E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSWe ask a lot of weird questions here at The Body Odd. But so do you! Here's our answer to one of your latest queries. Got an inquiring mind? Head over to our Facebook page and ask us your oddest health, medical or human behavior question. We may answer it in an upcoming post.
Becky Coombs asks: Why/how does deja vu happen?
Maybe it's a short circuit in the brain. Or bit of far-off memory slipping into the present. Or perhaps it's both those things and something more.
Whatever the case, deja vu isn't just a strange but irrelevant fact of life (like, say, Snooki). Better understanding of deja vu will almost certainly lead to better understanding of how our brains work.
So what is deja vu in the first place? "It's the feeling that you have done this exact same thing before -- been to this place or performed this particular activity -- when you know that you haven't," says Colorado State University's Anne M. Cleary, a leading deja vu specialist. "Not everybody experiences it, but the majority of people do."
Young people, from the teenage years through the mid-20s, experience deja vu the most, says Akira O'Connor, who studies deja vu at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Tired people also get it more often, as do those who travel a lot. Even though they have many more years stored in their memory banks, older people aren't as prone to deja vu.
When most of us feel deja vu, we think it's a little odd or even meaningful -- maybe a past life is coming through! -- and go on with our day. Others aren't so fortunate. Some people suffer from deja vecu, a feeling of having already lived.
"It sounds kooky and fun, like a 'Groundhog Day'-type experience, but in reality it's extremely unsettling and drastically changes people's behavior," O'Connor says. "People find that they experience it most strongly for novel experiences. As they find the experience unsettling, they tend to avoid novelty altogether, with the sad consequence that they can withdraw into a world of true familiarity, watching reruns of movies and TV shows over and over again because that brings them the least distress."
There's no good treatment for people with this condition, which is often related to the memory problems of aging. No wonder: there's no clear understanding of what causes deja vu and related feelings in the first place.
Colorado State University's Cleary said some possible causes of deja vu include errors in the way the brain processes the world around us or "a brief neurological dysfunction, such as spontaneous brain activity that triggers an inappropriate sense of familiarity, or a brief minor seizure." It's possible that multiple causes are at work.
For now, researchers are finding new ways to analyze deja vu. Cleary is using virtual reality to see if they can trigger it in people and figure out exactly what in a "scene" makes it happen. (Vision isn't necessary, though. Blind people have deja vu too.)
"Researchers need to figure out what causes the disconnect between feeling that something is familiar, and knowing that it can't be," Scotland's O'Connor says. "I hope that in my lifetime we figure what parts of the brain are associated with 'feeling' familiarity and what parts are associated with 'knowing' that something should or should not evoke memories."
Just remember this: Maybe it's a short circuit in the brain. Or bit of memory slipping into the present. Or perhaps it's both those things and something more. (No, you're not having deja vu. You already read that. Or did you?)
Leave a comment telling us about the weirdest or most memorable time you experienced deja vu. We may use your answer in an upcoming post.
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
I've had deja vu a few times in my life. Sometimes, I actually remember having dreamed the scene before it happened. The same thing happened to my father once. We know that we saw it in a dream and then we saw it in real life. No, we're not psychic or anything. It's just odd. How can you explain that? I don't think science can.
string theory...we are just getting a glimpse of one of 9 other dimensions out there.
trying to seperate your'e life and live actively, from another that has caused a dilema from their situation and or exsperiences.---now that suffering is too much, as work is 8 hours or so,sleep is 8 hours or so,as is food 8 hours or so a day,.;(pie) to the individual, huh,ha. it's old and they don't want anyone to be corrected by the embarassment it is, aspirin being o/c. pain reliever and soap and water bath, is a stress reliever considered hygeine. ever think of your precious gems being hidden because someone else left a plastic cup on a toilet a lockked the door so nobody at home could talk over the diaruption.? not my area and very incosiderate. yet it started eons ago. yes it helps to read up on things,talk to others,but to sort out everyone by this is disgusting..i may wrestle on the other side of wwf,and take trust very serious..
WHAT??????
The same thing has happened to me a few times too. The thing that bothers me is I can not control any part of it. It was like I was previewing when dreaming and when it happened in life the hair on my neck, an it just freaks me out some.
