![]() ![]() The temporal lobes – the part of your brain behind your ears – are responsible for recognising something as familiar. Many of the theories centre around the notion that our memories are prone to errors. Faulty memories, or something else?Īlan Brown, author of “The Déjà Vu Experience,” says there are at least 40 plausible scientific explanations for déjà vu. ![]() In one case, a 23-year old man felt as thought he was ‘trapped in a time loop’, an experience he described as very frightening. We also know some people experience constant déjà vu, and these people turn out to have brain damage to the temporal lobes. But others believe the type of déjà vu experienced by epileptic patients is very different to ‘normal’ déjà vu. Because we know epileptic seizures are the result of alterations in electrical activity in the nerve cells, it has been argued déjà vu in non-epileptics is also the result of wayward electrical signals. Epileptics who have seizures centered on their temporal lobes often experience something similar to déjà vu just before the seizure begins. Scientists have long known some experiences of déjà vu can be linked to temporal lobe epilepsy. As a result of this age-related pattern, researchers have suggested a link to brain development. Déjà vu appears to first occur in children aged eight or nine, is most common in people aged 15 – 25 years, but then tapers off as we age. Déjà vu occurs more often when you are tired or stressed. There are no gender differences, but more educated people experience déjà vu more often than those with less formal education. What do we know?ĭéjà vu is extremely common: studies have found between 60% and 80% of the population has experienced it. So despite déjà vu being a common topic in popular culture, our understanding of the scientific basis for it is still pretty murky. We don’t have any reliable way to trigger déjà vu and have to rely on peoples’ recollections of their own experiences, which will always be subjective. Given the amazing techniques we have these days to understand how our brains work, why don’t we have a good understanding of what causes déjà vu? It’s at least partly because I’m guessing last time you experienced it, you weren’t sitting in a lab with electrodes stuck to your skull. But déjà vu is normal, and a common phenomenon. It’s weird precisely because to the best of your knowledge, that isn’t the case. Psychiatrist Vernon Neppe defined déjà vu in 1983 as “any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of the present experience with an undefined past.” More than just sense of familiarity, it’s the unnerving sensation that you’ve had an exact experience before. The French term déjà vu translates as ‘already seen’ and was first used in 1876. Do you feel like we’ve been here before? Déjà vu still has scientists baffled. ![]()
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