déjà vu

"Remembering is mental time travel, a sort of reliving of something that happened in the past." (Endel Tulving)

There is something about this tunnel that compels me to philosophize about time travel. And, appropriately, one of my gal pals had déjà vu at dinner on Saturday night, prompting me to expound briefly on the possible scientific explanations I had read about (oddly enough, I had also experienced déjà vu the last time I saw one of these girls out of context [aka out of college]).

dé·jà vu \ˌdā-ˌzhä-ˈvü, -ˈvue\: any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of the present experience with an undefined past.

This article from New York Times Magazine is specifically about the rare disorder déjà vécu (basically, persistent déjà vu), but it mentions Alan Brown's book "The Déjà Vu Experience" and his four broad categories of possible scientific explanation.

1. dual-processing: if one brain process is recording a memory and a glitch in the temporal lobe causes another brain process to start playing the memory back simultaneously, it could feel like a memory.

2. neurological: if the brain perceives an event, and two electrical signals go to the brain but one is delayed, when it reaches its destination an unsettling familiarity might result.

3. memory: if the brain recognizes something (object, person, place, etc.) from a similar situation in the past, it could cause a momentary eerie familiarity (personally, I don't think this is a likely explanation).

4. double perception: if the brain is momentarily distracted after "recording" part of an experience, it could potentially feel as if the moment is repeating itself when it returns to the scene a fraction of a second later.

4. double perception: if the brain is momentarily distracted after "recording" part of an experience, it could potentially feel as if the moment is repeating itself when it returns to the scene a fraction of a second later.

Haha! Did you catch that? I crack myself up. I also read somewhere that it could be caused by one eye blinking a fraction of a second before the other (sort of a minor twitch or seizure) and recording the memory before the other eye could record it a second time. Anyway, I think all of these weird common experiences we have are pretty fascinating, even though I can't believe that the experience is in any way related to previous lives or prophecy. I'm not scientifically-inclined enough to delve much deeper into the neurological possibilities... anyone else have any crazy theories??

(dress: Goodwill; slipdress: UO; sweater: cedar chest; necklace: F21; crystal beads: Grammy Flood; boots: Seychelles)

wormhole wednesday

When I was in eighth grade my friend S and I did a project on wormholes for science class. This may or may not have been one of the most pivotal moments of my life--in fact, my existence could quite possibly be divided into two halves: BW (before wormholes) and AW (after wormholes). Before that project I was not unaware of the concept of space and time (we had studied the solar system like all other elementary and middle school students), but my primary concern was navigating my middle school universe, and both of my feet were firmly planted on Planet Adolescence.

BW, my time was not spent philosophizing about the cosmos and my place or purpose in it. Like most thirteen-year-old girls, mine was a very ego-centric universe. Most of my days were spent constructing entire villages of paper dolls by cutting pictures of models out of magazines and dreaming up entire lifelines and complicated relationships for them, or directing my brothers and the neighborhood kids in dramatic reproductions of Disney movies and/or original plays (clearly I enjoyed elevating myself to a God-like status by exercising control over the world around me.)

But that's neither here nor there. The point is, ever since that day I've been fascinated by the innerworkings of our immense macrocosm and the symmetrical Pythagoran systems that govern both our physical bodies and the celestial sphere. Wormholes were just the beginning. That project was literally a gateway to another world for me--a metaphysical plane that ran parallel to both science and religion and fused the two disciplines forever in my mind.

My science teacher was arrested later that year when fields of marijuana were found behind his house. We had a substitute for the remainder of the semester, and all of the girls had crushes on him because he was young, had nice teeth (one of the questions on his final exam was: "Why are my teeth so perfectly straight and white?"--no joke) and let us play frisbee during class. I thought he was a complete tool--I had clearly transcended the plane of the average middle school experience when I passed through that wormhole project, enlightened.

What was the point of all that, you ask? Nothing, really. These tunnels are kind of reminiscent of wormholes & sent me spiraling backward through time.

Back to the Present: I got this tres adorable little shirt at Battery Street Jeans in Burlington.

This is the perfect "summer's here!" ensemble. It's been upward of ninety degrees all week, which is hot hot hot for little Vermont! Speaking of hot, these shorts are perhaps a little bit too hot-pants for work, but I say phooey to that. The shirt provides enough coverage that the lotta-leg look isn't overwhelmingly provocative, n'est-ce pas?

(shirt: BSJ; shorts; Bargain Basement; shoes: Marshall's; sunnies: UO)