Conference hydra::dejavu

    
    Denise, 
    
    Unfortunatley, I've never seen horses and buggies as your freind
    has, but I *can* relate to the feelings you speak of. I've often
    chalked it up to a former life as I experience this intense feeling
    of belonging to older places. My feelings occur not at just the
    sight but other senses as well:
    
    - The smell of candles and wood (most often antique shops) 
    - Music from the 20's, 30's (heard anywhere) 
    - The smell of a farm 
    - The feel of an ocean spray 
    
    In each instance, I can vividly envision the past as if I were 
    there. It's almost like a vague memory being brought into focus.
    The strange thing is, I get all misty eyed like some sentimental
    old fool. As you've probably noted form my previous notes, I am
    a firm believer in anything unknown so I accept experiences without
    question and leave the answers to others. 
    When, for instance I hear those tunes from the 20's and 30's I can
    close my eyes and I'm in the same flat, high above the street noise
    of the city, lying on a couch with a wind blown curtain dancing
    at my feet. It's vivid and repeatedly the same. One of these days
    I'll get off the couch and look around and find the key to this
    mystery. Hell, maybe I've just got a good imagination but it's 
    that feeling of belonging that is haunting. 

    Denise,
    
    Yes, I've had that feeling.  When I was 11 or 12 years old my
    family went on a driving vacation from Colorado to California.
    On the way back we stopped at a farmhouse that had been con-
    verted into a gas station/convenience store.  As I walked in
    the door I had the strangest feeling of an earlier time being
    superimposed on the present.  There was a grandmotherly type
    person behind the counter.  I said something to my Mom about
    my feelings and the lady behind the counter started to question
    me.  I ended up walking through the place describing the way
    the rooms "used to be".  Afterwards this woman showed me pictures
    from her family album of the way it had looked.  My walking tour
    had been 100% correct even though there had been some structural
    changes in the building.  I've never had that feeling again.
    To this day I wonder if I was experiencing a past life,
    reading the woman's mind, or in some sort of half time warp.
    Any comments?
    
    Nanci

Isn't this referred to as none other than ... Dejavu  ...

They named it after our notes conference  ;').

Terry

    re: .3
    
    This is a different feeling from Dejavu for me at least.  When I
    feel that I personnally have felt like I've gone thru the same thing.
    Like I've done this before or I've been in this situation before.
    
    The feelings I have with this is the area is old not that I've been
    there before. I'm feeling what it use to be like. It's very different
    from dejavu.
    
    Denise 

    During my 16 years with DEC, I've often been called in to investigate
    manufacturing/engineering problems which have resisted efforts of
    local experts to solve.  Sometimes I find out about these problem
    areas and position myself to be asked.
    
    My first step is to remain in the area where the difficulties have
    been reported, and to wander around looking, touching, clearing
    my mind to observe, supressing preconeptions as much as possible.
    It seems that the emotions, frustrations, feelings which have
    happened in a place are not only nascent, but remnant.  They
    coalease and settle on the equipment, work surfaces and walls.
    
    I usually do this when no one else is around, so I can observe
    undisturbed for a period of several hours.  Sometimes I take
    routine work and read/write in the work area.  Networks, of
    course, make this easy.  After this initial period, I interview
    workers, engineers, techs & devise data collection  forms.
    Then, over a period of a few weeks, we solve the problems.
    
    Part of this is acclimation, so that I can understand the
    abckground of what people have to say.  But some of it is
    absorbed from the surroundings, and not available to my
    structured conscious mind.  All I know for sure is that I've
    gained credit many times for solving problems I never understood
    in deep technical detail.  Sometimes I've catalyzed others into
    listening to their own observations, and trusting their own
    educated guesses.  Sometimes fully structured explanations form
    in my mind during sleep, and I prove them with experiments the
    next day.
    
    I am convinced, but cannot prove, that we leave perceptable
    impressions in the physical constructs of our environments.
    We sometimes are fortunate or cursed with absorbing them.
    
    The smells of old buildings are a stimulent to memories or
    perceptions...possible because we do not pay the same conscious
    attention to this as to sound or sight.  It seems every town hall
    in rural New England has the same smell.  Most of it is from the
    wood and varnish, but some resides in the cracks between the boards,
    tracked in by farmers, tradesmen and others intent on the business
    and decisions which have called them together to consider and debate.
    
