A strange, almost mystical feeling: “I have already been here”, “I saw it”, “then everything was exactly the same” … A moment – and deja vu disappears. And it is not clear how to relate to it: is it a signal from a past life? Or maybe just our brain started a harmless game with us?
The phenomenon of deja vu is paradoxical: we feel that the situation in which we suddenly find ourselves is well known to us, we even know what will happen next, but at the same time we have no doubt: it is definitely different, new. Scientists continue to investigate the nature and causes of this mysterious sensation. Three versions seemed to us especially curious.
Forgotten memory
Cognitive psychologist Ann M. Cleary proposed a hypothesis according to which the impulse for deja vu can be the recollection of something that happened once, something similar, but not exactly the same situation. For example, at first we visited the courtyard, in the center of which a tree grew, and along the perimeter there were rectangular flower beds. Next time (for the first time) we come to the museum hall, where there is a statue in the center, and benches for visitors along the edges. And the very similar arrangement of objects causes deja vu in us. Sometimes a piece of cloth, a piece of a phrase or a melody is enough for this. Ann Cleary even learned how to induce déjà vu in her students under experimental conditions, using a computer-generated 3D virtual city. Ann named him Dejaville*.
Lost Impression
Neuropsychologists Emmanuel Barbeau from France and Axel Mecklinger from Germany (Emmanuel Barbeau, Axel Mecklinger) came to another version in different experimental ways. They claim that the déjà vu effect occurs due to a temporary malfunction in our brain**. As a result, we accept new information as old – that is, we remember and recall it at the same time.
The embodiment of dreams
There is a special kind of deja vu – it is even sometimes called “deja vu”: when in reality we meet the very situation that we have already seen in a dream ***. In fact, the connection with dreams does exist: only those of us who remember our dreams well experience deja vu. This does not mean that they are the only source for déjà vu – it’s just that something intersects in the mechanisms of the occurrence of these two phenomena. Experts believe that the study of this particular connection may bring us as close as possible to unraveling the mystery of deja vu.
* Consciousness and Cognition, 2012, vol. 21, № 2.
** Saarland University, Campus magazine, 2011, № 4; Revue de neuropsychologie, 2011, vol. 3.
*** See more about this on the German Knowledge portal wissen.de in the article by A. Bolz “Déjà-vu-Erlebnisse – Geheimbotschaft aus dem Jenseits oder Gedächtnis-Fehler?”.