Déjà vu

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For other uses, see Déjà vu (disambiguation).

The term "déjà vu" (French for "already seen", also called paramnesia) describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. 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 French concentrator at the University of Chicago. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eerieness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past. Déjà vu has been described as "Remembering the future".

The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common; in formal studies 70% or more of the population report having experienced it at least once. References to the experience of déjà vu are also found in literature of the past, indicating it is not a new phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to invoke 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.[1]

Contents

[edit] Types of déjà vu

According to Arthur Funkhouser there are three types of déjà vu[2]:

[edit] Déjà vécu

Usually translated 'already seen' or 'already lived through,' déjà vécu is described in a quotation from Dickens:

"We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!"[3]

When most people speak of déjà vu, they are 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 subjectable to noticing the change in environment[4]. The experience is usually related to a very banal event, but is so striking that it is remembered for years afterwards.

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.

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.[5]

[edit] 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 1889 paper:

What is occupying the attention is what has occupied it before, and indeed has been familiar, but has been for a time forgotten, and now is recovered with a slight sense of satisfaction as if it had been sought for. ... At the same time, or ... more accurately in immediate sequence, I am dimly aware that the recollection is fictitious and my state abnormal. The recollection is always started by another person's voice, or by my own verbalized thought, or by what I am reading and mentally verbalize; and I think that during the abnormal state I generally verbalize some such phrase of simple recognition as 'Oh yes - I see', 'Of course - I remember', but a minute or two later I can recollect neither the words nor the verbalized thought which gave rise to the recollection. I only find strongly that they resemble what I have felt before under similar abnormal conditions.

As with Dr. Jackson's patient, some temporal-lobe epileptics may experience this phenomenon.

[edit] 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 should not 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[6] and Sir Walter Scott in Guy Mannering.[7] 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 two hundred years earlier.

A good example of Déjà visité would be traveling to a foreign country and, while there, seeing and smelling surroundings that seem all too familiar to be understandable. For instance, one would look down the road at a church and be incredibly sure that this church has been seen before by you, and then possibly a bird flies to spot on said church that causes an extreme amount of Déjà visité.

C. G. Jung published an account of déjà visité in his 1952 paper On synchronicity.[8]

In order to distinguish déjà visité from déjà vécu, it is 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.

[edit] Scientific research

In recent years, déjà vu has been subjected to serious psychological and neurophysiological research. The most likely explanation of déjà vu is that it is not an act of "precognition" or "prophecy", but rather an anomaly of memory; it is the impression, that an experience is "being recalled",this is false.[citation needed] 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 had 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).

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Many theorists believe that the memory anomaly occurs when one's conscious mind has a slight delay in receiving perceptive input. In other words, the unconscious mind perceives current surroundings before the conscious mind does. This causes one's conscious self to perceive something that is already in one's memory, even though it was in one's memory only a split second before it was perceived.

[edit] Links with disorders

A clinical correlation has been found between the experience of déjà vu and disorders such as schizophrenia and anxiety[9], and the likelihood of the experience considerably increases with subjects having these conditions. However, the strongest pathological association of déjà vu is with temporal lobe epilepsy[10][11]. This correlation has led some researchers to speculate that the experience of déjà vu is possibly a neurological anomaly related to improper electrical discharge in the brain. As most people suffer a mild (i.e. non-pathological) epileptic episode regularly (e.g. the sudden "jolt", a hypnagogic jerk, that frequently occurs just prior to falling asleep), it is conjectured that a similar (mild) neurological aberration occurs in the experience of déjà vu, resulting in an erroneous sensation of memory.

[edit] Pharmacology

It has been reported that certain recreational drugs increase the chances of déjà vu occurring in the user. Some pharmaceutical drugs, when taken together, have also been implicated in the cause of déjà vu. Taiminen and Jääskeläinen (2001) reported the case of an otherwise healthy male who started experiencing intense and recurrent sensations of déjà vu on taking the drugs amantadine and phenylpropanolamine together to relieve flu symptoms. He found the experience so interesting that he completed the full course of his treatment and reported it to the psychologists to write-up as a case study. Due to the dopaminergic action of the drugs and previous findings from electrode stimulation of the brain (e.g. Bancaud, Brunet-Bourgin, Chauvel, & Halgren, 1994), Taiminen and Jääskeläinen speculate that déjà vu occurs as a result of hyperdopaminergic action in the mesial temporal areas of the brain.