    						MWR
    

    .5 it sounds like you have alot of intuition too.  The topic Harmonic
    Convergence in 827 sparked a thought about intuition, feeling, or
    whatever else you want to call it.  Last August I started getting
    a feeling that I should move to Maine.  I had a strong feeling of
    the very place I should move to.   I felt almost compelled to move
    to Maine and to a particular area.  This feeling also tied into
    purpose somehow.   I am now living and working (DEC-Augusta) in
    Maine and still have a strong sense that I will soon know what my
    purpose is.  Life's purpose.   Does anyone else have a strong feeling
    that they must know what their lifes purpose is?
    
    Suzanne
    
    P.S.  And, there are probably people out there that know what their
    lifes purpose is....please reply.
    
    

    
    In a simple word, yes.  This is happening at an incredible speed 
    these days.  Relationships breaking up, only to have new ones come 
    out of the ashes...as in the soulmate kind.   People moving to places
    they thought they'd never move to, etc. 
                                   
    I believe it has to do with Love, ultimately.  
    
    Love is all that matters.
    
    Cindy

    Cindy, I believe you are right.  Love is ultimtely the answer. 
    My strong sense of purpose and half of the strong, compelling feeling
    that I had to move to Maine was selfless.  It's for others whatever
    IT is.  The other half of the reason is to put myself in closer
    touch with peaceful surroundings, slower pace, less materialism
    - it's all part of my continuing spiritual journey.  
    
    Glad I'm not alone!
    
    Suzanne
    
    

Note 828.6                      

Hi Suzanne,

Your note sparked a great deal of interest because my fiancee and I are in
the process of buying land in Maine.  Many of our friends are also 
interested in buying property there and some of them are also already in
the process of doing so.  

I don't know why we are being drawn to Maine but we definitely are being
led there.  We have other friends who are not really spiritually minded 
    but who nevertheless are being drawn to Maine.  

I don't really understand why we feel compelled to do this ... regardless, 
the Purchase and Sales agreement gets mailed tonight.  If we can transfer
then we will, if we can't, we plan to (eventually) start a small family
farm.  Our goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible.  A difficult task
for a family who has always lived in the city I suppose but we are
looking forward to it.  It will be fun.  We'll make it fun_:-).

Hang in there.  I'm sure the realization will dawn on you (and I hope
us) in time.  In the meantime, Maine sure seems like the place to be.

Take care,

Mary

    Mary, a continual feeling/sense as I heeded the call was that when
    all hell breaks loose I shouldn't be near city hubs.  That I should
    as you say be self-reliant, know how to survive under adverse
    conditions, and be able to provide space for others, maybe family
    members, maybe not.  
    
    If you want it, it will come to you.  You have the right attitude
    - go for it, make it fun, it'll work out.  
    
    Good luck to you too.
    
    Suzanne
    
    

    re: .9 (Mary)
    
    	I'm curious, Mary, as to whether you've always been drawn to
    	Maine or whether this is something recent?  There are certain
    	parts of the world I'm very much in tune with, oftentimes more
    	so than where I'm currently living (though Colorado does hold
    	me fast).
    
    						   Carla
    
    	P.S.  If your oldest son doesn't want to work on a farm, send
    	      him west!  ;-)
    

    In the fall of 1986 I took my one and only international business
    trip to England.  The peculiar sense of "homecoming" that I felt
    is difficult to describe.  I did not have dejavu experiences (the
    feeling that I was experiencing something for the 2nd or nth time).
    It was that kind of familiarity one feels in one's hometown -- that
    you don't even need to look at the details of the countryside because
    they're so familiar -- that you can navigate by feel alone.
    
    This trip took place only two weeks after a disastrous vacation
    in which I visited my old childhood homes (I called it my Roots
    Vacation) and the cemetary where my father is buried.  I had expected
    to feel emotional, as Alex Haley had, but to feel somehow that I
    had made peace with, or reclaimed, parts of my past.  How vastly
    different my reality turned out to be.  Our car was destroyed in
    a freak accident and I was gripped the whole trip by a sense of
    desolation and grief, that there was no longer any place I could
    call home, nowhere I belonged.  It wasn't that the places had changed;
    _I_ had changed.  The connections I had once had in these places
    no longer existed, and, I realized, the seeds of severance had been
    there even while living there and loving it.
    
