• Question: Why do you think deja vu occurs?

    Asked by Oscull to Ben, Sam, Kirsty, Maggi, Rose on 15 Jun 2017. This question was also asked by TheLegend_27.
    • Photo: Kirsty Miller

      Kirsty Miller answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi 🙂 That’s a great question! There seem to be a few possibilities – one is linked to epilepsy and known as ‘pathological’ deja vu, where as the other type is non-pathological and is a normal experience. While the epilepsy case is very rare and associated with the brain, the ‘normal’ type of deja vu that most people have experienced seems to be due to an error of memory. The idea is basically that your memory ‘misremembers’ something that either hasn’t happened or something similar but it mistakes if for being the same. Your memory basically thinks it’s seen something before (even though it hasn’t) – leading us to believe that we’ve experienced something twice!

    • Photo: Rose Turner

      Rose Turner answered on 17 Jun 2017:

      Hi Oscull, Did you know that around 60%-80% of people experience deja-vu from time to time? So it doesn’t happen to everyone but it does happen to the majority of us! It seems to be to do with memory, as Kirsty said, however it’s really hard to study (e.g. using brain scanners), because we don’t know when it’s going to happen! Some people think it happens when the system which deals with the experience of familiarity is activated – something suddenly feels very familiar, even though you can’t find a memory for it. Or, of course, it could be that we’re all living in The Matrix and deja-vu is just a glitch in the system 😉

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