We’ve all had that strange “I’ve been here before” experience. When I experienced this for the first time, I truly thought I had a sixth sense (or eleventh? according to what I learned in class last week). Until I found out that it’s actually a thing and this happens to just about everyone. We refer to this feeling as a deja vu, a french phrase meaning “already seen”. I took AP Psych in high school and I recall learning about memory. This relates a lot to the deja vu. According to my research, and what I remember from Psychology, our brain has two different areas that one, deal with recalling memories and two, deal with familiarity. These two portions almost always work in sync. The few occasions that they do not sync properly is a theory as to why deja vu occurs. Say the familiarity portion misfires, this will in turn create a strong sense of familiarity. Now, this theory is kind of above my head because I don’t understand why a portion of the brain would just “misfire”. Scientists today don’t even have an exact answer. I guess it just happens? Ugh, no I want answers.
As I’ve said before I prefer less complex, science-y explanations for these little, obscure things in life so this theory is more up my alley…and I find it very interesting even though it is refuted more often. It’s based on the way we process memories. If we’re placed in a completely new surrounding but experience a deja vu, this is because our brain is incorrectly processing the new surrounding as a long term memory, opposed to a short term memory. When this occurs, the surrounding feels old and familiar.
I find this so fascinating because memories are such a HUGE part of a humans life. We learn from them, grow from them, they bring us happiness, sadness, almost every emotion we feel is due to memories, whether long term or short. They impact our life tremendously. Every human wouldn’t be the same person they are at this very second if it wasn’t for the experiences they went through in the past, and now have a memory of.
The feeling of a deja vu is entirely harmless and normal, but the fact that our brain has this “mix up” is certainly something to study. It can help better understand how our memory works which can lead to discoveries to benefit diseases like Alzheimer’s. After all these years there’s still parts of the human body that are mysteries.
Rebecca,
I too think the feeling of deja vu is worth looking into! I constantly have them and sometimes I’ll be having deja vu but will remember that it was in my dream that the event took place – it thoroughly creeps me out sometimes because I ALWAYS remember my dreams. I think it’s cool that you brought up Alzheimer’s and discoveries… my uncle is actually on the team of brilliant chemists who are very close to working for the cure of it in Germany! They say that it’s possible in their lab, and I believe it! I wish I could share his article with you but it’s in German so here’s a professional picture of him.
Hi Rebecca,
I am constantly creeped out by my deja vu all the time. I think it’s awesome you chose to talk about this because even though it happens to myself a lot I have never took the time to research or read about it until now. I found a study done in 2012 on deju vu in college students. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=deja-vu-found-originate-similar-scenes
I thought it was really cool that they use places from the game Sims to see if it caused the students to fell this mix up! Check it out.
Hi Rebecca!
I’m so happy to have come across your blog because i experience deja vu quite often and never have fully understood as to why i would be having these feelings of familiarity. But your article brings about an interesting perspective I’ve never heard of before! Here’s a link to some other explanations I’ve found on why we experience deja vu…
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/deja-vu.htm
Hey Rebecca!
I feel like I have deja vu all the time. I guess apparently that’s not a good think considering the brain and the familiarity are supposed to be in sync! It would be very interesting to hear why the brain has this flaw of a “mix up”. I found this video that gives a few theories of why the brain has deja vu and corresponds with what you have written above about the two parts of the brain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDjov6-7a7w