Why Does Deja Vu Occur ?

Question

Why .?

Answer 1

It's hard to say exactly - delay in transmittion across the corpus callosum is one very persuasive ability (the corpus callosum is the biggest of the connections between hemispheres: the would mean one hemisphere of your brain is slightly ahead of the other. Miliseconds, but the speed we process at makes that a noticable difference). Alternatively, it could be linked to familliarity and memory - storage or retrival failures? (prosopagnosia (a face-memory problem) sometimes involves slight feelings of deja vu - tip of the tongue (retrival of word failure) is sometimes described as similar (the feeling of "knowing" something). So if the situation is similar enough to a past situation to *almost* prompt the retrival of that memory, you would feel the same sensation.

However, there is no evidence linking it to genuine prediction. It is also quite common. It is hard to test empirically, because we cannot as yet induce or predict it.

Answer 2

I have a feeling this has been asked before.

Answer 3

To let you know you have been there in spirit before....

Answer 4

There are areas of your brain whose job is to evaluate aspects of each experience you have for whether they are familiar or not, and to relay that info to other parts of the brain.

Deja vu, scientists now think, is simply the mis-firing of that area. So, the "recognize" part of your brain is falsely telling the rest of your brain that you recognize this situation or experience.