    How different England felt!  I came away from that trip uplifted
    and stronger, like a plant that had suddenly encountered rich soil.
    I recall the morning I took off for the states again, flying over
    the countryside and nodding to myself in a kind of meditative
    recognition as I scanned fields and towns.  Somehow I felt assured
    that I had roots somewhere, and that they went far beyond what I
    might have called "roots" in this life.
    
    Marcia

    re: .12
    
    Your devastating experience followed by a totally uplifting experience
    is something that happens to me.  In a book I just finished reading,
    Sidhartha (forget the author's name) the word empty is used to describe
    getting one's self in a state that enables one to feel (and see
    through the mind) ultimate spirituality (buddhism style). I wonder
    if that's what happens after devastating experience.  It kind of
    makes you empty, allowing for new, more healthier experiences to
    take its place.
    
    Suzanne
    
    

    Re .11 (Carla)
    
    Don't forget what Maine rhymes with; so don't be surprised if 
    Ruby moves in next door, should he opt to remain Down East.

    
    Re.12,13 on Home
    
    Having gone through the process of 'losing' my home very recently, 
    I discovered something quite amazing.
    
    To find Home is to lose home, to lose home is to find Home.  This
    experience also brought to me a sense of peace and the understanding
    now that the world is truly my home....and that Home is in my heart.  
    
    As for the physical, I feel most at home in Zermatt, Switzerland and 
    in Heidelburg, West Germany.
                        
    Peck also mentions this experience in "The Different Drum".  He
    talks about those world citizens who have 'no place to lay their
    heads'.                                                            
    
    Cindy

    re: .13
    		Siddhartha was written by Herman Hesse.  I believe his
    		writing was all done in German, and has been translated.
    		Others are Magister Ludi (the Glass Bead Game), Demian,
    		can't think of the others right now, sorry.
    

Note 828.10                     

>    Mary, a continual feeling/sense as I heeded the call was that when
>    all hell breaks loose I shouldn't be near city hubs.  That I should
>    as you say be self-reliant, know how to survive under adverse
>    conditions, and be able to provide space for others, maybe family
>    members, maybe not.  
    
    Suzanne,

    This is the same feeling/sense that my friends and I have.  We are to
    create a sanctuary of sorts.  A place of safety, away from the cities.  
    Every time I meet someone new who has experienced the same thing, I am
    struck by the coincidence.  I'll send you mail and let you know where
    we will be located.  Stay in touch.

    
Note 828.11                     

Hi Carla,

No, I've just experienced this within the past year.  I've never been much
of a country person actually so my sister has been casting strange glances
my way lately._:-)  

I do feel a very strong urge to do this though, a real compulsion.  We're
looking into alternate energy sources, farming, spinning and weaving, 
canning, home-brewing_:-), anything that will make us more self-sufficient.
I don't know why Maine ... Colorado seems like an equally beautiful place
to me.. but we are being drawn to Maine.
    
Oh, Jay loves the idea.  He really isn't much of a city person.  I'm sure
he'd fit right in out there in the wilds of Colorado though_:-).
(he says "hi")    

Mary

    
    
    I wonder if any of you have experienced what I'm about to say. 
    Where I used to live, we had a hallway (maybe 20' +/-) that I had
    to walk down from the bedroom to the living room.  If a light was
    on in the living room (in the evening, when it was dark), I would
    get a sense of exhileration when approaching the "light".  I wanted
    the hallway to be longer so that I could continue the feeling. 
    I wonder if, maybe, I was "re_living" the death experience.
    
    Any ideas??
    
    Cheryl

    Very often I *feel* myself slipping back to memories of what had
    to have been a past life.  I can picture my clothing and the
    surroundings as being that of 19th Century England.  At the same
    time, I have been able to tie a relationship between my ancestry
    and these experiences.
    
    My ancestry is English on both sides of my family.  My  father's
    great grandparents on his mother's side were Lord & Lady Davidson
    of Carlisle Castle.  I'm not quite as sure how my ancestry line
    runs on my mother's side, but I do remember some affiliation with
    Queen Victoria.
    
    Maybe the ancestry lines and these experiences are related in some
    way.  It's also interesting, to me, that when shopping for clothing,
    furniture, etc., my first choice is Victorian-style.
    
    Beckie