Have you ever been in the moment of doing something and you stop because you realized you have been in the same exact situation before? This is deja vu. Deja vu is having the sense that you have been somewhere or seen something before in the same exact circumstances, but in reality the experience is new. You may be having a conversation with a friend and suddenly you stop because you think you have been in that same experience. What you're talking about, who is there, and what people are doing are all felt during deja vu. This is an important concept because it's hard to understand why our brain makes us think that we have been there before. It's almost impossible that we have actually been in the same situation and seen it before, but we still believe we have.
In the Lilienfeld text, it says that an excess of dopamine in temporal lobes may play a role in deja vu. Deja vu also happens when the present experience resembles a past experience. The sense of familiarity comes into play because we don't consciously recall the previous experience. Although it is believed that deja vu is a memory from the past life, it is not falsifiable. Deja vu is firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy, but then why do people who have don't have these seizures get deja vu? Clearly there is a lot more investigating that needs to be done.
I have had many experiences with deja vu. I will be talking with friends and I stop and say that I am having deja vu. Even while I am aware I am having deja vu, it is still occurring. It's a very weird feeling because I actually believe that I have been in that same situation, or almost like I knew what people were going to say and do next. What I am wondering is why does this occur at such random times and why do we still believe that it actually happened? I think deja vu happens because our mind tricks us into thinking we have been there before. I had deja vu once while driving to my friend's cabin. Our conversation and location felt like we had done the same thing before, but it was my first time going to her cabin. This forms one big question of how can deja vu be from a past similar experience if something is completely knew, like location or current issues? When we were turning onto County 25 I was still having deja vu. That intrigues me because how can I have the feeling I have turned down this road before when I never had?
Deja vu is something that I think is very hard to explain and find the real reason why we have it, or what makes us have it. Similar experiences definitely lead to deja vu but it really interests me why we feel like we have been there. I think that deja vu can be due to a simple fantasy or something you wanted to happen. It's an unexplainable feeling when deja vu occurs. One movie I really enjoy is Deja Vu. This explains the feeling of deja vu very well.
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