[edit] Memory-based explanations

The similarity between a déjà vu-eliciting stimulus and an existing, but different, memory trace may lead to the sensation. Thus, encountering something which evokes the implicit associations of an experience or sensation that cannot be remembered may lead to déjà vu. In an effort to experimentally reproduce the sensation, Banister and Zangwill (1941) used hypnosis to give participants posthypnotic amnesia suggestions for material they had already seen. When this was later re-encountered, the restricted activation caused by the posthypnotic amnesia resulted in three of the 10 participants reporting what the authors termed paramnesias. Memory-based explanations may lead to the development of a number of non-invasive experimental methods by which a long sought-after analogue of déjà vu can be reliably produced that would allow it to be tested under well-controlled experimental conditions. Deja vu may also be triggered by a smell.

[edit] Neural theories

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, it was widely believed that déjà vu could be caused by the mis-timing of neuronal firing. This timing error was thought to lead the brain to believe that it was encountering a stimulus for the second time, when in fact, it was simply re-experiencing the same event from a slightly delayed source. A number of variations of these theories exist, with miscommunication of the two cerebral hemispheres and abnormally fast neuronal firing also given as explanations for the sensation. Perhaps the most widely acknowledged neuronal theory is the optical pathway delay theory which explains déjà vu as being the product of a delayed optical input from one eye. Closely following the input from the first eye (when it should be simultaneous), this misleads conscious awareness and suggests a sensation of familiarity when there should not be one. Although intuitively plausible, this theory is untestable due to the minute times involved in neuronal firing, and inconsistent with reports that blind individuals experience déjà vu in the same way as sighted individuals (O'Connor & Moulin, 2006).

[edit] Parapsychology

Déjà vu is associated with precognition, clairvoyance or extra-sensory perceptions, and it is frequently cited as evidence for "psychic" abilities in the general population. Non-scientific explanations attribute the experience to prophecy, visions (such as received in dreams) or past-life memories.

[edit] Dreams

Some believe déjà vu is the memory of dreams. Though the majority of dreams are never remembered, a dreaming person can display activity in the areas of the brain that process long-term memory. It has been speculated that dreams read directly into long-term memory, bypassing short-term memory entirely. In this case, déjà vu might be a memory of a forgotten dream with elements in common with the current waking experience. This may be similar to another phenomenon known as déjà rêvé, or "already dreamed."

Not only is the link to dreams as they pertain to déjà vu the subject of scientific and psychological studies, it is also a subject of spiritual texts, as is found, for example, in the writings of the Bahá'í Faith.

[edit] 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 is possible that individuals have visited places while in their astral bodies during sleep. The sensation may be also connected to the fulfillment of a condition as seen or felt in a premonition.

[edit] Related Phenomena

[edit] Jamais vu

Jamais vu is a term in psychology (from the French, meaning "never seen") which is used to describe any familiar situation which is not 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 has been in the situation before.

Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily does not recognize a word, person, or place that they already know.

Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of amnesia and epilepsy.

The Timesonline reports:

Chris Moulin, of Leeds University, asked 92 volunteers to write out “door” 30 times in 60 seconds. At the International Conference on Memory in Sydney last week he reported that 68 per cent of his guinea pigs showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that “door” was a real word. Dr Moulin believes that a similar brain fatigue underlies a phenomenon observed in some schizophrenia patients: that a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor. Dr Moulin suggests they could be suffering from chronic jamais vu. [1]

[edit] Presque vu

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 have 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.

[edit] 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 is too late. For example, a clever come-back to a remark, thought of after the conversation has ended.

