Everything about D J Vu totally explained
Déjà vu (;
French "already seen"; also called
paramnesia , from Greek παρα
para, "near" + μνήμη
mnēmē, "memory") is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has repeated itself). The term was coined by a
French psychic researcher,
Émile Boirac (
1851–
1917) in his book
L'Avenir des sciences psychiques (
The Future of Psychic Sciences), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there's a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.
The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common among adults and children alike; in formal studies 70% of people report having experienced it at least once. References to the experience of déjà vu are also found in literature of the past, indicating it isn't a new
phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to evoke the déjà vu experience in
laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few
empirical studies. Recently, researchers have found ways to recreate this sensation using
hypnosis.
Types of déjà vu
According to Arthur Funkhouser there are three major types of déjà vu.
Déjà vécu
Déjà vécu refers to an experience involving more than just sight, which is why labeling such "déjà vu" is usually inaccurate. The sense involves a great amount of detail, sensing that everything is just as it was before and a weird knowledge of what is going to be said or happen next.
Translated literally as 'already lived,' déjà vécu is described in a quotation from
Charles Dickens:
When most people speak of déjà vu, they're actually experiencing déjà vécu. Surveys have revealed that as much as 70% of the population have had these experiences, usually between ages 15 to 25, when the mind is still subject to noticing the change in environment. The experience is usually related to a very ordinary event, but it's so striking that it's remembered for several years afterwards.
More recently, the term déjà vécu has been used to describe very intense and persistent feelings of a déjà vu type, which occur as part of a memory disorder.
Déjà senti
This phenomenon specifies something 'already felt.' Unlike the implied precognition of déjà vécu, déjà senti is primarily or even exclusively a mental happening, has no precognitive aspects, and rarely if ever remains in the afflicted person's memory afterwards.
Dr. John Hughlings Jackson recorded the words of one of his patients who suffered from temporal lobe or psychomotor epilepsy in an 1888 paper:
Déjà visité
This experience is less common and involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. The translation is "already visited." Here one may know his or her way around in a new town or landscape while at the same time knowing that this shouldn't be possible.
Dreams,
reincarnation and also
out-of-body travel have been invoked to explain this phenomenon. Additionally, some suggest that reading a detailed account of a place can result in this feeling when the locale is later visited. Two famous examples of such a situation were described by
Nathaniel Hawthorne in his book
Our Old Home and
Sir Walter Scott in
Guy Mannering. Hawthorne recognized the ruins of a castle in England and later was able to trace the sensation to a piece written about the castle by
Alexander Pope nearly a century earlier.
C. G. Jung published an account of déjà visité in his 1952 paper
On synchronicity.
In order to distinguish déjà visité from déjà vécu, it's important to identify the source of the feeling. Déjà vécu is in reference to the
temporal occurrences and processes, while déjà visité has more to do with
geography and
spatial relations.
Scientific research
In recent years, déjà vu has been subjected to serious psychological and neurophysiological research. Scientifically speaking, the most likely explanation of déjà vu isn't that it's an act of "precognition" or "prophecy", but rather that it's an anomaly of memory; it's the impression that an experience is "being recalled". This explanation is substantiated by the fact that the sense of "recollection" at the time is strong in most cases, but that the circumstances of the "previous" experience (when, where and how the earlier experience occurred) are quite uncertain. Likewise, as time passes, subjects can exhibit a strong recollection of having the "unsettling" experience of déjà vu itself, but little to no recollection of the specifics of the event(s) or circumstance(s) they were "remembering" when they'd the déjà vu experience. In particular, this may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for
short-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the present) and those responsible for
long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). In other words, the events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of the brain even receives the information and processes it. This would explain why one is, if it ever comes to mind, powerless trying to twist the outcome of the event in order to create a paradox. The delay is only of a few milliseconds, and besides, already happened at the time the conscious of the individual is experiencing it.
Another theory being explored is that of vision. As the theory suggests, one eye may record what is seen fractionally faster than the other, creating that "strong recollection" sensation upon the "same" scene being viewed milliseconds later by the opposite eye. However, this one fails to explain the phenomenon when other sensory inputs are involved, such as the auditive part, and especially the digital part. If one, for instance, experience déjà vu of someone slapping the fingers on his/her left hand, then the déjà vu feeling is certainly not due to his/her right hand to be late on the left one. Also, persons with only one eye still report experiencing déjà vu or déjà vecu. The global phenomenon must therefore be narrowed down to the brain itself (say, one hemisphere would be late compared to the other one).
