Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is déjà vu and how does it feel?
Why am I experiencing déjà vu? Thanks for asking. The strange experience of déjà vu sometimes lasts just a matter of milliseconds. Nonetheless, it can still catch you off guard and be pretty unsettling.
Déjà vu means already seen in French, and it refers to the sense of having already seen or experienced something you're confronted with, even though you know that you have never actually seen it before. For example, you visit a new city for the first time in your life, but at a precise moment you get the feeling that you've walked down a certain street in the past.
According to Psychology Today, it occurs in 60-70% of people from time to time, while other research suggests that more than 97% of us have experienced it at least once in our lives. Has déjà vu always existed? Yes, indeed the phenomenon of déjà vu has fascinated philosophers, writers and scientists alike since ancient Greek times.
Plato said it was proof of the existence of past lives, while Saint Augustine put it down to demonic spirits. Science might offer less far-fetched explanations, but has still struggled to really understand it. Have scientific studies been able to shed any light on it? the many studies on déjà vu have tended to indicate that the feeling is down to a form of memory dysfunction.
It's thought to be a small glitch in the brain, which happens when two streams of thought collide. It's kind of a minor brain circuit malfunction, similar to what happens in people with epilepsy when they have a fit. You may remember this classic scene from The Matrix which talks about déjà vu.
A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it. How much like it? Was it the same cat?
In reality, fatigue and stress may be partly responsible, according to American psychiatrist Alan Brown, who conducted a review of all research on déjà vu and published his findings in 2003. That helped bring the topic into mainstream science. On the face of it, no. At least as long as the episodes are isolated and don't happen too often.
But if you're getting deja vu several times a week, it's best to talk to your GP about it or see a neurologist. Déjà vu is sometimes associated with temporal lobe epilepsy as it can accompany seizures. But as I mentioned earlier, it also occurs in many people without any neurological condition.
Back in 2012, French researchers were actually able to trigger episodes of déjà vu in epileptic patients through electrical stimulation of the renal cortex. That's a part of the brain which stores and consolidates memories. Rest assured, for most people, déjà vu isn't a sign of any health problem.
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