Deja Vu? What is it?

Question

why do we get it? What is it?

Answer 1

The term "déjà vu describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917) in his book L'Avenir des sciences psychiques (The Future of Psychic Sciences), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate French concentrator at the University of Chicago. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past. Déjà vu has been described as "Remembering the future."

The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common; in formal studies 70% or more of the population report having experienced it at least once. References to the experience of déjà vu are also found in literature of the past, indicating it is not a new phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to invoke the déjà vu experience in laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few empirical studies. Recently, researchers have found ways to recreate this sensation using hypnosis.

Answer 2

It is the feeling that you have been somewhere before. Many believe that we have been there in another life, some believe that we have dreampt it and I am sure that there are many other ideas about it.

For me, I know that I have had a number of dreams and some years later that exact situation occurs and usually occurs with a specific trigger that connects the real to the dream. An example was when I was 16 and playing a little table tennis. I dreampt about a match in a hall in very minute detail and the trigger was that the score was 15-7 against me and from there I won the game. About 3 years later and having moved states, I began playing competition table tennis and at one match I had walked into this hall and recognised nothing. But, when the scorer called the score 15-7, everything clicked into place.
I don't know if Deja Vu is to help us know that we are on the correct path, or pre-empting us to grow into those situations or what, but it is definately a case of having been there before, perhaps even physically.

Answer 3

Deja Vu is french for 'seen already'.

My scientific theory is that we see alot of stuff every second of every da of our lives. So much information that we don't process it all. Some of it is marginalised as unnecessary, some into our subconscious as side bar info and that which we see and recognise in our conscious state. I mean really, do you remember specifically locking your or flushing the toilet every single time you did it? All of it is habit and you accept that you've done it rather than remembering. Then there is stuff you don't think is important like the face of every single person you might pass on the street.

Every once in a while, when you don't have something dominating your thoughts, you might notice something that you've already come across at some other time but you filed it away but at some level you recognise it, be it a face, a phrase, a place. You've seen it already.

My unscientific theory. The cosmos allows you to redo certain errors. When it's paying attention to you, anyway. So whenever I do get that buzz of DV, I assume I did something wrong the first time and I've got to get it right this time.

Though recently, I've noticed that my DV's are getting longer. Rather than a second or two, I'll get a DV that is like a few minutes long. Which really only helps the scientific theory because as I'm getting older, you store up more of those hidden information cells.

Answer 4

Deja Vu, is when two of your nerve signals overlap, and they get mixed up. They go to each other's destination, causing your brain to correct this. your brain has already registered the event in your subconsious level, so when it reaches the consious level of your thought process, it repeats the thought, causing a Deja Vu vision.

Answer 5

Its the feeling that you've been here doing whatever it is you're doing right now sometime before now.
I think you dream stuff ahead of time and see it a bit prematurely sometimes so when you do experience it it's a very familiar feeling. Other times it may be that you HAVE actually done something so similar to what you're doing now (like the thirty millionth time you've done your laundry or shuffled those papers at work etc) that you feel the familiarity of the action.
Some people believe we have planned out the lessons we are supposed to learn in this lifetime when we were in between lives before and that is why it seems oddly familiar.

Answer 6

The term déjà vu is French and means, literally, "already seen." Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all. Say, for example, you are traveling to England for the first time. You are touring a cathedral, and suddenly it seems as if you have been in that very spot before. Or maybe you are having dinner with a group of friends, discussing some current political topic, and you have the feeling that you've already experienced this very thing -- same friends, same dinner, same topic.
The phenomenon is rather complex, and there are many different theories as to why déjà vu happens. Swiss scholar Arthur Funkhouser suggests that there are several "déjà experiences" and asserts that in order to better study the phenomenon, the nuances between the experiences need to be noted. In the examples mentioned above, Funkhouser would describe the first incidence as déjà visité ("already visited") and the second as déjà vecu ("already experienced or lived through").

As much as 70 percent of the population reports having experienced some form of déjà vu. A higher number of incidents occurs in people 15 to 25 years old than in any other age group.

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 7

heres my theory.... You only remember the dreams you had just before you woke up, however your mind is active throughout the entire night. Thousands of images and sensations flash through your brain while you sleep and when you wake up you dont remember them. However sometimes those images line up, by coincidence, to form a scene very similar to the deja vu one you just experienced.

Answer 8

It the experience of having a feeling that one has done something exactly the same prior to doing it or, more commonly, going to a place for the first time and having the sense that one has been there before.

It isn't really explainable, but the popular psychological explaination is that it is an imagined memory.

for example, say that you go to Paris for the first time and go to the top of the Eifel tower. Your mind may give you the impression that you somehow have been there before because it all seems so familiar. The reality is the you have probably been exposed to thousands of image of the tower throughout your life, to the point that it is familar.

The less scientific explaination is that it is evidence of a past life and that (using the example above) a former self has been to the tower.

Answer 9

Scientists and psychologists are divided over the fact so as to why deja-vu happens. It would be difficult to explain that portion.
What happens in dejavu is that it appears to us that we have relived the last moment earlier also and that it is a exact same moment. We usually dont really remember when it had happened but we are convinced that it had happened earlier.
For example you are walking down the road and you see a cat cross your path. There's a small possibility that you would realize that the exact same thing had happened to you earlier also. By exact, I mean totally exact that is the surrounding environment is the same. You will not remember when it had happened,but you are totally convinced that it had happened.
Some people relate dejavu to dreams but there's not much evidence for the same. others say that when your conscious mind is absorbed in something, then your conscious and subconscious minds see the same thing differently and your conscious mind thinks that you have seen it earlier as the event has been processed by subconscious mind too.
These are all naive theories and nothing concrete on such lines has been proved.

Answer 10

Deja vu is french, meaning "already seen". It is the feeling that you have already been somewhere when it is your first time, or re-enacting something that's already been done. What exactly causes it, I do not know.