My experience come from dreaming the sequence normally the week before the occurrence, It is strange I always try to guess what will happen next and what I will see next. Then when I am right it is not so unsettling.
I think smell is the trigger for my deja vu.
I sure don't know how to explain it, but it does happen. when I was 4 or 5, I dreamed that a bunch of children were standing around, saying the Pledge of Allegiance outside of a building. I dreamed that I looked up and saw a big building on top of a hill to the side. I then dived down into the ground and swam with fish there (hey, it was a dream). When i was 7 years old, they built the school. when I was 8 or 9, our Principal liked to do the Pledge of Allegiance outside while raising the flag. I turned and looked over toward the hill, and sure enough, there was that building that I knew would be there. It turned out to be a big water tank. so when I had dreamed it, the school or the tank was not there. It was put up several years later. I have a lot of ESP anyway, but this one was the first time I noticed it.
Ah. This happened to me ALL OF THE TIME when I was a kid. Less often recently. I can't remember that many specific examples, but many times in life, I've known what was going to be said next.
One specific example is... when I was younger I played basketball for the school. I had a dream that I went up for a rebound and I got upended and hit my chin on the floor. Pretty specific right? Well, (I'm not sure how much later), it actually happened. I was at a game and I got upended and hit my chin on the floor. (Same court, same color other team jerseys). It hurt too (but didn't hurt in the dream).
I've also had dreams about riding in the van with my cross country/track teammates in college, years before I was actually in college. (That was creepy).
Or I remember having dreams about people I didn't know (at the time) and waking up like "Who the heck were these people" only to meet them years down the road.
Don't even get me started on lucid dreams (althought those were awesome.) Heck, I've even TOLD people in my dreams that I was having a dream. (I pretty much said "I'm having a dream, I can do whatever I want", then promptly flew away. Yes, flew, like superman.) Dreams are cool.
You are not remembering a dream you had. This is what deja vu feels like for everyone. You are mistakenly attributing meaning to the process. It feels like you really are reexperiencing something, but you are not. Some people just choose to believe whatever they see rather than understand the truth about what we can explain.
If you were really dreaming it before hand, then you could prove it and predict what is about to happen. That never happens, and has never been demonstrated beyond what can be demonstrated by pure chance.
It's a shame people would rather pretend to be psychic than understand intriguing neurological behavior. But how many people think hypnagogic dream states and sleep paralysis are really succubi and demons and aliens and ghosts? People are terrible at judging what is real. This is why your mind disagrees with what we can demonstrate is reliably, verifiably, real.
Sure, you can always split hairs and champion whatever gap you can hide in, but don't pretend you're making any progress with that.
It's not a short circuit or a problem of any kind. When we sleep, especially in the REM state, we can access information not readily available in the conscious state. I have had many deja vu experiences that I know I had previously dreamed. I have also dreamed of traumatic events happening to friends or relatives when I had no other way of knowing about them. I believe we understand very little about the brain's capacity during sleep conditions - and what kind of information we are able to access - a collective consciousness?
Yes, many folk believe that deja vu experiences are "unremembered" dreams. I tend to agree. There are different ways to access information and dreams are a valuable, right brain way to access information out in the world.
I know it sounds dumb... but I have had plenty of deja vu that has altered my actions to the point I knew a car would run a red light and I stopped and surely avoided being hit. I never thought of it as psychic though. I always had a theory that it was related to a stray tachyon particle, as I once they were suspected of possibly travelling faster than light.. I always used the scenario of awakening just before the alarm goes off or knowing who was on the other end of a phone before answering it. I assumed there was a proportional relationship to the distance from the source to the amount of time the tachyon traveled back. You are close to the alarm clock, so your mind receives the particle within a second of the alarm going off. I know... non-scientific conjecture... but when you do not KNOW what causes something, isn't an educated guess worth the shot! :)
I have read that some researchers think when it happens, we are remembering the future. It is possible that the concept of time is a creation by our brain to prevent everything from happening all at the same time, and there is no particular reason for time to flow one direction or another. Our brains create our reality, not react to it, and deja vu may simply be a time when the brain doesn't efficiently keep everything in perfect order.
