Déjà Vu, Transcendence and Freedom (personal/philosophical)
By Luke Labern
When I feel Déjà Vu, nostalgia, become confused about a memory is a dream or reality or feel an impossibly strong wave of love and euphoria, I am forced to try and describe the state it puts me in. This is a problem not because I am a writer, but because I am a human being. As a rational being, I wish to understand the world. This is often achieved through labelling things. In the same way that "love" is utterly ineffective as a synonym for the feeling itself, the label becomes a symbol. These labels do not allow one to recall the emotion, but they can, if considered for long enough, bring about a faint memory of them. Because of the sheer intensity that the above experiences give me, I have always sought to find some short-hand for them. As an atheist, however, the only words I've ever come close to trouble me: "spirituality" and "transcendence".
This is not an essay about religion. I will re-state once more that I do not believe in God (or any higher power) but I will also state my perhaps controversial view that I do not believe science is any more useful than religion in this particular issue. In the same way that "you feel God" is a dissatisfying manner of describing Déjà Vu, so too is "it is the neurotransmitter X crossing synapse Y". This is not to say that science is not a fundamental need and essential tool of humanity -- but I am not seeking for an explanation of these experiences. I am attempting to understand what they feel like and what these experiences could mean. In this way, I am firmly entering the domain of philosophy. Not only this, but it strays into the realm of linguistics and aesthetics. There is a reason I consider myself a writer and philosopher, and not a scientist. I am simply most interested in those issues which can only be explored through these two subjects.
What, then, of this word: "spirituality"? It should be said at the very beginning that all organised religions are, in my view, not only wrong, but dangerously so. Any truth must be discovered for oneself -- never through a book. At best, the ideas of others can lead one to understand their own. I would never take another's word for gospel. As such, organised religions are the pinnacle of self-deception. With regards to "the spiritual" and "the transcendent", then, any definition will be of my own definition (I hope that, in reading this, you find your own definition). Firstly, the onus is on me to explain why I have chosen these word to attempt to describe the feeling that accompanies the above experiences. Here, I would like to note that I am going to avoid the word "spirituality" and focus on the word "transcendence". Because of "spirituality"'s connotation of a spirit in some sense, I will avoid its usage and focus on "transcendence" as it already had a secular understanding. I will focus on two particular aspects of "transcendence" -- not in an attempt to describe how it occurs (neurochemically), or even why -- but simply what it feels like.
Most strikingly, I feel a sense of overwhelming emotion. It is almost always pleasant: when I am confused about whether a memory corresponds to a dream or reality, I feel a wonderful sense of confusion -- the sort of confusion that, if it was a sentence, would be: "I have no idea what's going on, but I'm glad I'm alive to feel this confusion". Odd -- yes. But odd is exactly it: I feel as if I have lost all control, though I am not in danger. I live my life in a highly regimented and organised way. I do certain things everyday; I eat the same meals; I know where my tools are and I know how to use them; I brush up my skills; I keep my relationships blooming by paying them attention, as one might do with a flower; I set goals and I dedicate myself to achieving them. It's no wonder that I sometimes feel depressed at this ritualistic way of living: I sometimes feel that my entire life has already been lived, from point A today to point B, my death -- all of it organised. This is where one of these experiences tears the ground from underneath me: I no longer have control over my life. I cannot even remember if one of my memories actually happened or not. This is not only a wonderfully random and chaotic event, but it occurs within me: if my mind is not under my control, then what else possibly could be? The beautiful thing is that as I fall, I never fear that I will suffer: I always land in a body of water. What was firm before becomes fluid and unpredictable. The associations water has for me are extremely powerful, both aesthetically and emotionally -- if yours are not, then perhaps consider the emotions you experience when sitting on a beach watching the waves lap at the shore. When I feel Déjà Vu, I feel that sort of emotion -- but multiplied exponentially. This, I believe, is one of the key factors in "transcendence". A sense that one's emotions have been hijacked. In this case, not by a higher power -- but simply by their sheer intensity, by the remarkably odd experience of not being able to locate one's memory, or having the strange feeling of having seen this exact situation, but not knowing when or where.
