From: terri 25/05/99 13:11:42 Subject: deja vu post id: 13688 Does anyone know what it is exactly? I experience a lot of deja vu and find it difficult to explain the experience to others. I also often feel as though I have already seen/dreamed an event, even a second in time which is not the same sensation as deja vu. (As a side note, niether of my parents have ever heard of the phenomena and are quite dismissive of it even existing and I think quite strange). I have heard that it is a process in the brain that in an instant reprocesses the same information but many of my experiences include memories that feel like they are months old sometimes longer. Does it link in at all to intuition etc. From: James Richmond (Avatar) 25/05/99 13:58:27 Subject: re: deja vu post id: 13698 Haven't I seen this question somewhere before? But seriously... Deja vu is quite a common experience which I think everyone has from time to time. Some obviously get it more often than others. One theory of why it occurs is the one you mentioned; that is, the brain takes in sensory information and processes it twice, giving you the feeling that you've experienced it all before. If this theory is correct, then you have experienced it all before - just not as long ago as you imagine. However, this theory doesn't explain why you feel that the deja vu memories are much older than a few seconds or fractions of a second. Another theory of deja vu is to do with how we remember events and places in the first place. According to this view, we don't remember experiences in every detail. Rather, we remember certain key features. If we later wish to recall the experience, we don't just retrieve it from memory. Instead we reconstruct it from the important fragments we actually remember. This view is also supported by the ease with which false memories can be created in people. Deja vu then arises when certain features of a situation fit a particular set of "key" memories, causing us to reconstruct a past event but to put it into a (technically incorrect) present context. For example, many people get deja vu when they go to a new place. They may walk down a street they know they've never walked down before and suddenly get the feeling they've been there before. The reason may be that many streets have things in common. If a particular street has just the right combination of triggering factors, it will set off a memory of a similar street, which gets modified in the reconstruction process to fit the new street. There are other theories of deja vu, but I think this one sounds pretty plausible. I seriously doubt that deja vu is the result of any psychic ability, or a recall from a past life, or anything mystical like that. JR This forum is un-moderated. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual poster and not the ABC. The ABC reserves the right to remove offensive or inappropriate messages.