Links with disorders
Early researchers tried to establish a link between déjà vu and serious psychopathology such as
schizophrenia,
anxiety, and
dissociative identity disorder, with hopes of finding the experience of some diagnostic value. However, there doesn't seem to be any special association between déjà vu and
schizophrenia or other neurotic conditions. However, the strongest pathological association of déjà vu is with
temporal lobe epilepsy. and "Behold how the thing which thou hast seen in thy dream is, after a considerable lapse of time, fully realized."
Some people have suggested that a feeling of remembering occurs in a sense that a person might realize that what he'd dreamt is now a relevant present action that's taking place right here right now.
"I was once sitting down in the kitchen noticing that my plate seemed well too familiar, it seemed as if my head motions were foreseen, and that every move would trigger a continuation to happen or so, I'd many déjà vu's as a child but this was extraordinary, I knew from the bottom of my heart that I'd dreamed this situation years ago, as a little boy, that amazingly an entire piece of memory was regained and I finally understood when and where I was dreaming and how long this dream was, and most importantly how many years ago did I dream."
Reincarnation
Those believing in
reincarnation theorize that déjà vu is caused by fragments of past-life memories being jarred to the surface of the mind by familiar surroundings or people. Others theorize that the phenomenon is caused by
astral projection, or
out-of-body experiences (OBEs), where it's possible that individuals have visited places while in their
astral bodies during sleep. The sensation may also be interpreted as connected to the fulfillment of a condition as seen or felt in a
premonition. For further cases of remembering information from past lives, see
Ian Stevenson.
Related phenomena
Jamais vu
Jamais vu is a term in psychology (from the French, meaning "never seen") which is used to describe any familiar situation which isn't recognized by the observer.
Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she's been in the situation before.
Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily doesn't recognize a word, person, or place that they already know.
Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of
amnesia and
epilepsy.
Theoretically, as seen below, a jamais vu feeling in a sufferer of a
delirious disorder or intoxication could result in a delirious
explanation of it, such as in the
Capgras delusion, in which the patient takes a person known by him/her for a false
double or impostor. If the impostor is himself, the clinical setting would be the same as the one described as
depersonalisation, hence jamais vus of oneself or of the very "reality of reality", are termed depersonalisation (or
irreality) feelings.
Times Online reports:
Tip of Tongue (Presque vu)
Full article at tip of the tongue
Déjà vu is similar to, but distinct from, the phenomenon called
tip of the tongue which is when you can't recall a familiar word or name or situation, but with effort you eventually recall the elusive memory. In contrast, déjà vu is a feeling that the present situation has occurred before, but the details are elusive because the situation never happened before.
Presque vu (from French, meaning "almost seen") is the sensation of being on the brink of an
epiphany. Often very disorienting and distracting, presque vu rarely leads to an actual breakthrough. Frequently, one experiencing presque vu will say that they've something "on the tip of their tongue."
Presque vu is often cited by people who suffer from
epilepsy or other seizure-related brain conditions, such as
temporal lobe lability.
L'esprit de l'escalier
» Full article at L'esprit de l'escalier.
L'esprit de l'escalier (from French, "staircase wit") is remembering something when it's too late. For example, a clever come-back to a remark, thought of after the conversation has ended. Another common example: when you're about to take a test and are able to recall everything, but, as soon as the test begins, you forget all that you've learned; after taking the test you remember absolutely everything that you'd forgotten while taking it.
An example of L'esprit de l'escalier in popular culture can be seen in the TV sitcom
Seinfeld. In one episode, the character George Costanza thinks of a perfect comeback-line to an insult he received from a co-worker, but too late to deliver it. While George is rapidly consuming a bowl of shrimp during an office meeting, a co-worker teases him, saying "Hey George, the ocean called. It's running out of shrimp". Only later in the day does George conceive of the perfect comeback: "Well, the jerk store called. They're running out of
you."
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