The feeling of déjà vu: try to explain

The feeling of déjà vu has always interested psychologists, neurologists and authors. The exact causes of this phenomenon remain unknown. However, some explanations seem to hold.

How does the impression of déjà vu manifest itself?

Deja vu : probably this feeling is not alien to you. And with good reason, psychologists estimate that 7 out of 10 people have felt it at least once in their life. Its appearance almost always occurs in the same way. You are visiting a place, a place or meeting a person for the first time.

Suddenly, you have the impression of having already experienced the scene, of having seen this landscape in the past. You simply have great difficulty locating the date and context of this “memory.”

The feeling can be global and diffuse, but also very precise: all the details of the place and the development of the meeting seem familiar to you. This strange sensation rarely lasts more than a minute.

How to explain the feelings of déjà vu?

The implausible explanations inherited from the Platonists and religion

Neurologists and psychologists are not the first to look for an explanation for the impression of déjà vu. During antiquity, Plato’s disciples saw in this strange phenomenon the reminiscence of a memory of a previous life. This explanation, far from being rational, did not please Aristotle very much, who considers that this sensation is the manifestation of a temporary psychic disorder.

So, the Church did its bit, associating déjà vu with a demonic attempt to feed us with its ideas of reincarnation.

Theories of psychologists

Émile Boirac, who used the word “déjà vu” for

the first time in 1876, certainly did not share the opinion of Plato’s disciples or the Church. This psychiatrist would have been in the opinion of certain psychologists, who attribute deja vu to an emotional reaction due to a repressed memory that has similarities with one or more elements of reality.

Another psychological theory associates this strange sensation with a temporary failure of the subject’s attention. When the brain receives many signals simultaneously, it can store certain “secondary” things like short-term memory.

Then, when you analyze this information that has not benefited from the subject’s attention, it is treated as a short-term memory, when it was just recorded. This coordination deficit between memorization and perception would explain déjà vu.

Neurological theories

Neurologists, on the other hand, attribute the feeling of déjà vu to problems of synchronization or transmission between the cerebral hemispheres. These dysfunctions would push the brain to register two different memories for the same situation. Other theories point to neurotransmitter dysfunction, neuronal alteration or the reconstruction of partial memories.

Deja vu: the mystery remains unsolved

Even if some theories seem better formulated than others, in particular the one that attributes deja vu to the excitation of the rinal region in people with epilepsy, no one is in a position to offer a just and unanswerable explanation for this phenomenon.

So the next time you experience this strange feeling, try formulating your own explanatory theory. This would at least provide you with a topic of conversation between friends.