Oh, what a day. Jam-packed with all sorts of lunacy at work, and finishing with a meeting that was scheduled till 7 - and the talk began at 7:30! I entered a note that I might have to leave early. Well, as it happened, I was the only writer who made the meeting - which probably greatly shortened the time required, as the others can be very long-winded. And I don't think they really intended it to last an hour anyway - I was done by 6:30, which meant I didn't have to take the Tube, as I'd been considering.
Nope, bus it was - and I was to be glad I was as early as I was, because I'd have missed the talk otherwise, what with the traffic. Brilliant sunshine blinded me for much of the way - what fantastic weather we're having! I had to take off my coat on the walk into work - and I'm sleeping better, now that my room is, ironically, cooler, because they've turned off the heat in the flat. I was lucky - like last time - to get a seat; this is a popular bus, and I believe I got the last one. We made ok time - sadly, I mistook my walk from where I was let off, and had to retrace my steps; never mind, once I was on the right path, I knew exactly where I was going. Mind you, when I got to the venue (with minutes to spare) - the outside steps were still blocked off! I figured I must have the wrong entrance - upon going inside, I noticed a discreet, black spiral staircase that I hadn't noticed before; it might have already been cordoned off, though, as it was when I came out later.
Upstairs at last, and the checker of names was deep in conversation with the speaker. She almost forgot to check me off, and I almost forgot to be checked! Deed done, I took a seat on one of the comfy armchairs arranged in the upstairs room - sadly, although there was a bar, predictably, no-one was serving, and I didn't feel like traipsing all the way downstairs again. Particularly with the talk about to start- although it did start late, beginning with her making an erroneous statement about how, if you pay for five talks, the sixth is free (no it's not, you get a discount equal in value to the smallest amount you paid for any of those five - or free, if it's less).
Anthony Peake started the evening - as I'd expected, although nothing supernatural should be read into that - asking for a show of hands as to who'd ever experienced déjà vu. Most people raised a hand. Then he asked how many of us had had precognitive déjà vu, meaning seeing something that hadn't yet happened, but subsequently did. Mine was almost the only hand raised. Apparently, as he informed us, that was quite standard - something like 70-80% of the population experience déjà vu, something like a tenth of that have precognition.
As the talk progressed, I remembered just what it was like, when I was a kid - it's been a while since I thought about it, but frankly, I was plagued with precognition. It was practically constant - I'd be able to predict who'd come into a room, what they'd say and do, whether the phone would ring, what would be on the news.. I ran experiments on myself, for goodness' sake, to see what would happen - for example, if I changed my actions to disrupt the image I'd seen. (The image then winked out of existence.) Could I predict my thoughts as well as actions? Turned out I could..! but that got way too confusing, distinguishing between what I was thinking and would be thinking in the future, and I didn't try again.
It decreased with age - by the age of 18. I was only getting one reliable precognitive experience about every six months; your brain gets cluttered with other things. But it was quite lovely to have those memories restored now. He started by briefing us on the (72!) rational explanations of the phenomenon. He had some fascinating examples - like the man who knew what was going to happen that afternoon, including what his wife would say when he next entered the room: so he wrote it on a piece of paper, and after she'd said it, showed her the paper. Several folks predicted the attack on the Twin Towers, and the Concorde crash.
Yeah, in the above list, I'm an example of #2. Others include those who experience epilepsy or migraines, psychosis, or dementia - he gets migraines himself, apparently.
As he quite rightly pointed out, none of the conventional explanations account for the prediction of future events. So (spoiler), here's the upshot, or my interpretation (granted, I don't remember all the terminology, but he has written some books if you want to explore further):
We are living one of a number of possible life outcomes, in a reality with infinite different examples. Actually, this isn't as kooky as it sounds - it might have sounded weirder if I weren't familiar with cosmology's proposition of infinite universes. Hell, Stephen Hawking was a believer in it. Within this framework, our psyche has divided into two - rather like someone playing a computer game; one is the controller, one the avatar, and the controller is telling the avatar what to do, rather like someone who's played the game before and knows how things are going to pan out. That's why we "know what's coming".
Draw all the parallels you like, and think what you like, but theoretical physics is actually going in this direction. And it's one of the most plausible explanations I've heard for an inexplicable phenomenon. I was beginning to think the talk was all a bit weird.. until I remembered just what it was like, when I was seeing these things, and how this was along the lines of what I thought at the time. Honestly, I walked out of there with a sense of peace that I haven't had in a while - and it's great to know I'm not alone. One day we'll know more..
Tomorrow, back with London Literary Walks - he's only doing them fortnightly now, it seems. Well, he's covered half of London at this rate! This one is called Guitar Bands Are on the Way Out, Mr. Epstein.
On Friday, I got the very last ticket to The Phlebotomist, downstairs at Hampstead Theatre. I'm going with Up in the Cheap Seats - North London Friends saw it in preview, but it was already sold out for that night when I looked.
On Saturday, Helen is in town and we're headed for food. Somewhere. In the evening, I'm back with London Discovery Walks for yet another ghost tour - this one is called Ghosts of the Old City - just like my last Funzing walk!
On Sunday, back with Up in the Cheap Seats.. all day, as it happens. See, one of the organisers went crazy booking things yesterday - it seems there's a day of free events at the V&A, with the theme of censorship. The day starts with Decorum X: Brunch with Bite.. tickets required. This is followed by a talk on Censorship on the Elizabethan Stage, then finally comes a performance by Belarus Free Theatre (the only theatre company in Europe banned by its government on political grounds, it seems), with Artists Fighting Oppression. Sold out now, but he had tickets for us, if we were in quick. In the evening, we're off to a film music gala at the Albert Hall. What the hey, the V&A is on the way there!
On Monday, another Funzing talk - An Introduction to the Dark Net. At Sink.. For which I earned a loyalty discount, on account of all I booked recently!
On Tuesday and next Wednesday, back again with Up in the Cheap Seats: Tuesday is for An Ideal Husband - part of the Oscar Wilde Season, at the Vaudeville. Stars father and son, Edward and Freddie Fox. And Susan Hampshire. Next Wednesday is for Mood Music, at the Old Vic, with Ben Chaplin.
On the 26th, the London European Club is attending a lecture at the LSE, on Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration. Then I'm back to the highly non-Eurosceptic Ireland again, for the weekend.
On the 30th, back with Up in the Cheap Seats, for A Gym Thing - got a fright when I saw that, but no, it's a play - in the Pleasaunce.
On the 1st, I am back with North London Friends - to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East for Our Country's Good.
On the 2nd, Up in the Cheap Seats is off to The Writer, at the Almeida.
And on the 3rd, London Literary Walks is doing - ahem - Stalin's Doss House. Meeting at Starbucks, naturally!
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