Dr Judith Orloff's Blog

"Déjà Vu" is a common intuitive experience that has happened to many of us. The expression is derived from the French, meaning "already seen." When it occurs, it seems to spark our memory of a place we have already been, a person we have already seen, or an act we have already done. It is a signal to pay special attention to what is taking place, perhaps to receive a specific lesson in a certain area or complete what is not yet finished.

In “Second Sight” I describe many theories to explain déjà vu: a memory of a dream, a precognition, a coincidental overlapping of events or even a past life experience in which we rekindle ancient alliances. What matters is that it draws us closer to the mystical. It is an offering, an opportunity for additional knowledge about ourselves and others.

During a trip to Africa, Carl Jung described a feeling of déjà vu when he viewed a slim, black man leaning on a spear looking down at his train as it made a turn around a steep cliff on the way to Nairobi. He writes, "I had the feeling that I had already experienced this moment and had always known this world." Although this world and this man were something alien to him, he saw the whole thing as perfectly natural. He called this a recognition of what was "immemorially known."

In Western culture, we are brought up to consider anyone who isn't an immediate member of our circle of friends and family to be a stranger. Yet at times, you meet people whom you feel as if you have known for years. You can talk to them about anything and they understand. You laugh easily with them. The tone of their voice, the way they take their coffee, all seem commonplace. It isn't that they remind you of someone else or that their qualities are simply endearing. You relate to them not as strangers, but as people with whom you have shared history, members of the same tribe.

A patient of mine named Shannon knew that she was going to marry her husband the day that they met. She had dated a lot of men following her divorce, but none of them felt right. Then, she met Bob. There was something about the way he smiled, the glint of his hair, his voice and the shape of his hands, that made her think that they had known each other before. After talking it was clear that their paths had never crossed, but after their first lunch date, they became inseparable. What Shannon and Bob immediately felt for each other was more than just physical chemistry. It was a natural compatibility and a depth of intimacy that usually emerges after couples are together for many years. They were married two months after they met and have been together now for ten years.

I’m often asked how to tell the difference between a feeling of déjà-vu when we first meet someone and an attraction stemming from an addictive obsession. Some addiction specialists say that whenever you meet someone and an explosion of fireworks go off, this is a sign not of true love, but of one neurosis meeting another. They suggest that you run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

Based upon my work with the recovering community, I agree that there is a strong tendency among addicts and some non-addicts to try to "fix" themselves with love and sex, rushing prematurely into relationships inspired only by intense physical attraction. They often have nothing to do with déjà-vu, but stem rather from a basic emptiness that longs to be filled. There is no true bond between the people involved, they hardly know each other, and these partnership attempts fail miserably when the pink glow of newness wears off.

The fact that an encounter feels compelling or immediate doesn't necessarily mean that it is healthy or unhealthy. The experience of déjà vu must always be approached discerningly. However, mostly déjà-vu experiences are not obsessive or compulsive. They rather convey a quality that is quiet and solid..

The possibility of having a déjà vu is inherent in partnerships of all kinds, particularly the more intimate ones. It can occur in business, friendships and family, often leading to pivotal outcomes that can impact the direction of our life.

There are situations that are glitches in time, when the rules bend and the mystery takes hold. Enchanted moments that sparkle. These are deja-vus. They can take place anywhere, at any time and with anyone. Your real estate agent might show you a house that feels so familiar and right, you instantly know it is yours. Or perhaps you are in a restaurant and sense an inexplicable kinship with a woman sitting in the back corner booth. Don't let these possibilities pass you by. Take notice; investigate. There is no way of predicting where each might lead or what it will teach you. Summoning the courage to take a chance and act on synchronicities, to have faith in what is not yet visible, will make the experience your own.

