Déjà Vu

Dr. Sarfaraz K Niazi (e-mail: niazi@niazi.com)

We wake from one dream into another dream. EMERSON (1860). Illusions.

I know I've been here before but I also know I couldn't possibly have been. This is déjà vuthe experience that one has witnessed some new situation or experienced a new episode on a previous occasion and this perception is accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity. Literally, "already seen," déjà vu happens to all of us, all the time; when it is overwhelming, we remember it and relate it with great amazement because it leaves us with a conviction that perhaps we knew what was about to come.

Historically, déjà vu has been associated with supernatural or psychologic mystique. Most commonly, it is considered the "sixth sense," recalling a previous event, likely "revealed" or having dreamt through prophetic abilities or perhaps having lived a previous life or even having seen it through the eyes of someone else.

An antithesis to déjà vu would be knowing that we have met an individual before but can't "place" him, can't remember his name. The problem in explaining the reasons for déjà vu comes not from the experience itself but from the strong feeling attached to it as it unfolds before our eyes making us believe that we know what is about to come. When we can't recall someone's name or face in different circumstances, we call it a loss of memory; when we recall too much, it becomes déjà vu. The first one we easily accept, the second one we refuse to believe.

The scientific explanation based on the electrical conductivity theory of physics now tells us what déjà vu is all about. All of our experiences, whether visiting a new place, meeting a new person or performing a new ritual have in common some elements of our previous experiences. We all know what a street or the color of sunset looks like. The images gathered over our life-timeer distortions and not the original event. Done enough times, the images become distorted and "fluid," taking on a generic look which are much easier to fit to any new image situation.

The electrical signals from the eye when we see something new are transmitted to the brain, which begins to pool all previous images stored in the memory to tell us if we need to worry about the new image-an automatic survival response. To accomplish this, our brain first scans the more clear images and then digs out the fuzzier or generic images. Ordinarily, the time response between the visual and the recognition centers is so fast that only the most clear images are scanned but if a delay occurs in the synchronous response between the visual and interpretive centers, the fuzzy images start to contribute to the matching of what we are seeing and what we may have seen in the past. The fuzzier images are loosely fitted to what we are seeing leaving us with an amorphous feel of the situation. It is this amorphous nature that forces us to believe that we certainly haven't seen it but are familiar with it. Run continuously, like a cinematography celluloid, we start to predict the events as they unfold before us

We need not match all objects in our vision to get the feeling of familiarity, only a critical number is sufficient. This critical number varies among individuals and determines our susceptibility to déjà vu. The feeling of déjà vu is accentuated in situations where the synchronization between the visual and the interpretive centers is upset such as in the state of excitement when tired and traveling, when most people seem to report experiences of déjà vu. In many diseases of the brain such as epilepsy or where the brain recognition centers are affected, more frequent or even continuous déjà vu experiences are recorded.

Déjà vu is a complex response of the brain to stress when electrical connections get subdued taking more time to recall than there is need to. It is surprising that we experience déjà vu so infrequently given the infinite number of images stored in our brain, from which the brain can just about synthesize any situation to give us a feeling that we have been here before. Many rituals, physical or emotional, bring the brain to a state of trance where the impulses going from the recognition center are substantially delayed giving us a feeling of prolonged déjà vu

It is a shame that such warm titillating beliefs as the "sixth sense," being reincarnated, being in communication with a soul or medium or having prophetic abilities had to succumb to the cold principles of physics.

Somehow I have got this eerie feeling that I have written this book before.