Deja vu
The word Deja vu comes from the French and translated means “already seen” this explains the word in a crude sense, it is the feeling or experiencing of having done something that is occurring in the present that should have not occurred yet.
The Greek word for this feeling is paramnesia, however the French psychic Emile Boirac in a book first used the term Deja vu and the name of the book was L’Avenir des Sciences Psychiques. With a deep interest in psychic phenomenon his thoughts lied in the past with possible other life experiences and the experience that accompanies Deja vu the eerie feeling that is produced by the brain.
In 1955 there was a study done that is rather famous on Deja vu by Wilder Penfield where he found by electronically stimulating the temporal lobe approximately 8 percent of the people involved in the study experienced memories. Today debate goes on about whether this was actually Deja vu or if it was hallucinations because of the temporal lobe stimulation.
There have been formal studies done for this phenomenon and there have been up to 70 per cent of the people questioned that at one time or another had that uncanny feeling of having already been to a place or having already done something that they were about to do.
In some groups Deja vu is thought to be an illusion and nothing more while in other groups it is considered possible that the person had been in this place or done this thing and it is memory recall from another life and is a nourochemical action by the brain or in this life so many years earlier such as during early childhood that it creeps back from.
There is also the opinion of a Swiss scholar named Arthur Funhouser who feels that when a Deja vu experience is felt it should be noted to better study the subject. He has also coined some terms for this Deja vu such as Deja visit, in this it means already visited and Deja vecu that is for having already lived the experience at hand.
On the other side of this many psychoanalysts and psychiatrists feel that it is a simple case of mis matching in the brain that causes this uncanny feeling and as it occurs in the temporal lobe which is the same place that epileptic seizures occur in some patients the Deja vu experience will occur prior to seizure.
based on information from James Randi Educational Foundation - an educational resource on the paranormal, pseudoscientific, and the supernatural.
Posted: 27/04/2008
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