[edit] Popular references

  • Television
    • At the end of the third episode of the third season of the television series Lost, Hurley claims to experience déjà vu when John Locke makes a speech of saving Jack, Kate and Sawyer from The Others. The déjà vu experience he claimed was due to the fact that Desmond spoke of this speech (while apparently disoriented) with Hurley just minutes before it happened.
    • An episode of U.S. Acres (in the Garfield and Friends cartoon) centers on déjà vu, showing the characters realizing their actions are ocurring repeatedly. In another episode, Orson is organizing his bookshelf. After getting a book called "Déjà vu: the feeling that you are doing something that you've done before", he gets another book with the same title, and another, and another, until someone interrupts him.
    • A Monty Python sketch features Michael Palin hosting a documentary on deja vu. The program continually restarts, making Michael Palin's anxious that he is suffering from deja vu.
    • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Cause and Effect has the crew experiencing deja vu while caught in a time loop.
  • Movies
    • In the 1980 horror classic The Shining (film), the character of Jack expresses a feeling of déjà vu, stating that he feels he has been to the hotel he is being the caretaker of.
    • The 1993 film Groundhog Day documents a rather pertinent (to the main character, at least) representation of this phenomenon.
    • Déjà vu is a 1989 Polish-Soviet comedy film by Juliusz Machulski.
    • In the 1999 film The Matrix, the character of Neo experiences déjà vu when he sees a black cat go past twice in a row. Trinity explains to Neo that "a déjà vu is usually a glitch in the matrix" which occurs when the machines change something inside the matrix. The black cat passed twice when the machines removed the windows from a building.
    • The 2006 film Déjà Vu directed by Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington explores the phenomenon as part of a government conspiracy.
  • Comedy
    • Comedian George Carlin invented an alternate phenomenon he called vujà dé, or "the feeling that somehow, none of this has ever happened before!"
    • The end of an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus is a repeating sketch about déjà vu.
    • There is a comedy club in Columbia, MO called the Deja Vu Comedy Club.
  • Quotes
  • Literature
    • "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French," a short story by Stephen King, which deals with a subject's horrifying déjà vu experiences.
    • Deja vu, presque vu and jamais vu (Already seen, almost seen and never seen) are mentioned in Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 and play a large role in Kim Stanley Robinson's 1996 novel Blue Mars.
    • In the novel Choke, the narrator often visits a nursing home/mental hospital and describes seeing, and eventually even feeling it for himself, jamais vu.
    • In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Carnivorous Carnival, In Chapter Five (Page 103) it references déjà vu and the page after is the exact same page.
  • Computer games
    • Deja Vu is the name of a computer game and NES game published by Seika.
    • Deja Vu (and its sequel, Deja Vu The Remix) is a computer game for the ZX Spectrum by Andrew Daly, apparently named for its similarity to certain older games.
  • The Internet
    • Deja.com (Deja News) was a web-based usenet archive purchased by Google, and now called Google Groups, although it can still be accessed via www.deja.com.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ "Deja vu 'recreated in laboratory'", BBC News, 2006-07-21. Retrieved on 2006-07-27.
  2. ^ Funkhouser, Arthur (1996). "Three types of deja vu".
  3. ^ Dickens, Charles (1991). Personal History of David Copperfield. Time Warner Libraries. ISBN 1879329018.
  4. ^ Howstuffworks "What is déjà vu?
  5. ^ Moulin, C.J.A., Conway, M.A. Thompson, R.G., James, N. & Jones, R.W. (2005). "Disordered Memory Awareness: Recollective Confabulation in Two Cases of Persistent Déjà vecu". Neuropsychologia (43): 1362-1378.
  6. ^ Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1863). Our Old Home. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co.. ISBN 1404374248.
  7. ^ Scott, Sir Walter (1815). Guy Mannering or The Astrologer. Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne & Co.. ISBN 0766170713.
  8. ^ Jung, C. G. (1952). "On synchronicity". (Jung's paper is often cited from a 1966 edition, however, this was not the original publication as Jung died in 1961.)
  9. ^ Pacific NEUROPSYCHIATRY
  10. ^ Neurology Channel
  11. ^ Howstuffworks "What is déjà vu?

[edit] External links

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