Hello Qpet and thanks for this interesting question.
The term déjà vu is French and means, literally, "already seen."
“Déjà vu (also called promnesia) describes the experience of feeling
that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. The
term was created by a French psychic researcher, Emile Boirac
(1851-1917) in his book L' Avenir des Sciences Psychiques. The
experience of déjà vu usually accompanied by a compelling sense of
familiarity, and also a sense of "eerieness" or "strangeness".
“The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common; in formal studies
(Neppe) 70% or more of the population report having experienced it at
least once.”
”Déjà vu has been subjected in recent years to serious psychological
and neurophysiological research. The most likely candidate for
explanation, according to scientists in these fields, is that déjà vu
is not an act of "precognition" or "prophecy" but is actually an
anomaly of memory; it is the impression that an experience is "being
recalled" which is false. This is substantiated to an extent by the
fact that in most cases the sense of "recollection" at the time is
strong, but any 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 circumstances they
were "remembering" when they had the déjà vu experience."
Encyclopedia Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja+vu
===========================
Dr. Vernon Neppe MD,PhD: Déjà Vu Research and Theory
“Neppe's empirically tested operational definition for déjà vu is any
subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of the present
experience with an undefined past. A theoretical motivation for this
definition involves reasons for the rejection of other terms, and déjà
vu is differentiated from flashbacks, pseudopresentiment, actualized
precognition, and cryptomnesia. There are 21 kinds of déjà vu,
including 10 new terms introduced by the author. There is also a
metaphorical journalistic use of the term. There are 7 major
phenomenological classifications of the déjà vu experience: a disorder
of memory, a disorder of ego state, an ego defense, a temporal
perceptual disturbance, a recognition disorder, a manifestation of
epileptic firing, or a subjective paranormal experience.
Causes of Déjà Vu:
“There is no single theoretical cause of déjà vu that can explain its
wide variety of clinical manifestations. Most instances of associative
déjà vu are associated with a predisposing milieu of anxiety and are
triggered by restricted paramnesia and redintegration. The
Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories are also common
explanations. However, temporal lobe firing and the double access
theories account for many of the experimental and clinical features of
the déjà vu experience of temporal lobe epileptics.”
Source: Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute
http://www.pni.org/books/deja_vu_info.html
===========================
Arthur Funkhouser, Ph.D., describes three types of Déjà vu.
Deja vecu: (already experienced or lived through)
This describes the feeling that many people know as deja vu . (..)
Such experiences are frequently, if not always, connected with very
banal events. They are so striking, though, that they are often
clearly remembered for years.
Deja senti: (already felt)
“This state, which sometimes appears in the aura of temporal lobe
epilepsy attacks. (..) Three features are evident from this
description, however, that distinguish it from deja vecu:
a. it is primarily or even exclusively a mental happening;
b. there are no precognitive aspects in which the person feels he or
she knows in advance what will be said or done; and
c. it seldom or remains in the afflicted person's memory afterwards.”
Deja visite: (already visited)
It seems to occur more rarely and is an experience in which a person
visits a new locality and nevertheless feels it to be familiar. He or
she seems to know their way around. (..) Deja visite can be explained
in several ways. It may be that the person once read a detailed
account of the place and has subsequently forgotten it. (..)
Reincarnation might also offer a way of explaining some instances of
deja visite. A third possibility are so-called 'out-of-the-body'
experiences in which a person is apparently able to travel abroad,
leaving his or her body behind.”
University of Manitoba Website
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mdlee/dejavu.htm
===========================
“Déjà vecu is the most common déjà vu experience and involves the
sensation of having done something or having been in an identical
situation before and knowing what will happen next. These sensations
are often felt through several senses: seeing, hearing, taste, touch
and proprioceptive perceptions. The experience is often incredibly
detailed and is usually connected to very normal activities. Although
the episode itself lasts from only a fraction of a second to several
minutes, it can often be remembered in minute detail long after the
episode has occurred.”
Bryn Mawr Collage: Julia Johnson
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Johnson2.html#6
===========================
“One explanation for déjà vu is that there is a slight malfunction
between the short and long term memory circuits of the brain. The
specific information finds a shortcut from the short to long-term
memory storage, avoiding the usual mechanisms used for storage
transfer. When this new, recent piece of information is drawn upon,
the person thinks that the piece is coming from long-term storage and
therefore must have come from the distant past. The brain is such a
complex organ that there is a small chance of it malfunctioning. When
the circuits get crossed and the sensory inputs are detoured we may
perceive something and recall it simultaneously”.
Penn State University from the Google cache
http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:yYEkZsZOYKMC:www.personal.psu.edu/users/k/n/knv107/dejavu.html+Deja+Vu+Phenomenon+site:.edu&hl=es&ie=UTF-8
===========================
"There is no single theoretical cause of déjà vu that can explain its
wide variety of clinical manifestations. Most instances of associative
déjà vu are associated with a predisposing milieu of anxiety and are
triggered by restricted paramnesia and redintegration. The
Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories are also common
explanations. However, temporal lobe firing and the double access
theories account for many of the experimental and clinical features of
the déjà vu experience of temporal lobe epileptics.."
Bryn Mawr Collage: Julia Johnson
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Johnson2.html#6
===========================
James M. Lampinen, an assistant professor of psychology at the
University of Arkansas:
“Déjà vu is a strong sense of global familiarity that occurs in a
seemingly novel situation. The familiarity experienced in déjà vu is
global in that it seems as if the entire event--every detail--has
happened before, despite the knowledge that the event is unique. The
experience is frequently disconcerting and is often accompanied by a
sense of unreality. Most people experience déjà vu at some point in
their lives--surveys indicate that a majority of respondents have
experienced at least one episode of déjà vu.”
Source: Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000F0615-85C1-1CD9-B4A8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=3
===========================
A physiological explanation of the deja vu phenomenon may exist.
“The optical and neural paths from the two eyes may be slightly
different. Or, alternately, a "newer" and "older" brain processing
method might be responsible.”
(..)
“Any scene perceived by a normal person, is actually seen
independently by each of the two eyes. That is how we accomplish three
dimensional vision. Let us speculate for a moment that the signal path
to the brain has a slightly different length from the two eyes. If
this was the case, then the brain would get the signals from the first
eye, and promptly process them and record them into memory. A moment
later, the signals would arrive from the other optic nerve. The brain
would then receive this signal, and immediately note that it seems
very familiar, being very similar (virtually identical) to an image
already in memory. But it wouldn't be a memory from months or years
earlier. It would have only been from a memory recorded a fraction of
a second earlier.”
Source: Public Service Projects
http://mb-soft.com/public/dejavu.html
===========================
“As much as 70 percent of the population reports having experienced
some form of déjà vu. A higher number of incidents occurs in people 15
to 25 years old than in any other age group.”
“Déjà vu has been firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy.
Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal-lobe epileptic
attack. People suffering an epileptic seizure of this kind can
experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the
moments between convulsions.”
http://people.howstuffworks.com/question657.htm
Search Criteria:
"Deja Vu is"
Causes of Deja Vu
Deja Vu Phenomenon site:.edu
Concept “Déjà vu”
I hope this response has provided you with the information you were
seeking. If you need any clarification of the information I have
provided, please ask..
Best Regards,
Bobbie7-ga |
