• Question: How would you explain Déjà vu?

    Asked by Luise to Hephzi, Imogen, Jen, Tom on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Thomas Barrett

      Thomas Barrett answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      There seem to be several possible reasons (of which I will go through a couple here).
      1) Dual processing – when two usually in sync things temporarily fall out of sync with each other. So the familiar feeling is due to your brain grabbing a similar memory to what you are doing.
      2) Nerves not working properly. This is where your brain either misfires and you recall something or the information your brain receives arrives at slightly different times so even if you’re only seeing it once it feels like you have seen it already as part of it reaches your brain faster than other bits.
      3) Because it is similar to what you have done before and your brain realizes that.

      Watch this video for more.

    • Photo: Jen Machin

      Jen Machin answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      One idea is that when it comes to remembering something, there are 2 processed involved: familiarity (this has happened to me before) and recall (actually remembering elements of the specific thing that happened – what day it was, where you were etc). Some people think that deja vu is when the familiarity part happens without the recall – so you recognise a situation as familiar even though you can’t actually remember it happening to you before. Your brain will always try to make sense of things that are happening to you, so it interprets this familiar feeling as deja vu 🙂

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