Can anyone explain WHY De'a vu happens?
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Answers:
One scientist, Alan Brown, Ph.D., a research psychologist at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, is performing experiments with student volunteers, and he believes 3 kinds of Deja Vu experiences can be used for testing: biological dysfunction, implicit familiarity, and divided perception. "The biological dysfunction model looks at déjà vu as a momentary glitch—a “hiccup,” as Brown puts it—in the brain’s processing of information." And it would work as follows, "If on the way some of the nerve impulses speed up or slow down, two identical versions may arrive at slightly different times, like the delay echo you sometimes hear during a phone conversation. The brain might misinterpret the echo as a separate event, giving you the impression that you’ve perceived the experience already." Another model, which is psychological, called divided attention, "invokes the effect of momentary distraction to explain how it might seem that we have experienced something twice. " "The “implicit familiarity” hypothesis of déjà vu says that if portions of a new experience match some aspects of something we have experienced in the past, then the mind may mistake that for a perfect match between the two experiences."
The studies have been inconclusive so far.
But some researchers think they know where Deja Vu works in the brain. "Some researchers have sought clues to the underlying neural circuitry of déjà vu—where, exactly, does it occur in the brain? The trail is leading to a specific fold of gray matter in the regions of the brain central to creating and processing memories: the parahippocampal gyrus. This lies within the temporal lobes, which are the portions of the brain that lie on the side of the head at roughly ear level.
The evidence is indirect but very suggestive. Some people with temporal lobe epilepsy—recurrent seizures originating in the temporal lobes—sometimes experience déjà vu. It’s part of the anticipatory mental state, or “aura,” that often precedes a seizure. Auras last a few seconds, often marked by sensations such as an odd smell, a tingling feeling, or a sensation of falling. This once led some scientists to conclude that déjà vu itself was a seizure—a view now discredited."
Also, it can be pathalogical, as shown in some patients with Alzheimers. "Which brings us back to those four patients in England with persistent déjà vu—or, to be more precise, déjà vecu, which means “lived through this moment before.” In each case, the patients complained to their doctors of memory problems as well as persistent déjà vecu. Tests and diagnosis showed that each had some sort of brain abnormality, such as Alzheimer’s disease, a brain hemorrhage, or shrinkage in the temporal lobes or the brain as a whole. Martin Conway, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Leeds, explains that the common denominator is the circuit in the temporal lobes that trips when we have a “recollective experience.”
Recollective experience is the sense of the self in the past. It goes beyond a vague feeling of familiarity: A recollective experience is one in which you explicitly remember having lived through something before. A person with a normally functioning brain would likely react to an episode of déjà vecu with an objective realization that it cannot, in fact, be the case.
This “executive function” of the brain does not appear to operate in the patients Conway and his colleagues are studying. In these people, Conway says, the recollective experience circuit is stuck in the ON position. As a result, everything they experience in the present is perceived as a repeat of an identical past event. He argues that this same circuit is responsible for déjà vecu in people with healthy brains. It may just switch on by mistake because of some mundane trigger, like being tired or distracted. “It just happens much less frequently in the normal, undamaged brain,” Conway proposes."
Other Answers:
Déjà vu is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.
Here is a brief explanation of what makes deja vu occur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_vu
http://mb-soft.com/public/dejavu.html ( you might have to dig into this one a little,it covers a lot of ground on other phenomena)
It certainly is a creepy feeling-especially when it's pronounced. I have epilepsy, and 50% of the time, right before I have a seizure I have a very strong moment of deja vu.
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