I Feel like I've Been Here Before (Deja Vu Explained)

Have you ever had that feeling of overwhelming familiarity when doing something you know you've never done before?

I get those moments of deja vu all the time and finally decided to research it a bit more.

The word "deja vu" comes from the French words "already seen" with young people seeming to experience it the most. Many have reported their first instance happening between ages 6-10. I can recall this being true for me. By the time you reach ages 15-25, you will probably have experienced deja vu often. The number of deja vu experiences steadily decreases after age 25, which is puzzling to researchers. You'd think memory problems would increase with age, but in this case, are decreasing with age! This leads us to believe that deja vu isn't a memory problem at all, but instead a signal that is telling you while you may feel really strongly that something is familiar, this feeling is wrong and that you should ignore it.

Deja vu may actually be a sign of a healthy mind, being that it points out familiarity signals that are wrong. As we age, people have a harder time recognizing these signals and may even start to believe they are true.

So What Causes Deja vu?

Scientists link Deja vu with the temporal lobe in the brain. The strong sense of familiarity is signaled by brain cells in the temporal lobe, but is noticed and ignored by another part of the brain that checks whether all the signals coming to it make sense or not. The part of the brain that does the checking is the frontal lobe, which is linked to decision making.

So the next time you feel like you've been or done something before, while knowing for sure that you have not, think back to this and it will all become clear :)

Photo credit: learning mind.