The next component that I consider essential in "transcendence" is a realisation of a truth greater than oneself. This is also a highly loaded word. Thus, let it be said one final time that I have commandeered the word for my own use, peeling from it any skin of pseudo-religious connotation. I wish to detour slightly to define this word. Very recently, I began to question the deepest parts of my nature -- those things I had always considered an essential part of who I was. This included my grandest dreams and the goals I had set myself to get there. I asked myself: "What if you didn't achieve what you dream of?" I have always relied on my initial reaction: I'll die trying. But pushing myself in a unique way, I began to do something I had long considered but had never had the bravery to do -- I let myself go. I began unravelling why it is I dreamed that dream in the first place -- and eventually I had to admit that there were things in the causal chain that I didn't like. My gender. Economics. Society. I was faced with facts that, though obvious, are truly earth shattering when fully understood. This episode deserves its own space: to condense, I ended up at the fact that whilst my dreams, my identity, my gender and even my society were contingent (that is, they could have been otherwise) the one thing that was necessary for my thought at all was the fact that I was a human. And being a human is a truly remarkable thing. If you strip away my clothes and other societal baggage, what are you left with? An animal. Not just any animal: an animal that can think. Whilst this might seem like I'm heading in a new direction, I will now link all of this together: the key thought I took from this episode was the fact that I was free. Now, like many words, this has become a cliché. If you are able, consider the idea of "freedom" apart from all of those things that bias your thoughts. What does freedom mean? In the most philosophical way, it is the ability to do whatever and be whoever you want. If you don't mind, I would like you to read those last two sentences over again -- as many times as possible until you grasp them in such a way as you are forced to sit up, raise your head, catch your breath and move away from the screen.
That is a moment of transcendence.
Why do I say that? I believe that that moment where you realise that you are free (that your current goals are entirely contingent, and that you can start again whenever you like) is a transcendent moment. When you realise that you not only do not need a job, but do not need clothes, and do not need view yourself in terms of how your particular society demands that you do so... you have achieved a moment of transcendence. We are not cogs in a machine -- not if we don't want to be. We are not names. We are not workers. We are humans. We are animals. That is a fact. Society is a construction. Our dreams and goals are constructions. I used the words "truth greater than oneself" for the very logical reason that the truth of one's abilities is greater than one's existence or self at any given time. There is always, in any person, the potential for more. No one is ever complete, perfect or in any sense finished. The shorthand I use for this technique of remembering that one is always free is: the instantiation of existentialism. Recently, I learnt to look at the fact that we create our own meaning in a new way. Just because I have decided on particular dreams to follow (remembering that there is no objective meaning of life), that doesn't mean I can't start again. Whenever I like. As such, I am never tied down. I can walk out of any institution, any way of viewing myself and any depression simply by remembering that if I don't want to, I don't have to play the game. As human, I can create my own rules. I hope this doesn't sound like propaganda to you, because I live in a world where clichés don't exist. I take every word literally, and redefine words where necessary. For me, understanding of freedom is transcendence. And this concept is extremely powerful and profound for me.
Transcendence is extremely hard to define with accuracy, but through the use of this example, I believe I have now arrived at a point where I can attempt it: transcendence in my sense (the Labernian sense, if you like) is this:
Transcendence: a moment of realisation (accompanied by profound and overwhelming positive emotion) where you, as a human subject and unity of consciousness, understand that no matter (a) the present, particular circumstances you find yourself in and (b) the current goals and dreams you have defined for yourself, existentially speaking, you are free at any time to re-conceive your identity, views and direction in life. Not only do you understand this fact -- you feel able to act upon it.
In Déjà Vu, in the dream example and in the love/euphoria example, I believe that transcendence is the result. Those moments where we feel the ground slipping from underneath us are, as I have said, beautiful -- never worrying. Why? Because it is a little piece of our particular identity at that time falling apart. It may have pejorative connotations, but "falling apart" here is a wonderful thing. Behind that little piece of identity is a crack -- and if we peer through the crack, through which a strong beam of light shines -- we find something truly remarkable. We find transcendence. We find that behind our identity now, we have an ability to create and recycle infinite identities. When this little crack is exposed, thanks to those types of experiences -- we understand a truth greater than ourselves: our infinite potential and freedom. Just because the truth is greater than our current identity, that doesn't mean it is in some way foreign to us: the truth is our freedom. The freedom is very much of this world -- it has nothing to do with a higher power.
My idea of transcendence (as understood through the examples of dreams and Déjà Vu, etc.) is rooted firmly in the here and now. It is rooted within the world of science and the knowable world. The reason it is transcendent is because we cannot hold on to the realisation of our freedom at all times. We cannot stare at the light forever: we must step back and rebuild our identity, whether improving the one we began with or starting afresh. Life is still about survival: we need an identity to survive. We need to know who to keep close and who to push far, far away. But the wonderful thing is that, as humans, we have the ability to reassess those things -- and infinite many other things -- whenever we experience a moment of transcendence. I cannot claim to know why, precisely, but for whatever reason, life affords us these little moments (through dreams, etc.) and it is all we can do to take advantage of those moments.Regardless your own theories of dreams and Déjà Vu, I hope that the next time you experience those unique feelings, you linger on the significance of those moments a little longer than normal, perhaps looking out for that little beam of light.
You might just envision an entirely new future for yourself.
Published 08 January 2013