It happens to nearly everyone: you have a moment where you feel as though you’ve witnessed the scene in front of you play out before. It’s like a That’s So Raven zoom-in moment, except instead of seeing the future, you’ve somehow revisited a sliver of time from your past. Some spiritualists argue that when we experience this phenomenon called déjà vu, we’re getting a flash from a former life. But science says it’s a glitch in our brain’s familiarity and memory centers. So, why do we get really déjà vu and what does experiencing it mean?
According to Adam Zeman, a clinical neurologist at the University of Exeter in the U.K., who spoke with Vice’s Tonic in April 2018, researchers have realized that there are different kinds of déjà vu, which literally translates to “already seen.”
In fact, one kind of déjà vu coincides with temporal lobe epilepsy. When a person with epilepsy experiences a bout of déjà vu, they know a seizure will soon follow.
Déjà vu is thought to be rooted in the perirhinal cortex, the portion of our brain that recognizes familiar things in our surroundings. Zeman said that epileptic déjà vu is most likely caused by an abnormal discharge of electricity in the peririhinal cortex. The hyperactivity causes a person to feel like they know what’s going on, even when that’s impossible.
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Unfortunately, why déjà vu occurs to healthy people is still considered a mystery. This is mainly because it’s incredibly hard to trigger the phenomenon and catch it while it’s happening in a clinical study. But that doesn’t mean neuroscientists don’t have their theories.
Some believe that déjà vu could actually be a mini seizure of the temporal lobe. Others — like neuroscientist and holistic wellness expert Leigh Winters, per Bustle — believe that déjà vu “occurs when you detect familiarity, stimulating the rhinal cortices, but don’t activate the hippocampus, which helps you recall more concrete memory details.”
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Most agree that whatever déjà vu really is, it’s most likely just a simple neurological glitch within our memory center, and for the most part, it’s harmless.
Of course, if you’re experiencing long bouts of déjà vu that are lasting more than a second or so, it’s definitely worth calling your doctor to make sure something serious isn’t affecting your brain.
Déjà vu will continue to mystify us until researchers find a way to trigger and record what’s going on inside our heads when it strikes. And only when that rock solid scientific evidence shows us that déjà vu is a simple brain malfunction will be believe we’re not retrieving memories from our past lives.
We just know we were a noble lady of high society at one point, so don’t rain on our parade!