Do you believe in 'deja vu' ?

Question

have you ever had any experience involving deja vu? did it help in any way?

Answer 1

I do, sometimes I get certain smells that come back to me and they're not even smells I can describe with words, they just remind me of moments in the past and only when they happen again, but it's all very vague and weird.

Answer 2

...yes...been there too...

Answer 3

I experience it all the time.

Answer 4

yes, but it has never helped me  

Answer 5

Didn't I already answer this question?

Answer 6

i've experienced it. it's a trick of the mind.

Answer 7

yes, and it often consuses me.

Answer 8

Doesn't deja vu have a widely known scientific explanation?I really can't remember it right now,but I know it has to do with short term and long term memory,and perceptions being sent to the latter one than to the short term one by "mistake",chance.

I'm going to look for a citation.

Answer 9

It may be about rebirth; In Buddhism and it’s teachings, there are those situations in which we sometimes feel a strong presentiment that we have been in a particular place before although we have not visited this place in our present life. Or, sometimes we feel that we have known someone before. Sometimes we meet a person and within a very short space of time we feel that we have known that person thoroughly. Alternatively, sometimes we have known a person for years and yet we are not close to that person.

These experiences of feeling that we have been to a place before or have known a person before are so common and universal even in a culture which knows almost nothing of rebirth. There is a particular phrase for this experience, the French words "deja vu" which mean "already seen or experienced". If we are not dogmatic, when we add up all the evidence of rebirth - the persistent belief in rebirth in many cultures in many different times throughout history, the Buddha’s own testimony, the testimony of His prominent disciples, the evidence presented by scientific investigations, and our own personal intimations that we have been here before - we have to admit that there is at least a good possibility that rebirth is a reality.

In Buddhism, rebirth is part of the continuous process of change. In fact, we are not only reborn at the time of death, we are born and reborn at every moment. This too, like many other Buddhist teachings, is easily verifiable by reference to our own experience and by reference to the teachings of science. For instance, the majority of the cells in the human body die and are replaced many times during the course of one’s life. Even those few cells which last one’s entire life undergo constant internal changes. This is part of the process of birth, death and rebirth. If we look at the mind too, we find that mental states of worry, happiness and so forth are changing every moment. They die and are replaced by new states. So whether we look at the body or the mind, our experience is characterized by continuous birth, death and rebirth.