Sunday, July 15, 2018

Déjà Vu

Image result for deja vu meme
“Déjà Vu” is a French term that translates to “already seen”. It was coined by French scientist Emile Boirac in 1876. It is a period of 5-30 seconds where the person has a sense that they know what is going to happen next or that they have already experienced the current moment in time. This phenomenon has yet to be studied in depth due to it occurring so sporadically and unannounced. This has led to many wild theories about what causes it. Some people believe that those who experience déjà vu are more in tune with their ESP (extrasensory perception) abilities. Some say that this phenomenon is due to having live this life once before, and the déjà vu feeling is due just some remnants of memories left from that. The most widely accepted theory is one created by Robert Efron in 1963 and is referred to as “dual processing”, or “delayed vision”. This theory takes into account the way our brain processes information. He believed that if the time between when the brain receives information and it is processed is delayed longer than normal (milliseconds), this will result in the information receiving the wrong “timestamp” and will register as a previous memory rather than something currently happening. There is a lot more involved than that but that is the general idea of what he believed. 

If you’re interested in reading more in depth about Robert Efron’s theory, he wrote a scientific article titled TEMPORAL PERCEPTION, APHASIA AND DÉJÀ VU.


  1. I experience Deja Vu quite often so it was quite interesting to learn a little about the origin of the theory. I also quite enjoy your meme use.

  2. Hi Cameron,
    Deja Vu is super interesting. I think just about everyone has experienced it. sometimes its crazy because you know whats going to happen before it even does.. Its almost like predicting the future for 30 seconds. I never knew to much about it until I read your post, I will defiantly look into what Robert Efron said about it because it seems like a mind blowing read.

  3. Hey Cameron,

    Deja Vu has always been a really weird idea to me, sometimes I think I might've experience it and then sometimes I just think maybe my life is routined enough that it seems like I am doing something I had already done. The dual processing idea I hadn't thought of, but that is an interesting idea, that our brain could be delayed and that is why we feel deja vu. Interesting topic!

  4. I definitely believe in and experience deja vu! I can't seem to explain it in the moment but I know that I have been in the place or had that conversation previously. I look at experiencing deja vu as a good thing because it means that I am on the right track in my life, but hey, that's just me!