Is there any connection between the déjà vu experience and involuntary memories? I mentioned the same “look and feel” with the photographs in the last blog entry. The look is obvious. The feel is not described in those photographs but in the photograph below.

Buddha in the Mist

The mist was on the camera lens after it had been exposed to humidity after having been cooled overnight in an air conditioned hotel room.  In the previous fifteen years of life in Colorado, Arizona, and Afghanistan I never had to clean condensation from a camera lens. Is the humidity another element adding to the recall of the 1977 photograph when I was glimpsing a Lankan arrangement of cow and trees?

The hippocampus is thought to be involved in the the involuntary memory process and was earlier thought to be related to the olfactory sense. Humidity could have been a strong factor in the recall of the Wisconsin scene from thirty-five years previous.

The madeleine effect is a reference to the experience described by Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time, if you insist) where the experience of involuntary memory is first exploited in literature.

I came across notes on involuntary memory after the last post while editing the Sri Lanka photos. It turned out to be an interesting diversion from the work of editing photographs.

The photos are edited now so they should start appearing here as soon as I can write a little accompanying text – unless more involuntary memories get in the way.