We explain what a déjà vu and what is the meaning of this term. Furthermore, the types of déjà vu that a person can experience.
What is a déjà vu?
Is called déjà vu (a term taken from French and meaning “already seen” or “previously seen”) to a mild memory disturbance (recognition paramnesia) that produces the feeling that a situation has been experienced before. That is, it is what we feel when we believe that we have witnessed or previously experienced a certain situation that, in reality, is new.
The term déjà vu It began to be used in this specific sense following the studies of Émile Boirac (1851-1917), a French psychic philosopher who used it for the first time in his book The future of psychic sciences.
It was later used by psychologists such as Edward B. Titchener, who explained it as a quick impression that someone has regarding a situation experienced which is experienced before the brain can consciously “process” the information, creating a false sense of familiarity.
In general terms, the experience of déjà vu It is usually brief and fades after a few moments accompanied by a feeling of strangeness or awe. In some cases, the person experiencing it attributes the sensation of a “previous” experience to a dream, which would lead to thinking about some type of premonition.
However, scientific approaches reject the traditional idea that a déjà vu It is part of a prophecy or spiritual message that suddenly becomes conscious. On the contrary, they understand it as an anomaly in the functioning of the psychic machinery of memory.
This argument is based on the fact that every time a person experiences this sensation, The detailed information about that “memory” is usually quite uncertain ; People are not usually able to decipher where, when and how this event occurred. After a while, the person will not be able to describe what caused the déjà vu.
The experience of déjà vu It is tremendously common: two-thirds of the world's population say they have experienced it, according to formal studies.
Types of déjà vu
According to Arthur Funkhouser (1996), there are three types of déjà vu:
- Déjà vécu When people talk about déjà vuusually refers to this first type, whose name translates “already lived.” It normally occurs between the ages of 15 and 25 and is usually linked to minimal, banal events, around which a series of sensations are woven, producing the conviction that this had already been experienced before.
- Let me feel It is distinguished from the first case in that it is something merely sensory: its name translates “already felt.” It occurs exclusively around mental events and is of an internal, ephemeral nature, since it is not usually communicable nor does it last in consciousness. It is very common in epileptic patients.
- Let me visit Its name translates “already visited” and obviously implies a reaction to a place that is known for the first time, but one has the feeling of having already been there before. Many people therefore link it to the belief in reincarnation and previous lives, if not astral travel during sleep. The psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung describes a case of let me visit in his text “On synchronicity”, explaining that it may be a defensive resource of the psyche, which induces a feeling of familiarity to calm anguish.
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