I have had this experience all my life, from a young age, and still do. The really freaky part is that when it's happening, I will sometimes know what's going to happen next, before it does! No, I've had no deja vu experiences with the lottery! LOL!
IMHO this is a testimony to our 'eternal spirit'. Time, as we know it, is linear where eternity has neither beginning, nor end. There is mathematical proof of 10 dimensions of existence, we live in 4. The scale of an atom's nucleus to the nearest electron is so vast that matter is 99.9 nothing.
Leading physicist are perplexed that as they delve deeper into quantum particles that they all appear to have the same value (state). An experiment was set up to measure the possibility of 'gravity waves'. The equipment was very sensitive and resulted in a 'noise' they couldn't pin point. A researcher following the experiment sent an algorithm and it fit the noise perfectly! The algorithm was that of a hologram.
Just a thought....
actually if you look at the math, you can remove time from the equation completely at the micro level and everything works well. Macro world needs time to be linear, with a starting and ending point not eternal. According to the same math there are 9 dimensions. However you are correct that the vast amount of "space" (micro and macro) can be thought of as "nothing" or empty...I believe as do many physicists this is where those other dimensions come into play...there are other particles, example strings holding magnetons, gravitons, gluons, etc. which we cannot yet detect yet we can measure the force they exert. Interestingly you bring up gravity, which is a known phenomenon but we are just beginning to understand where it came from and how it works on the quantum level. Macro world all the math works just fine as everyone from Newton to Einstein to Hawking envision. Micro world, it all breaks down! Gravity between to subatomic particles is something like one trillion fold weaker than the other forces of matter (strong and weak forces) which begs the question...why and where is all that "extra" force? Perhaps spread throughout other dimensions of the universe in all that "empty" space :) There are certainly forces, particles, who knows what linking all matter together in ways we cannot yet imagine (i.e. your "eternal spirit"), perhaps "deja vu" is our brain's way of interpreting all that extra information our eyes might not be sensitive enough to pick up on?
Actually had this conversation with my son, pretty much word for word. Are you him? or is it my imagination....
Wow! I have to think it;s a bit more simple than that. Your brain sees the same event twice as your brain "double fires" so to speak. You walk into a room...your brain has seen this room twice.. your eyes have seen it once. You walk into a room...your brain has seen this room twice.
Bluelake
I find that to be plausible!
Thank you.
I've had deja vu happen in situations where I realize I've dreamed about the situation happening, though in the dream I don't know where I am or who the people are that I'm with. Years later I'm standing in the same hallway of my high school with my friends I saw in the dream, only now I know who they are and where I am, and realize that when I dreamed it, I didn't.
(Seriously - you had to slip a Snookie reference in there? I think I just threw up in a past life.)
I think when researching this, they should take note of the amount of time deja vu lasts. I've had this several times in my life and tried to make each episode last as long as I could - which was never very long. Once I was sitting next to a friend and began to know what she was going to say next, looked at the computer screen next to me and knew what I would see there, turned back to her and responded with what I knew I was supposed to say even though I wasn't really listening. I guess this lasted for just several seconds but that was the longest time I remember it lasting. I felt like I had a super power and could see the future. Weird.
As a young kid, I remember me and my friend playing in the loft of a neighbor's barn. Suddenly, I recognized a rubber rainboot in the corner but didn't know where I recognized it from. It's almost like seeing it triggered the whole episode or maybe it was just the starting point. So then I knew the floor was going to give and way he was going to fall through. Or did I? I didn't think I was actually seeing what was GOING to happen so I just told him to be careful. Sure enough he falls through the floor. But that's where my dream had ended. It seemed really scary in the dream like he died or something. But when it actually happened, he just sort of hung onto the floor and dropped down to the bottom, which in this particular barn, wasn't very far below at all. He just let go and dropped a foot or so to the floor. That was the first time I remember experiencing it.
I also recall knowing that I've dreamed about something and having had it happen. Those dreams have a different feel to them. And some of those dreams seem not to have happened yet. There seems to be a pattern of the dream being more intense or scarier than how the real life version plays out.
I have done the same thing. I will be helping someone move a washer, and the second before they cut their hand on the metal, I have said "be careful. don't cut your hand." Its such a split second before, but it happens to me all the time. I also have pulled up to a stoplight that turns green, and I didn't drive. And a semi slid through the intersection.
