Is there a scientific theory for De ja vu?

Question

sorry if spelt incorrectly. Also sorry if my question is in the wrong place I didn't know where to put it.

Answer 1

In recent years, déjà vu has been subjected to serious psychological and neurophysiological research. The most likely candidate for explanation is that déjà vu is not an act of "precognition" or "prophecy" but is actually an anomaly of memory; it is the impression that an experience is "being recalled" which is false.

Answer 2

Déjà vu has been firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal-lobe epileptic attack. People suffering an epileptic seizure of this kind can experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the moments between convulsions.

Since déjà vu occurs in individuals with and without a medical condition, there is much speculation as to how and why this phenomenon happens. Several psychoanalysts attribute déjà vu to simple fantasy or wish fulfillment, while some psychiatrists ascribe it to a mismatching in the brain that causes the brain to mistake the present for the past. Many parapsychologists believe it is related to a past-life experience. Obviously, there is more investigation to be done.

Answer 3

In recent years, déjà vu has been subjected to serious psychological and neurophysiological research. The most likely candidate for explanation is that déjà vu is not an act of "precognition" or "prophecy" but is actually an anomaly of memory; it is the impression that an experience is "being recalled" which is false.This is substantiated to an extent by the fact that in most cases the sense of "recollection" at the time is strong, but any circumstances of the "previous" experience (when, where and how the earlier experience occurred) are quite uncertain. Likewise, as time passes, subjects can exhibit a strong recollection of having the "unsettling" experience of déjà vu itself, but little to no recollection of the specifics of the event(s) or circumstances they were "remembering" when they had the déjà vu experience, and in particular, this may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the present) and those responsible for long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). However there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that déjà vu is at least sometimes associated with genuine precognition, which the memory anomaly theory does not account for.

Answer 4

When sensory input reaches the brain, it usually goes to the short term memory department first. This is so that it can be disregarded if not really useful - imagine your brain being full of memories of when you opened the fridge on the 14th July 1994! If something is really worth learning, we repeat it and the short term memory eventually passes all it's data on to the long term memory with a memo saying put this in one box and when it is needed, there will be one trigger. This is how we can tell our hands to play the guitar without really 'thinking about it'. Occasionally, however, the sensory input bypasses the short term memory and goes straight to the long term memory which makes us think the thing we have just seen, smelt or heard etc is very well known to us and is part of our memory. This is de ja vu. Thank you and good night.

Answer 5

Déjà vu is French for "already seen." Déjà vu is an uncanny feeling or illusion of having already seen or experienced something that is being experienced for the first time. If we assume that the experience is actually of a remembered event, then déjà vu probably occurs because an original experience was neither fully attended to nor elaborately encoded. If so, then it would seem most likely that the present situation triggers the recollection of a fragment from one's past. The experience may seem uncanny if the memory is so fragmented that no strong connections can be made between the fragment and other memories.
Thus, the feeling that one has been there before is often due to the fact that one has been there before. One has simply forgotten most of the original experience because one was not paying close attention the first time. The original experience may even have occurred only seconds or minutes earlier.
On the other hand, the déjà vu experience may be due to having seen pictures or heard vivid stories many years earlier. The experience may be part of the dim recollections of childhood.
However, it is possible that the déjà vu feeling is triggered by a neurochemical action in the brain that is not connected to any actual experience in the past. One feels strange and identifies the feeling with a memory, even though the experience is completely new.
The term was applied by Emile Boirac (1851-1917), who had strong interests in phenomena. Boirac's term directs our attention to the past. However, a little reflection reveals that what is unique about déjà vu is not something from the past but something in the present, namely, the strange feeling one has. We often have experiences the novelty of which is unclear. In such cases we may have been led to ask such questions as, "Have I read this book before?" "Is this an episode of Inspector Morse I've seen before?" "This place looks familiar; have I been here before?" Yet, these experiences are not accompanied by an uncanny feeling. We may feel a bit confused, but the feeling associated with the déjà vu experience is not one of confusion; it is one of strangeness. There is nothing strange about not remembering whether you've read a book before, especially if you are fifty years old and have read thousands of books over your lifetime. In the déjà vu experience, however, we feel strange because we don't think we should feel familiar with the present perception. That sense of inappropriateness is not present when one is simply unclear whether one has read a book or seen a film before.
Thus, it is possible that the attempt to explain the déjà vu experience in terms of lost memory, may be completely misguided. We should be talking about the déjà vu feeling. That feeling may be caused by a brain state, by neurochemical factors during perception that have nothing to do with memory. It is worth noting that the déjà vu feeling is common among psychiatric patients. The déjà vu feeling also frequently precedes temporal lobe epilepsy attacks. When he did his famous experiment in 1955 in which he electrically stimulated the temporal lobes, he found about 8% of his subjects experienced "memories." He assumed he elicited actual memories. They could well have been hallucinations and the first examples of artificially stimulated déjà vu.

Answer 6

Spelt nearly correctly. Deja is actually one word (it means already. Deja vu is French for Already seen).

I think the most likely scientific theory I've ever heard is that you dreamt something similar once, so you get the feeling its happened before, but as it happened in your subconcious you can't really remember it properly.

The 'theory' I like most was in a book I once read (can't remember name or author, sorry). Basically there is a palce where everyone's memories are stored, in big holes in the ground. Some peoples memory boxes overfill, and their memories spill out, and over into yours. So you have a memory of doing something before, even when you never did it.

Answer 7

It's not actually this way..Deja Vu is explained scientifically in one way where the scene received by your right part of your brain has been delayed for a fraction of a second therefore stored as a memory !! that's why we feel that we saw or met something or someone before when we actually dont !! It is also explained literaly as " Remembering the Future".

Answer 8

De ja vu phenomena is a sensation giving one the feeling that the event occurring at a given moment has happen before. It feels familiar, but you have no memory of it because there isn't one. This is caused by the brain confusing past memory with a current event that is very similar. There are present many of the elements of a past event,i.e. time of day, color, lighting, smells, clothing ect..this create a sensation of it happening in the past, but it's just an illusion.

Answer 9

there are several explanations floating around to explain this phenomenon most of which have been mentioned already. There is one which i think has been missed and that is related to sensory input from your eyes.

Each eye has an optic nerve connected to the brain, when we see something both nerves should transmit this information at the same pace so it reaches the brain at the same time. If one of the nerves "misfires' (to simplify) then they will reach the brain at seperate times.

In essence the brain will then 'see' the same image twice giving a sense of deja vu.

Answer 10

I had heard that it was one side of your brain working fractionally faster than the other so the experience becomes a memory hence de ja vu .......