Can you explain the phenomenon of "Dejavu"?

Question

I've experienced it quite a few times when you experience an encounter or event and in your mind it seems like you've been there or replaying that experience over again. Just like the movie "groundhog day".

Answer 1

Hmm, good question.
I like what 'edsawyer' put down, that's a theory I've not heard before.
I suffer Deja Vu in bouts. It will be a daily occurrence, happening sometimes more than twice a day, ongoing sometimes, for weeks at a time. Then it will stop and I'll not experience the phenomenon for long periods of time, up to maybe even a year, before I experience it again. When I do have the experience, they tend to differ in intensity, going from a slight 'feeling' to full blown 'this has happened before!' type of sensation. The latter has sometimes been so intense, I have been able to tell people what they were about to do or say without error! This kind of extreme has not happened often thankfully, but when it has, this type of Deja Vue experience tends to last for minutes, as apposed to seconds.
As to explaining this phenomenon satisfactorily, I really wish I could. My own personal thoughts on it is that it may be in some way connected to our perception of the 'flow' of Time. Time is recognised as not necessarily running from point 'A' to point 'B' as such, but that 'it', or 'we', are at both locations at the same time as in 'Past' and Future' do not necessarily exist in a linear sense, just the instantaneous 'Now'; we simply percieve it as moving between the two, possibly to aid us in comprehending our experience on this plane.
Therefore, the experience of Deja Vue, could just be experiencing what we have done already, before we have done it!

Does that make sense...or should I have kept taking those tablets the doctor gave me!?

:)

Answer 2

The best explanation I've heard is that short-term memory and long-term memory are normally seperate things. New information first enters short-term memory, then is filtered and some of it is 'recorded' in long-term memory.

Yet every now and then, this route 'malfunctions' and new information is processed directly into the long-term memory. Thus, what we are actually experiencing for the first time is, over the course of milliseconds, recorded in long-term memory and then sent back to the conscious mind as 'something that happened once before'. It can be either frightening or just cool depending on how you look at it. Some people experience it much more than others. I have déjà vu quite regularly. I like it because it's an 'altered consciousness' that happens naturally. But I don't take it seriously.

Answer 3

Quite literally Deja Vu means "Already seen" It means one of two things, either you've experieced a sight before, and don't remember it, or the sight reaches one side of your brain before it reaches the other. Some people say that Deja Vu has to do with an experience you've had in a past lifetime. It also can do with the dreams that you have, but don't remember.

Hope this helps!
Cheers!

Answer 4

Some research indicates that it's a sort of a neurological "shadow" type of phenomenon. You experience something, and establish an awareness of it - a room, a smell, whatever... and a misfiring or some other delay in the firing of some neurons causes this "awareness" to happen a second time, which gives you that feeling of having been there before.

Answer 5

Deja vu should not be confused with precognitive experiences such as dreams that eventually come true. Deja vu is merely the sense that an experience/ event you do has happened beofre but you cannot remember the first time it happened it just feels like it has. Precognition is where you dream of an event and then it comes true and you can recall the very dream.

Answer 6

Yes it can happen twice, It's a sign that your life and what you do is getting routinary. The series of events just keep repeating like going to the house office/school, shoppingmall, bedroom etc. You need to do something alternatively or in a new way. Break your routines.

Answer 7

Familarity from scientific perspective is connection of few neurons in particular pattern. When you see something that you have seen before, the path of traverse that these neurons take is an existing pattern and hence you get this feeling. Some time due to some unexplanable reasons, when you see something, chemical and electric reaction is similar to how it happens when you have seen something before.

Answer 8

hello:}
the fact of the matter is it is caused by dreaming it the night before ,it is why we get that feeling that oh my gosh i have been here in this exact time etc etc .but your subconscious mind sort of overlaps occasionally ,you would be surprised on just how much you do dream ,for the most part we remember only a tiny fragment of what is going on in the subconscious mind ,but dejavu is a remembrance from the night before .
Peggy:}:}

Answer 9

It is also said to be some sort of chemical release in the brain that gives you the feeling that you've been at a certain place somewhere before.

Answer 10

It is like that.Even I have experienced it some times.But I really dont get the connection between the real and the deja vu