Déjà view

We’ve all experienced déjà vu, right? You know, that feeling that what you’re currently doing has already happened before? It’s a strange sensation, and sometimes the feeling that the event has already transpired, exactly as it is happening now, is so overwhelming that it can be downright eerie.

Who knows if it’s some sort of past dream recall, an anomaly of working memory, or that, in fact, we actually have experienced the event before in some past life or parallel universe. Okay, the latter theory is perhaps a stretch, but really, no one knows; scientific research on the subject has not come up with any definitive answers. (Don’t you love that? I do. Science can explain a lot, perhaps someday everything, but it’s nice to know that somethings have yet to be made plain in the petri dish.)

But what happens to me much more frequently than déjà vu is déjà view. You may already know what I mean, just from the words, but let me explain, in case you don’t.

I not uncommonly find myself feeling as though a certain view, or building, or grove of trees belongs elsewhere. The landscape is completely reminiscent of some other place. There is a dentist office on a corner that I pass on my way to Trader Joes each week. Every time I’m stopped at the light with this blue, one-story stucco building across the street from me, I cannot shake the feeling that it belongs in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. Every time. Is it the arrangement of the palm trees around the building, the color and shape of the building itself, the plaque displaying the name of the dentist? I’m not sure.

And when driving on portions of California 163/Cabrillo Freeway I get the distinct feeling that I’m in Northern California. It does not look, or smell, or feel like San Diego. The freeway is too narrow and scenic, and smells too much of eucalyptus to be here in Southern California.

Does this happen to you?