Why Do We Experience Déjà Vu?

Have you ever experienced something, and you could swear you’ve experienced the exact same thing before? Tara is here to discuss several theories as to why we experience déjà vu.


Read More:
The Deja Vu Illusion
“The déjà vu illusion occurs when a person has an inappropriate feeling of familiarity in a situation that is objectively unfamiliar or new.”

What exactly is deja vu?
“Déjà vu is a strong sense of global familiarity that occurs in a seemingly novel situation.”

Deja Vu and Paramnesia
“Last week I was travelling through London en-route to a business meeting in Kent. I stopped off at Euston and walked down to Foyle's Bookshop in Tottenham Court Road (probably my favourite bookshop).”

Been There Done That
“Deja vu -- that eerie sensation of having already lived through a particular moment -- is one of psychology's most enduring, but rarely studied, mysteries.”

Watch More:
What Are Recurring Dreams?
TestTube Wild Card
How You Change Your Brain

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[TheRadishBros]

Deja Vu is pretty much the only case where I refuse to accept the scientific theory - I'm absolutely convinced that I have had dreams where the events repeated themselves in real life. Totally convinced.

[MatinDadib]

My theory about Déjà Vu is that we've experienced the situation in our dreams first when we're sleeping, by the next day we experience the exact same thing as what we dreamed. It's kind of like we see the future in our dream first.

[FracturedPixels]

I've had the same Deja vu event at least four times. Sitting in legal class, I slouch back in my chair as I grab my pen off the desk, my friend next to me says the exact same thing every time, at which point I always turn to face him, at which point I glance at my teacher who is always in the same place, always saying the same thing, with the exact same set of dot points written on the board, then I look at my book and realize that I have written this page of information 3 times already, but it's not in a previous page of my book.

[giovanifm]

If a déjà vu happens randomly, how can they test people?

[harrydoolan]

i sometimes have dreams where i've done something then a few days/weeks/monthsyears later that exact thing happens and i then remember the whole dream. the time it actually happens i feel like i've seen it at least 3 times. would truly like to know what causes this.

[willhendrix]

Its a glitch in the Matrix... I means they have changed something!

[czluver]

my deja vu tends to include people, places, and phrases happening before they do. I'm meaning, say, a conversation never had before happening in a living room with certain people over a specific topic and including specific statements. I would know several lines ahead, the order the different people would say them in, and where they were located when speaking. there have been situations where I already knew the conversation and what I was to say to have the deja vu end and keeping to the "script" just to not throw anything off

[Dowlphin]

Based on my own experiential research as well as extensive pondering, I think a déja vù is when you dreamt of the future and naturally forgot because your conscious mind needs the belief in the validity of the time continuum to function properly, and then once the event has actually occured in your life, it is safe for the conscious mind to remember the dream, and that's why you feel like you've experienced it before while usually there is no way you actually did.

There's a problem with various scientific explanation attempts of these phenomena: They are based on a non-knowledge of certain principles the ideas are based on, e.g. you cannot actually ever verify it scientifically. While when you step out of that limitation of the analytical mind, you get insight about these things and it makes perfect sense, yet cannot be fully grasped by the analytical mind.
What I mean is that a common approach in scientific explanation goes like: "It's nothing metaphysical or such, it is simply ..." - but that "simply" then has to ignore certain unknowns that would complicate the whole thing. An example would be a physicist trying to explain that the universe isn't endless, but a sphere where you appear on one end if you keep moving towards the other. But then what is around that sphere? - This is the limited egoic mind struggling to explain things it - by design - cannot explain. A logical conundrum.
But a highly evolved mind can actually work outside of those limitations. If you understand the limitations of your egoic mind, then you can logically work with the things outside of its grasp, like e.g. time being an illusion.

I once perceived my own sensory inputs about the world around me and my own actions with a slight delay, and I was aware that I was experiencing them too late from the observer standpoint, but my reaction time to the things around me was still flawless. Try to digest that with scientific analysis. ;-)

That being said, it's also reasonable to consider that there might be different types of déjà vu with different causes.

[illusion]

I think there are different kinds of deja vu.. one of them is explained in this video, where you get that experience out of nowhere and feel like "this is kinda familiar".. but this is not what I'm experiencing.. my deja vu experience is always associated with the dreams I had before it happens.. you know sometimes you had a pretty vivid dream but you forget all about it the second you woke up, no matter how hard you try to remember? right.. when I'm having deja vu, it feels like those dreams I had before are being "called out" and played back in front of me exactly the same way.. one important thing is I instantly remember every detail in that dream and I'm able to tell what's gonna happen next.. it is not a "kinda familiar" but an "exactly the same" experience to me.. once, I tried to change the little things I do (different from what I did in my dream) when I experience deja vu rather than "go with the flow" to see if the situation would turn out another way.. but I just can't.. it almost feels like my body "denies to digress from the original script", if you know what I'm saying..

this has never been explained in any sources I came across regarding deja vu so I thought I'd share my experience here.. to me, it is not a made up familarity based on something similar happened before, and also, it is not reliving my past.. it is like I've lived my future when I had that dream, and when I've finally reached that time in my life, I experience deja vu..

[samsil]

1:00, what if i told you, i was with a friend and he had a seizure, but the moment it all happened I got dejavu.

[oli_playz_for_fun]

I think deja vu is something that happened in our past life

[thekenneth]

Based on my own experience, it is definitely something like that "parallel processing" theory.  My deja vu moments have never had anything to do with older memories of similar experiences; they relate to what is happening right then.

[alaigo]

There's a time theory (I don't remember the name) that says that the big bang explosion never slowed down everything is happening at once. Our minds just perceive time as linear in order to make sense of it. I believe that these premonitions are a direct result of this. That while our minds are the most relaxed we let little bits of "future" slips through and those are the only time slips we notice because anything else would be considered a memory.
End of mad rant :3

[alexg]

when i experience a Deja vu its not a case of feeling like its happend before, but that i have actually been right in that exact position and moment in time before, as if i have gone back in time. The "cell phone theory" doesnt explain this feeling. For example, if i had a deja vu of walking into my kitchen because i have done it before without really thinking about it, then why dont i have a de javu everytime i walk into it? No theory seems to explain why they occur at very specific and random moments. This is why i begin to believe in spiritual theories..

[skypowergirl]

what does it mean if you experience it almost every single day? I mean, I always want to change what I did

[bmerio]

What's the term for when you run into a person and then mirror their movement as you both try to go around each other? Is there a scientific explanation for why you mirror the person?

[TiasTravels]

The dual processing theory makes the most sense to me. I used to have déjà vûs that felt and looked identical to something that had happened before, but I've had them happen in places I most definitely had never been before and things that I wouldn't have had dreams or seen images of.

[markdalyre]

The dual-processing theory makes a lot of sense to me. I've had a ton of moments where I felt like I processed something twice and it gave me deja vu, though i've never had an explanation for why that might happen until now. 

[akaking]

I don't know if it's Déjà Vu, but sometimes, in the middle of the day, few seconds of images and sounds flash in my mind! to fast for me to fully understand it, but after few weeks, months or years it comes true!

[dannygomes]

my Déjà Vu is always a warning and when that time comes and my feet are on that path I recognize and can immediately remember to not continue forward because I know what would happen to me, so on this path I always will turn around to avoid that danger.