continually changing series of events.

Think of it like watching a movie. You only ever see the frame in front of you, and the frames run together into a story.

Time is meant to be a constant. Except that it is not quite. Our awareness is meant to stay focused on that one tiny moment, and mostly it does. Sometimes, though, we get a glimpse of a larger moment. We slip free of the minuscule window and our awareness stretches.

That stretch can be anything from a few seconds to hours, or even days. In it we see and feel moments that have not happened yet. Then we drop back into the narrow window, live forward into what we glimpsed, and when we arrive there it feels like we have done it before.

A glitch in the matrix, so to speak.

2. Past Life

This one is easier to explain.

Past life deja vu is when you connect with a life you have already lived. It is very often tied to a place. You visit somewhere for the first time in this lifetime, and you discover a memory of having been there before. You can describe things as if you knew the place well, and yet you know you have never been there.

If you take reincarnation as a fact, and I do, this kind of deja vu stops being a mystery. It is a memory, surfacing in the place that holds it. The Reincarnation page sets out why I am so sure of the larger picture.

3. Higher Self

Like the Long Moment, this one depends on something we are not usually given.

In our day to day living on this plane, we are not meant to have direct contact with our higher self. That is part of the arrangement of being human. There are times, though, when we get a brief connection anyway, and that connection gives us insight into the moment we are standing in.

It is like being outside the box while you are inside it at the same time. You are still in the room, still in the conversation, and for a second you are also looking down on the whole thing with a much wider view. That wider view brings a sense of knowing, and the knowing feels like memory.

The Spirit and the Higher Self page goes further into who that higher self is.

4. Clairvoyance

The fourth kind is a clairvoyant vision that gives you insight into the moment, or the moments, you are in.

It arrives as a picture or a flash of knowing, and because it fits so exactly with what is happening, it gets mistaken for deja vu. Sometimes it is an unexpected one off. Sometimes it is the start of an ability waking up.

If you notice these happening more often, pay attention. The Clairs page is the place to start reading about what might be opening in you.

A sixth kind, sort of

After I first wrote about the four, I wanted to add one more circumstance that could loosely be called deja vu. I called it the sixth kind, sort of, and the "sort of" matters.

When you are manifesting something into your life, and you do it well, you are very specific. You decide on the events, the timing, the details. Then those events begin to happen, and you find you know what is about to come next.

Of course you do. You created it.

It feels like deja vu because the moment matches something already held in your mind. The difference is that this time you put it there yourself, on purpose.

Working out which one you had

The next time it happens to you, give it a minute afterwards and ask yourself a few plain questions.

Was it about a place, especially one you had never visited before? That points to a past life.

Did you feel you were seeing ahead, as if you had already lived the next few seconds or the next hour? That is the Long Moment.

Did you feel lifted, as though you were watching the whole scene from a wider angle while still standing in it? That sounds like your higher self.

Was it a picture or a flash that arrived with it, something you saw as much as felt? That leans towards clairvoyance.

Was it something you had asked for, in detail, finally turning up? Then it is the sixth kind, and you can take a small bow.

You will not always be sure, and that is fine. The point is to stop dismissing it. Each kind tells you something different about you, and the more of them you notice, the easier they become to tell apart.

Where this sits

Deja vu is one of the small, ordinary doorways into the bigger picture. It happens to people who have never meditated and never read a page like this one, and it gives them a moment where time, memory and self do not behave the way they were taught.

You do not need me to tell you what yours meant. You were there. Think back to the clearest one you can remember, and see which of the kinds it fits.

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
Monkey Mind · The Long Cycles and the Hundredth Monkey