(Adapted from Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Story and Show You How to Tap Your Own Inner Wisdom (Three Rivers Press, 2010) by Judith Orloff MD)

Have you ever experienced perfect timing, a moment when everything just seems to fall into place? For a moment, we step out of the random chaos and find that all forces are aligned with nothing pre-planned and yet, all is in order. Events come together with such exactitude, it feels as if we have been launched onto a pre-ordained course. We can't stop thinking about someone and we run into them on the street; a person we have just met offers us the perfect job; we miss our plane and on the next flight we sit next to someone with whom we fall in love. This is synchronicity, a state of grace.

While once attending a general meeting of the Cedars Sinai Medical Staff, I met a plastic surgeon named Richard. Immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit, tanned and handsome, he asked me out to lunch. In the Hamburger Hamlet at the edge of the Sunset Strip, we engaged in small talk for a while. He appeared quite straight-laced, speaking about his prestigious country club, playing golf on the week-ends, and his Wednesday night poker game. He was a nice enough guy, but not my type. Except for being physicians, we didn't seem to have much in common.

Usually, when a date isn't going well, I try to ease out of it as quickly as possible.  But here I found myself talking about my spiritual beliefs and then suddenly, the conversation turned to death.  Richard had never spoken in detail about death to anyone before, but now, he couldn't hear enough about my description of an afterlife, how the spirit is eternal, how death is not an end but simply a transition into other dimensions as real as our own lives.

I kept thinking to myself, "This is one of the weirdest dates I've ever had." It wasn't that I was uncomfortable with the subject matter. There was just something unsettling about the way it was happening. The immediacy in Richard's eyes, his hunger to absorb it all even though he claimed no spiritual leanings of his own, were cues to me that something was up.
Why did such a profound topic arise with someone I hardly know? One month later, a friend called to tell me that Richard had been killed in a freak motorcycle accident. I was stunned. It seemed impossible. He was talented, attractive and successful. People like Richard get married, have families, live charmed lives. They don't die young. At least, that was my fantasy.

Suddenly the context of our date made perfect sense, the seemingly off-beat direction of our dialogue. There was obviously some unconscious part of Richard that had intuited his impending death and he had yearned to know everything he could about it. I had been the messenger.

Intuition often intercedes in the most subtle ways. The secret is to go with the mystery. Sometimes the significance of synchronicities is instantly obvious and other times, as in the case of Richard, it takes time. We must trust the divine ordering of our lives.

Some synchronous meetings are serendipitous and can signal a fortuitous future. When we take advantage of these golden moments, our lives can positively change. Such opportunities do not only crop up during important business meetings, extravagant parties or special events. If we stay on the lookout wherever we go, you’ll see how they happen in the everyday--often when we least expect them.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, defines synchronicity as "a meaningful coincidence of outer and inner events that are not causally related." Jung speaks of a collective unconscious, a universal pool of knowledge, independent of culture and belonging to us all. It is the basis of what the ancients call the "sympathy for all things." I believe that synchronicity stems from this commonality. We are all swimming in the same waters and can feel the reverberation of each other's movements, riding the same waves.

Recently, a close friend was on vacation in Boulder, Colorado, browsing in a used book store. An avid science fiction fan, he reached for a book that appealed to him. When he opened it to the title page, there was my name written in my own hand writing and dated November, 1961. As a child, I used to sign my name in all of my books in case they got lost. When I left my parents' house, I donated stacks of my old books to Goodwill. Somehow, one of them had ended up in Boulder and my friend had come upon it twenty years later.

Although some synchronicities may impact us more than others, they all have value. Whether or not I fully grasp its meaning at the time, I see each synchronous moment as one of rare and perfect harmony like the accuracy of a bull's eye, the precision of a hole in one, or the impeccable sequence of a royal flush. Synchronicity is a sign that we are intuitively attuned, not only to our immediate friends and family, but also to the greater collective.

Learn more about the magic of intuition in Dr. Orloff's new book, Second Sight.

Click here for Judith’s complete workshop schedule.

"Second Sight" Excerpt