Thread: Origin of Deja Vu Pinpointed

From Live Science:

http://www.livescience.com/health/070607_deja_vu.html

New answers to this are always welcome! That's a really good theory, although sometimes I get deja vus in which something happens which has never happened before and I have a memory already formed of that event, which is kind of unexplained by this theory...
I heard another one, once, to which the brain would sometimes work slower, aprehending perceptions in a confusing way, which could lead to deja vus. Guess we'll just never know...

Deja vu as a memory error is an interesting concept.

how does it then account for being able to finish people's thoughts admist a dejavu?

Originally Posted by SolSkye

how does it then account for being able to finish people's thoughts admist a dejavu?

Good question.

I've had it both ways - that nagging feeling of remembering something occurring after it is complete, which is how it most often occurs... but I've also experienced deja vu where I have finished the scenario before it happened.

I've had that happen from a remembered dream, too.

Originally Posted by MrGrEmLiN

That's a really good theory, although sometimes I get deja vus in which something happens which has never happened before and I have a memory already formed of that event, which is kind of unexplained by this theory...

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The article sites an interesting theory though. Thanks for posting it, PJ.

Interesting. I remember hearing once that deja vu was caused by two different parts of your brain registering an occurrence at slightly different rates, thereby causing the feeling of deja vu. I can't explain it any better than that, but it made sense when I read it.

No matter how much they try and write it off as a computing error in the brain, there are still many unexplainable experiences with deja vu that seem to suggest a slight precognition occuring as opposed to a simple crossing of the synapses.

Originally Posted by Solskye

No matter how much they try and write it off as a computing error in the brain, there are still many unexplainable experiences with deja vu that seem to suggest a slight precognition occuring as opposed to a simple crossing of the synapses.

I actually have a personal one that disproves what other people say. I may have posted this before, but here it is regardless.

So in the summer before grade 9, about a week before school started, me and my sisters were surprised with a trip to Disneyland by my mom and her cousin (and cousins fiance). We had no prior knowledge that we were going. The first night we're there, which happened to be my birthday night, we were eating in the hotel room, and I stood up to throw away my garbage and was hit with the hardest deja vu I've ever had. I was pulled out of reality and kind of watched myself keep moving and talking even though it felt like the same dream I had about a month before the surprise trip.

Looked like my mind knew I was going to Disneyland before I did.

But hey, you never know, right?

Cool. I never have had a deja-vu, so my brain RULES >: D

Interesting to know still, how deja-vu's actually work.

Thought I'd provide a bridge to these two topics :I stopped DeJa Vu

I posted a theory which I think might be along the lines of what is in that article.

Well I know a few times it has happen where its totally possible it could of been similar to something in the past. But then a few time it seems like there is no way I ever did what I was doing. Then again theoritically since you remeber all your dreams somewhere deep in your mind, you might get deja vu of something that happened in your dreams, even if you don't remeber the dream ever happening.

I actually wonder about that. Dreams can be kind of vague sometimes since they are not real, so it would seem like it would be easier to mix them up than with real memories.

Originally Posted by Alric

Well I know a few times it has happen where its totally possible it could of been similar to something in the past. But then a few time it seems like there is no way I ever did what I was doing. Then again theoritically since you remeber all your dreams somewhere deep in your mind, you might get deja vu of something that happened in your dreams, even if you don't remeber the dream ever happening.

I actually wonder about that. Dreams can be kind of vague sometimes since they are not real, so it would seem like it would be easier to mix them up than with real memories.

Good point. And we have so many different dreams - about so many different things - that it is possible that some deja vu is caused by dream events.

Although I'm a romantic at heart and to be honest would prefer that it has some more mystical connotations, I understand this concept that the world as we experience it, is really a construct created by our mind to correlate a vast amount of information

My only problem with the theory is that I have personally experienced prolonged Deja Vu where my brain linked some causal trigger to a pre existing memory. Fair enough this all sounds like my brain running to catch up with my senses but it still leaves me questioning how my brain seems to have information about events that may not have happened yet.

When this happens and I recognise the moment for what it is, my mind starts analysing every minute detail of the situation and correlating this with the "memory".

Often with the longer periods of Deja Vu ...which I haven't had for a while to be honest.... I know what is supposed to happen and can and have changed my remembered response and\or action.

As part of my own experiments I've even used totally nonsensical responses, thought up on the spur of the moment, (again if there's a delay in processing this could be my brain tricking itself) to try and highlight the extended Deja Vu and to "throw a spanner in the works" as it where.

To date I've had multiple moments of Deja Vu where I have deliberately changed my response to something totally out of context to the Deja Vu memory.

If it is just a hiccup in the timing of the Perceive - Correlate - Record function of the brain that's happening in nanoseconds....how do we even perceive it? And how do we "seem" to have information about something that is going to happen, to the point where we can change it?

Mostly when I try to think about this stuff it makes my brain hurt ...but in my experience the whole timing hiccup theory seems like a very sound explanation ....that unfortunately just doesn't add up when I apply it to my own experience.

that unfortunately just doesn't add up when I apply it to my own experience.

This is called delusion.

If it is just a hiccup in the timing of the Perceive - Correlate - Record function of the brain that's happening in nanoseconds....how do we even perceive it? And how do we "seem" to have information about something that is going to happen, to the point where we can change it?

Good question, well kind off. People don't use their memory properly, which causes bad memory. Now most people can't trust their memory, various studies have shown false memory plays a huge part in everyday life. I remeber vividly a study about a questionnaire asking people about something they just seen, now the first question was "how many people got on the blue bus?". Eveyone in that study and in a repeat of the study got the anwser wrong, their was no blue bus it was red. When you ask you're brain "haven't I seen that before?", you can't trust you're memory after that.

Unless you got a photographic memory YFRog, then your not beyound the theory of how Deja Vu works.

Here's another interesting article on Deja Vu I thought you guys may be interested in reading. http://science.howstuffworks.com/deja-vu.htm

Hey guys here is my scientific theory of how it all works.

My new scientific reasonable theory of dejavu telepathy with a bunch of atoms whirling around for no reason. Means that if the atoms were not there, at least in the wishbone of tissue. Dejavu would remain as an idea in the brain rather than an experience. As long as one of the electrons didn't go flying off somewhere and stayed in the correct part of the electrical signal from where it's normally triggered. When you eat carrots expecially. Now we know what it means. Faulty wiring. So get some drugs. That's the solution to this illness. Dejavu is a disturbance to be explained. And drugs must be the answer to fix your brain.

Originally Posted by Dave Mosher

The brain cranks out memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for “episodic” memories—information that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart

If only my hippocampus noticed how my dentate gyrus took to much repsonsibility for my episodic memories that my brain cranked out. Then my wishbone tissue wouldn't detect similar situations. Thank god Tonegawa and his team bred mice without a fully-functional dentate gyrus. Otherwise I would think I was sane.


Buying this stuff like a new softdrink.

P.S
How memory functions, in the brain or not. Is not even explained. Better explain that properly before attempting a conspiracy theory about it being a mental illness.

Deja Vu is a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something. Duh.

If people want to pinpint the cause of deja vu they should do cat-scans on people amdist salvia trips because the feeling of deja vu is one of the effects.