Ever had that weird feeling that what you saying or doing already happened once. It happens to me all the time and it creeps me out. I will be in a store that I have never gone to or talking to someone about something completely random and this weird feeling comes over me. The feeling that this already happened. That I have been there before. That I have talked about this to her already. But I know I didn't and it bothers me to no end. So when something like bothers you, you research it and see if its a normal thing. Like when you have a cold and you research your symptoms and it tells you, you have diabetes and will die in the next month. When I researched déjà vu I found a few answers to why we experience it. Not many made sense but one kind of did.
The concept of déjà vu has been around for a while. The french word itself mean "all ready been seen". While there are many different theory and reason given they all do not make sense and have been disproved. All but one.
There is a theory that déjà vu is linked with are memory. It is kind of like flashbulb memory- When something triggers a bad or great experience you had. The older you get the more likely it is to experience déjà vu. Everything that has ever happened to us is stored in are brain. There are many things though that can trigger those memories to come out of storage. If you are doing something that you have never done before there can be a stimulus there that you don't even consciously realize is there that triggers your brain of something that already happened. That gives you the feeling of I have already been here or said that. The brain is triggering something that is already stored but not fully taking it out. So you don't remember then fully what happened but you just feel like you have experienced something already.
Have you ever experienced déjà vu?
Do you think this theory makes sense?
Do you know of any better theories?
Hudis,
ReplyDeleteI have definitely experienced déjà vu many a time. It is certainly frustrating to experience it and not being able to pinpoint the location of when something occurred in the past. I do like this theory. However, I'm not sure how the stimulus originates or how it triggers the brain.
Other theories proposed by the book are that cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience. Another theory attributes déjà vu to our dual processing. If there’s a slight neural hiccup in the dual processing system and one track’s signal is delayed, it may perhaps feel like a repeat of an earlier one, creating an illusion that you are now re-experiencing something.
I also get very confused about Deja Vu and experience it many times, but have never understood it. I think the theory makes sense. Since all the memories are stored, but maybe not all can be retrieved, when you're in that moment and the memory "flashes" it makes you feel as though you had been in that exact situation before, but really it can just be a memory "flashing" back in your storage.
ReplyDeleteThis theory is interesting, though I don't think it seems very valid. While it's possible that some things have happened more than once, I don't think it explains why in specific situations you feel like you have experienced it before. I heard a theory once that deja vu occurs because sometimes you dream about situations before they happen or something. I never really looked it up because it seemed ridiculous to me, but who knows? It could be true..
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