You’ve probably experienced déjà vu at least a few times in your life and wondered, “What just happened to me?” Déjà Vu’s meaning comes from the phrase “already seen” in French, and occurs when we feel like a person, place, or thing is familiar to us without actually having experienced them before.
This strange phenomenon happens to as much as seventy percent of the population. However, 15 to 25-year-olds experience it more than any other age group.
Maybe you’ve driven down a road in a foreign country before, and it just felt very familiar to you. That is deja vu. Indeed, it’s the knowledge of “I’ve been in this place before”.
Logically, however, you know you haven’t. But while that is the term’s literal meaning, that doesn’t explain what it is or why it happens.
So, what does deja vu mean? We’ll get into all the details so you’ll have a deeper understanding of it the next time it happens to you.
While different people experience it differently, the phenomenon’s meaning remains universal. Scientists have even begun researching the sensation because so many people experience it. So, they wanted to gain more insight into what causes it.
One study by Akira O’Connor and his team at the University of St. Andrews, UK, found that deja vu occurs so that we can ‘check’ our memories. To test the phenomenon, O’Connor and his team found a way to trigger the feeling of deja vu in the lab.
To conduct the study, O’Connor and his team first found a way to trigger ‘false’ memories. They would tell the participants a list of related words – such as bed, pillow, night, and dream – but leave out the one word linking them together; in this example, sleep. When the team quizzed the participants later about the words, many believed they heard “sleep,” which would be a false memory.
