Why we do we have Déjà Vu? Are you the only special with it?

Heippa, Steemians! Today i am talking about déjà vu.

Familiar things in new places?

Have you ever experienced a sudden feeling of familiar things while in a completely new place? Or the feeling you’ve had the exact same conversation with someone before? You probably have.

Am i special?

No,
this feeling of familiarity is known as déjà vu. It means already seen in French and it’s reported to occur on 60-80% of people. It’s an experience that’s almost always occurs at random.

So what is responsible for these feelings of familiarity?

Despite coverage in popular culture, experiences of déjà vu are poorly understood in scientific terms. Déjà vu occurs briefly, without warning and has no physical signs. Maybe only if you've had déjà vu and then you say:,,I just had deja vu!!*."

Many researchers propose that the phenomenon is a memory-based experience and assume the memory centres of the brain are responsible for it.

Memory systems

The medial temporal lobes are vital for the retention of long-term memories of events.

Certain regions of the medial temporal lobes are important in the detection of familiarity, or recognition, as opposed to the detailed recollection of specific events.

It has been proposed that familiarity detection depends on rhinal cortex function, whereas detailed recollection is linked to the hippocampus.

The randomness of déjà vu experiences in healthy individuals makes it difficult to study in an empirical manner. Any such research is reliant on self-reporting from the people involved.

Scientific talk

A subset of epilepsy patients consistently experience déjà vu at the onset of a seizure – that is, when seizures begin in the medial temporal lobe. This has given researchers a more experimentally controlled way of studying déjà vu.

Epileptic seizures are evoked by alterations in electrical activity in neurons within focal regions of the brain.

This activity can spread across the whole brain like the shock waves generated from an earthquake. The brain regions in which this electrical activation can occur include the medial temporal lobes.

These neuronal discharges can occur in a non-pathological manner in people without epilepsy. An example of this is a hyponogogic jerk, the involuntary twitch that can occur just as you are falling asleep.

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Related to this theory, it was proposed that déjà vu is a reaction of the brain’s memory systems to a familiar experience. This experience is known to be novel, but has many recognisable elements, albeit in a slightly different setting. An example? Being in a bar or restaurant in a foreign country that has the same layout as one you go to regularly at home.

Conspiracy

Even more theories exist regarding the cause of déjà vu. These span from the paranormal - past lives, alien abduction and precognitive dreams – to memories formed from experiences that are not first-hand (such as scenes in movies).

So far there is no simple explanation as to why déjà vu occurs :(
thank you for reading!
used media: www.wikipedia.com, www.howstuffworks.com, www.earthnutshell.com.