Thread: Deja Vu

In my opinion everyone has experienced it. You are proceeding with your daily life, then all of a sudden, a sequence of events happen, and you are stunned, "I have seen this before!" How can this be explained?

It happens to me when reading a forum thread sometimes.

I heard that it is caused when one eye sees something before the other. But don't quote me on that.

Somebody told me it's like a small glitch in the brain, where your memory "stutters". You experience a situation, but something goes slightly awry when it is stored in your memory, so you basically experience the situation twice in quick succession.

Originally Posted by Alexanderctk

I heard that it is caused when one eye sees something before the other. But don't quote me on that.

wow, that's great. i really hope that's true.

um, this year i remember at one point i was getting deja vu up to 10 times a day. i was pretty freaked out. that's stopped now though.

Whenever you experience something, the brain either files it as something new, or something familiar. I've heard that deja vu is just what happens when this glitches a little, and a new experience is filed one that's happened before.

I've heard of a few people who ended up with something a little more serious affecting that region of the brain, and now have deja vu about absolutely everything. Apparently it makes your life extremely boring, because it feels like you've already done everything and there's nothing more to do. One guy even refused to go to a memory specialist because he felt that he'd done it already.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your contributions!

Originally Posted by Muggler

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your contributions!

What does? The one eye before the other? So, if we walk around blinking like that, we would have constant deja vu?

Here's what I believe.

You know that feeling when you're looking around, and inadvertently you look back at something which you have just seen half a second ago, cause your brain didn't manage to finish information processing? I think this happens a lot more often then we're aware of. Sometimes while retrieving the information from that short-term memory, a neurological anomaly occurs, which makes the brain 'believe' the information is being recalled from long-term memory instead. Therefore, the crappy feeling (which I experience annoyingly often).

Originally Posted by Serith

Whenever you experience something, the brain either files it as something new, or something familiar. I've heard that deja vu is just what happens when this glitches a little, and a new experience is filed one that's happened before.

I've heard of a few people who ended up with something a little more serious affecting that region of the brain, and now have deja vu about absolutely everything. Apparently it makes your life extremely boring, because it feels like you've already done everything and there's nothing more to do. One guy even refused to go to a memory specialist because he felt that he'd done it already.

This, is what made a lot of sense.

It has something to do with dreaming, but what I don't know.

Long ago, I stopped saying to myself "whoa, this has happened before" and replaced it with "whoa, I've dreamed of this before".
I have no idea why, I can't think of anything I remember to base that on, but those are the words that pop into my head. That I've dreamed of this before.

I have no logic to back it up, all I offer are my instincts.