The Science of Deja Vu.

You may be hanging out with your friends, listening to the rest of your group's conversation, watching a movie or simply being there, when suddenly it all seems like something is happening all over again. Ever experienced jumping out of your chair, wide-eyed becausr what happened, what you're seeinh, hearing, and where you are at that moment had been exactly the same things you've seen and heard once before, maybe many times even? And then you overcome a sense of familiarity. You sit down, and stop and feel kind of strange?

I'm sure many, if not all of us, had our share of deja vu. And had we not been very sure ehat we'd been there and actually done that. French psychic researcher, Emile Boirac (1851-1917) wrote that the experience of deja vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of eeriness, strangeness, weirdness or what Sigmund Freud calls "the uncanny." The previous experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience has genuinely happened in the past, thus, the term deja vu in French, means already seen, and describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously.

Did you know that 70% of people claims to have experienced deja vu at least once in their lives? The stranger suddenly turns out to be someone you remember to have met in the past. The bend in on road almost seem as if you've walked on it someone before. One situation suddenly caught you open-mouthed because somehow, something like this already happened. It's all that, and more, and usually, we don't need the details because for some reason, we strongly feel a strange kind of familiarity towards this person, this place, this situation, at the same time knowing, that it's actually the first time.

The experience of deja vu seems so commonthat sometimes, we don't need to ask what's really causing it. Well, here are some possible reasons behind all that feeling of familiarity:

1. You might have seen pictures of the place in the past.
2. You might have read about a certain place or situation, even years ago, and when beingin that place or in a similar situation, you feel as if you have already experienced the same thing before.
3. You might have seen a movie about similar experience, and though you might have forgotten seeing that movie, the subconscious mind still remembers it, giving you the eerie sensation of being familiar with it.
4. You might have seen the place or situation or something similar in your dreams, and now it looks familiar.
5. Deja vu could also be triggered through the five senses. It could be a smell, the taste of food, the decor, combination of colors, pitch of voice, background noises or anything else that triggers old memories. You might not consciously remeber the original situation that brought that memory, but you remember having experienced it, and you associate it with the present experience.
6. The sight, clothing or manner of speaking of the person or persons who are with, might remind you of someone you have once met in the past.
7. Some say that this feeling of familiarity may be caused by a brain state, by neurochemical factors during perception that have nothing to do with memory.
8. People who believe in reincarnation say that the reason for deja vu is that one has experienced the same situation in a past life.

Another possible explanation for the phenomenon of deja vu is the occurence of "cryptomnesia" which is where information learned is forgotten but nevertheless stored in the brain, and similar occurences invoke the contained knowlegde, leading to a feeling of familiarity because of the situation, event of vocal content, known as "deja vu."

There could be more reasons and explanations for experienceing deja vu. The mind is a powerful engine that creates all kinds of experiences, and which very few people investigate and try to understand. The human mind sometimes works in mysteries that people don't really want to bother unlocking.

Resources: http://www.successconsciousness.com/deja-vu.htm
https://www.wikipedia.com

• April Galado here..