About the other dimensions, I work as a hospice nurse. And I have seen people leave their body, I have seen the door open. And while I am not a religious person, I believe we have to leave this body to go to another place, or dimension. I will tell a terminal patient, "You have to leave this body behind before you can go on." and they will then die. So I think there are many dimensions, perhaps the past or the future.
The problem with deja vu is having this weird scene in your mind, not a dream per se, but a scene flowing in your mind. It hasn't happened before and then years down the line, it occurs in "actuality". I have had this happen and the first "seeing of the event" is weird, other worldly, and usually not something that makes sense at the time. But when it comes "true" or happens and I know I have "seen" it before, the event makes sense. VERY VERY WEIRD. The mind is such a magnificent organ capable of much more than we can even image. Keep searching scientists!
After experiencing deja vu, I ALWAYS get a feeling of dread; like something bad is about to happen. Sometimes, not always, later in that same day; bad news does come my way. I personally DISLIKE deja vu!
I am a bit disappointed in the article. It seems to be written from the POV that deja vu has no basis in fact and can be explained away, but the author never explicitly states that or tries to support that conclusion. Like some other posters I have had a few experiences that seemed very familiar and a couple where the "memories" of what would happen next were very specific and were out of the ordinary (when you can make a logical conclusion about where a conversation is headed and it goes there, that's not deja vu).
I have worked in Mental Health for 25 years. In my training regarding sensory input, perception, and cognition, which are three distinct functions, there can be lag time. This lag time is usually due to fatigue. The fatigue can be caused by travel, time changes, lack of sleep, emotional disturbances, etc. When we sense a thing like a scene or activity, and register the perception, but there is a lag in cognition, it actually feels like we experienced it before. The reason is that the registration of the perception precedes the conscience thought by milliseconds. But the brain does not recognize the lag and registers it as something it had "perceived" previously. It has, but only by milliseconds. Of course, this may have all been theoretical at the time. I do not recall who was working on this research, but was told about it at San Diego State University in 1985.
That sounds like a pretty good explanation that might explain some instances of the experience, but doesn't quite explain situations I've had, such as when I was standing in a hallway in my high school with my friends, and I knew that I'd seen that scene before in a dream... but when I dreamed it, I didn't know where I was or who the people were that I was with. If it were just a lag in cognition, I would recognize them, wouldn't I?
I also like Conspiricist-52's explanation.
Jaime, what you experienced was a "Prophetic Dream", not deja vu. I noticed alot of you have extra-sensory perception confused with deja vu. Esp or prophetic dreams are "visions", not actual experiences of what will happen in the future. Deja vu is the feeling you have already experienced an event but know you really didn't.
Conspiricist-52 has an excellent explanation!
For me, deja vu comes on when I'm having a conversation with someone. It doesn't happen frequently, but several times a year, I begin to get the feeling that I've had this exact same discussion before, but I can't seem to remember when. It ebbs and wanes during the conversation.
My opinion is that something emotional I am experiencing during the discussion strikes a chord in the memory and evokes the deja vu. It doesn't have to be a strong emotion, but I figure something must key the lock and a faint drift of the flavor comes floating or flooding into my brain.
Of course, my husband says that when it happens with the kids, its because I HAVE had the same conversation with one or the other of them, millions of times - Take the G.D. garbage out already! Have you finished your homework yet!!!! Is this lawn ever going to get mowed or am I going to have to hire the kid down the street to do it and pay him YOUR allowance????
I think deja vu happens when we're establishing a new impression as a memory, and the memory is echoed back to us at the same time. The echo is a glitch in the process. It happens less as we age because we register fewer new impressions. We don't really want more new information after awhile; we feel more comfortable using interpretations that have served us in the past.
I once had a deja vu of a deja vu--i.e., I experienced the deja vu, along with a feeling that I had had the exact same deja vu before. It was very weird.
I thought I was special. This has happened to me also and it is very freaky. I was talking to my husband and telling him that I was experiencing deja vu, had deja vu about that, and then had deja vu telling him I had deja vu about having deja vu. I'll beat everyone else here: INCEPTION! Kidding; my point is it creeped me quite the hell out.
