I recently noticed something interesting while watching movies. If movie scenario is not very interesting, my mind starts to drift, and sometimes I suddenly have "a feeling" of the scene in the movie. For example, there was a bit old-fashioned room in the scene, and suddenly I had a feeling, how it would be to live in such a room, it felt cozy and I almost felt a smell of old wood, heard some light creaky noises of floor planks. It was like just a short flash and then it went away. I have never lived in a place like that in my life.

There were also some other cases when I suddenly "feel" a smell of perfume, touching some items in the movie. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes not so good. Sometimes I feel also the artificial part of it, I feel how some items are just requisites for the movie.

I am wondering now, is that just my imagination. If it is not, I cannot think of some way how I could verify if it is something real or not. For now I just assume it like a pleasant "feature" of a movie.

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In order to understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.

I would consider it to be a matter of unconsciously accessing the past data base for similar situations to what you see in the movie you are watching. I do the same thing with books. I find myself catching fleeting images of the action described in the books but often have conflicts as I envision something with right/left conflicts with what the text says later. Probably not making a clear choice as to my viewpoint as third party viewer or being part of the scene. One can call it simply imagination but it is entirely possible for it to be an access to the data base for appropriate images to match what is depicted.

Ted

Something I have noticed recently is very similar to what you two are talking about, however mine has become the emotional aspect of the movie. Very intense emotional parts of movies, not always sad, or stressful, most of the time very happy parts even can make me tear up far easier then ever before. I have a notion that I may just be picking up on an emotional stream of information as I tune into what is happening.

i have had this happen before.

i remember watching the movie apollo 13 when i was 17, and really feeling like i was there, or had been there in that ship in the past... looking out at the stars and the earth below, and the very guttural fear of being suspended out there, with nothing but a window separating you from painful certain death. mayb fear isn't the right word. mayb excitement. there was also a feeling of being "alone."

anyways, i remember remarking to my father after the movie that i felt i had been there before, and him dismissing it as something his odd son would say.

Ron Howard is a decent director, but i don't think he's that good enough at visual set coordination to transmit those sensations via film... i definitely feel like i was picking those feelings up from somewhere not audio/visual.

When I was in high school I went to see a play Idiot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot by Dostoevsky in the theatre. I was literally mentally ill for several days after that. I had to read this book too, and it was not my choice. It was a part of Russian literature course at high school. Here I was sick for a month, and this is why I have never attempted to read Brothers Karamasov by the same author. At age of 14-15 I fell in love with Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, and read it at least 20 times during that winter. A whole story was so real to me, I knew each and every word by heart, how they were dressed, and a furniture arraignment in Henry Higgins' s house.

Lena

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'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

The "Clan of the Cave Bear" series brings this alive in me and the inner story in the story's of my book is influenced by the feeling of having been there too. It makes writing these parts in my book bring that alive again too.

I also experience this with Sanskrit and anything associated with it as well as building or walls made of smooth rocks fitted together tightly.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.