What provokes DEJA VU? Why do we face deja vu?

What provokes DEJA VU? Why do we face deja vu?

Hello everyone.

Today the topic will be about such a phenomenon as deja vu.

This phenomenon is not a comfortable feeling, as if you have been here before, or it has already happened to you, or as if you have already had this conversation... But at the same time, you know for sure that this could not have happened. This is deja vu.

I will tell you about how I experienced deja vu as a teenager. And I remember it very much. Since I'm still pretty sure I knew what was going to happen next. The story is not so intriguing, a common household situation, for everyone, something in the kitchen or in the house in general, can happen, whether it's water spilled from a mug, the phone fell off the table, or at night you tripped over a chair and severely injured your finger. It's not the situation, but the fact that I already knew it in advance.

It was a sunny summer day, I was sitting in the kitchen and watching my mom cook something. There were holidays and I didn't think about any lessons, I wasn't in a hurry and I had a lot of time, even to just sit and think about something for myself.

My gaze fell on a tablespoon that was lying on the table and was half filled with broth (for tasting the taste, so to speak). At one point, a picture appeared in my head of how my mother turns to me with a bowl, hooks this very spoon, it overturns and the liquid pours out on the light carpet, and the bowl she was holding in her hands, out of fright, overturns on the butter, which was already open. And during all this happening, she told me about what time I would need to come home from the street.

The most interesting thing is that, as it seemed to me, a couple of minutes before what my brain imagined would happen in reality. I really saw this picture in my head, every movement, even every word that my mother would tell me at that moment.

I was sitting there in a state of shock. Then I started telling it to my mom, she smiled and said:

"You didn't know that beforehand. You just had deja vu, it happens, the brain thinks it's already seen it, it's a mistake of consciousness.

To be honest, I didn't believe her, and still insisted that I knew everything in advance. And I also decided that next time, if I understand what will happen next in my head, I will inevitably say it to the one who will be next to me at that moment. In order to prove, and to check for yourself, the possibility of prediction.

But every time it all happened, I either forgot to say it, or I was afraid that I would be laughed at. And the most important factor why I didn't say is that events could have changed. For the one who knows the future will try to avoid a certain event and "my prediction" will not happen.

As a result, I am already quite an adult, and when this deja vu manifests itself, I am still surprised by this phenomenon every time.

Let's look at what scientists say, or people who have been engaged in this topic, investigated, or reread many stories about this phenomenon and can at least assume something.

According to statistics, people experience the feeling of deja vu more often in their youth, but, as a rule, no more than once a month.

With age, by the age of 40-50, the feeling of deja vu is repeated less often ... 60-year-olds experience a feeling of deja vu only once a year.

Deja vu usually manifests itself in a fleeting sensation. But there are also people who feel it even all day, and this is a more serious problem. Basically, after visits to the doctor, it turned out that such a persistent feeling of deja vu was associated with a certain type of epilepsy - temporal lobe epilepsy. When it was possible to identify this connection, doctors were able to prescribe treatment to patients.

Deja vu basically means either a real memory or a memory error.

Scientists who have dealt with this phenomenon believe that the feeling of deja vu is associated with the work of the temporal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for the feeling that we are experiencing something not for the first time.

The feeling of false memories is a consequence of certain violations in the process of memory work. When the work of memory storage systems contradict each other, it causes the brain to "confuse" the present with the past.

Let's take a closer look and make it clearer for everyone!

Our memory is a complex mechanism that involves many parts of the brain. Regarding deja vu, we are interested in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is the department in which temporary neural connections arise and memories are formed, it is the basis of short-term memory.

The hippocampus is a small part of the brain responsible for the transition of memories from short-term to long-term.

Imagine: you are watching a video or a movie, and then you are shown an advertisement in which they talk about the novelty of mineral water. The next day you go to the store and see the same mineral water on the store shelf, then it seems to you that you recognize this bottle of water, but the brain works differently depending on the falsity or truth of recognition.

The prefrontal cortex sends signals to the hippocampus – there is some kind of reconciliation with long-term memory, as a result of which the hippocampus can say: "Yes, I saw this bottle of mineral water." Then the memory really was: we see what we have already observed.

But a failure may occur: there is no such memory in long-term memory, the hippocampus did not receive the correct signal, and a false sense of recognition arises when you are almost sure that you have seen this novelty on supermarket shelves before.

Thus, we have a false feeling that all this has already happened.

A laboratory analogue of the Deja Vu effect.

In the 1960s, scientists James Dees, Henry Roediger and Kathleen McDermott attempted to create a laboratory analogue of deja vu. They developed a procedure called DRM (Deese — Roediger — McDermott paradigm). In the DRM study, people were offered a large list of words, for example: "mattress", "pillow", "bed", "alarm clock", "nightmare", "pajamas", "night light" and so on. All these words belong to one category — the process of sleep. But the word "dream" is not in this list at all. After some time, the subjects were asked if the word "dream" was on the list, most "remembered" that it was. And they definitely said that they remembered how the person who called the words from the list listed this word. Of course, this is not too similar to real deja vu, but the authors insisted on the identity of the mechanisms of their occurrence.

Many people think that they can foresee the future at all.

Chris Mulin (professor in the Laboratory of Psychology and Neurocognition) said that this happens because our memory helps us to "foresee" the future.

"Memory helps us avoid the same mistakes and anticipate what might happen," says the scientist.

Sometimes, when more areas of the brain are connected to the formation of the feeling of deja vu than usual, the feeling of deja vu can affect our emotions, and also form the feeling that you know what will happen next, but in fact it's just a feeling.

Scientists put forward different theories of the occurrence of such a sensation, but no one will say exactly how it turns out. Perhaps in the near future, we will be able to get to the truth, and in other matters, such as space far away from us, life in other galaxies, and deja vu, which is happening here, in our place, in our head.

There are also supporters of reincarnation, a mystic.

There is also a theory that connects the feelings of deja vu with reincarnation, but as we all understand there is no evidence, remember: deja vu is not mysticism, but part of the work of our brain.

I can't put up with the idea that this is just a memory error, too realistic events are visualized in my head before something happens. But scientists, there are scientists and they know more than you and me.

Somehow, everyone has a good mood and a peaceful sky over your head!