I've had deja vu a few times in my life. 2 that I still remember. 1 was when I was in 3rd grade at a friend's birthday party. The deja vu included her brother who was rarely there and I knew when he would walk in and what he would say. I think that was my first real deja vu. The other one that I vividly remember was at work in the employee kitchen. I knew who was going to move where and what each person was going to say and what I would say in response. After I said my first sentence and realized I knew what would be said next and what I would say in response, I decided to mess with the deja vu gods, and change what I was going to say. As soon as the words started out of my mouth I realized I deja vu'ed THAT! That is, that I was going to mess with the gods. So I played out in my mind what everyone else would say (and they did) and then I messed with the gods again and said something not even close to what I was going to say. The gods backed away and I haven't had deja vu since.
I remember discussing this topic with my brother around 35 years ago. He acclaimed deja vu to the knowledge our brain actually has is so far advanced that when we are sleeping, we can actually dream the future. Our "awake" brain is too over stimulated by our senses and the fact we're awake that we don't produce the actual memory, but we can remember the dream from the past sleeping experience. Scientists say, we only use a small percentage of our entire brain's capacity.
I've had two deja vu experiences that really stand out in my mind. I had a recurring dream about driving down a highway and looking in my rearview mirror. I saw a baby in the back seat and a red sports car following me. I would awaken feeling panicky because I had no baby and the car was very futuristic. I haven't had the dream since I actually looked in my rearview mirror once when my daughter was a few months old...and saw the red sports car. The other deja vu was not really disturbing until the event actually happened. In a recurring dream, I was at a funeral and wondered about the identity of the deceased and of the young woman seated next to me. It was my husband's funeral and the young woman was my daughter. For the most part, deja vu experiences don't bother me. Some dreams surely do, though.
Deja vu is a glitch in the matrix. It means they changed something.
Deja vu is a glitch in the matrix. It means they changed something.
I haven't done any research or anything, but I have a theory on how Deja vu happens. At least how it happens with me, can't say anything about anyone else. This just comes from my life experience and here it is; We all have thing in our life that shape us as we grow up , They make us who we are. At the end of the day we are who we are, That's how it is. Us being who we are we will react similarly in similar situation. Now you being who you are and everyone else around you being who they are you can't help but run into similar situation over and over. So that feeling of Deja vu, when it comes up, it's just a natural part of life, and when ever the feeling crosses over me I just smile and think to myself "I am who I am" and carry on. This happens to me often, sometime it's a good feeling, sometimes not so much, but what ever the feeling, I know there mine, and in time I'll surly experience them again. Because like I said "I am who I am."
I've had deja vu many times, always followed by kind of a sick feeling. One clearly stands out. 3 of us decided to go to a mall to see a movie - there were several playing and we had not made our choice. 2 of my friends had been to this mall before but I had never been there. Two blocks away I was listening to them talk and "knew" the conversation, knew that the driver would make a left turn in error and I could describe the layout of the theater and stores in that mall exactly as they were laid out on that wing. I also knew which movie we would see. Freaked me out then and still freaks me out.
I get this, too. I'm 36, so out of the "20's when people have lots of deja vu". I've had it happen at work, at home, and in very odd places. It's stomach-flip-flopping, and weird, because I know what's happening, and I can 'escape' it if I can leave the situation.
I had epilepsy as a kid, as a result of the dpt inoculation, but after my mom and the doc found the pattern, haven't had a seizure since... at least not the grand mal falling on the floor seizures that I did as a kid. The misfire/small seizure might be why... but it doesn't make sense as to when/where they happen.
My only problen with deja vu is when I know what's going to happen next and it does. That's creepy.
That Snooki jab was cheap. Don't do stuff like that. It makes you look petty and I trust you less as a journalist. Just tell us interesting info and leave jokes to the funny people.
Meanwhile, on the whole deja vu thing -- I seriously doubt that science will ever really pin it down, and I'm glad about that. We need a little magical mystery in our human existence. Scientists keep discovering new particles they didn't know where there, and there's that whole dark matter thing they don't understand. Scientists are still trying to figure out how to cure cold viruses, to figure out how certain medications actually work in the brain, and how acupuncture works. I think the secret of deja vu is safe.
But personally, I'm going with parallel universes briefly intertwining. :-)