![]() The underlying cause for this experience of déjà vu could be that the layout of the scene, including the placement of the furniture and the particular objects within the space, have the same layout as a different scene that you did experience in the past. Although you’ve never been to this hospital before, you are struck with a feeling that you have. Psychologists called this the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis.įor example, imagine you’re passing the nursing station in a hospital unit on your way to visit a sick friend. We investigated a near century-old hypothesis that suggested déjà vu can happen when there’s a spatial resemblance between a current scene and an unrecalled scene in your memory. Prompted by Brown’s work, my own research team began conducting experiments aimed at testing hypotheses about possible mechanisms of déjà vu. His work served as a catalyst for scientists to design experiments to investigate déjà vu. He also reported on hints throughout a century or so of medical literature of a possible association between déjà vu and some types of seizure activity in the brain.īrown’s review brought the topic of déjà vu into the realm of more mainstream science, because it appeared in both a scientific journal that scientists who study cognition tend to read, and also in a book aimed at scientists. He determined that the most common trigger of déjà vu is a scene or place, and the next most common trigger is a conversation. From all these papers, Brown was able to glean some basic findings on the déjà vu phenomenon.įor example, Brown determined that roughly two thirds of people experience déjà vu at some point in their lives. ![]() But he also found studies that surveyed regular people about their déjà vu experiences. Much of what he could find had a paranormal flavor, having to do with the supernatural – things like past lives or psychic abilities. Moving from the paranormal to the scientificĮarly in this millennium, a scientist named Alan Brown decided to conduct a review of everything researchers had written about déjà vu until that point. But the topic did not reach the realm of science until quite recently. Or maybe it was a temporary hiccup in the otherwise normal operation of human memory. ![]() People thought maybe it stemmed from mental dysfunction or perhaps a type of brain problem. Starting in the late 1800s, many theories began to emerge regarding what might cause déjà vu, which means “already seen” in French. This phenomenon, known as déjà vu, has puzzled philosophers, neurologists and writers for a very long time. Have you ever had that weird feeling that you’ve experienced the same exact situation before, even though that’s impossible? Sometimes it can even seem like you’re reliving something that already happened.
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