Tek-Bull

What is Deja Vu, How Does it Work, Plus a Bunch of Other Vu’s

The brain is an interesting piece of equipment that Nature somehow created. We’re still trying to learn everything there is about the brain, one of the things that we’re still having problems understanding is -Deja Vu. The term déjà vu is a French word that means, “already seen.” It’s a term that is used to describe something that has an overwhelming sense of familiarity, when it shouldn’t be familiar at all. An example of this sensation would be when you go to a new location that you’ve never been to before, and you instantly remember being at that location in the past, but can’t put a finger as to when it was. People believe that the reason you feel this sensation it’s because of the mythical theory of “re-incarnation.”

The conversation usually goes like this – As you enter a cathedral in a foreign country where you have never been before in your life – you instantly feel the familiarity sensation and tell your friends about it:

Oh wow, I just totally had deja vu!really? omg! you were probably here in your previous life time! “no, no way! Really, I was here in the past!!??” Yea dude, you’re brain remembers everything, even after re-incarnation, but you have to find the places you visited in the past in order to trigger the memories again, for all we know, you were a king! – See image to the right.

But that’s not the case at all, the actual event is still not fully understood and it is extremely complex. Scientist have different theories as to why it happens, but the video I posted above it the most accepted theory. Déjà vu has been associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. People suffering from these kinds of seizures claim they experience Déjà vu, during, after, or just before the seizure begins. But because Déjà vu also happens when people are 100% healthy, the whole event is still a mysterious one to the researchers.

But there are other Vu’s out there, there is Presque Vu, also known as having something at the tip of the tongue where your brain tries to remember what you want to say using only keywords and loose imaginary recollections. Then you have Jamais Vu, something that you know and are familiar with just randomly looks new and bizarre. it’s like the whole Retro living style. You find a Nintendo NES and you instantly think this is the best looking system in the world! Schizophrenics usually suffer from Jamais Vu, they see someone they know, but they insist that the person is an impostor and they have never seen them in the past. These people normally kill the impostor, not knowing that they were actually killing a family member.

Overall, the study is still a work in progress and it may not ever be fully understood, but the video above from Vsauce does an amazing job at explaining what it’s all about.