If we are faced with similar situations as seen in our dreams the feeling of déjà vu may appear.

Often people say their deja vu repeats their dreams. Strong correlation is stated between the ability to remember dreams and experiencing deja vu. Those who travel frequently often experience deja vu. The exception is rather low incidence of déjà vu in teenagers.įrequency of déjà vu increases with increasing number of education years (9 years of education – 20% of respondents have experienced deja vu, 9-12 years- 44%, 13 years – 50%) Healthy people often have deja vu experience in the evening in the company of others, while listening to someone, being tired after uneasy non-pleasant mental activity, physical stress or excessive alcohol consumption.įrequency of deja vu decreases with age. The same “picture” may be repeated from attack to attack, and also accompanied by changes in emotions and thoughts of the patient (there’s no time for this to happen in case of healthy person). In the case of patients with epilepsy, a sense of deja vu often precedes seizures and also differs in duration from a sense of deja vu of healthy people (minutes rather than seconds). Patients with schizophrenia often experience depersonalization and prolonged deja vu. In addition, it is very difficult to determine whether experience of patients with schizophrenia sensations correlate with those of healthy person. Patients with schizophrenia and epilepsy experience higher frequency of deja vu. Earlier psychologists interpreted the phenomenon of deja vu as a disease, an illusion or hallucination of memory. In addition, often a sense of deja vu dominates the other senses, reality seemingly doubles.ĭéjà vu comes from French and literally means “already seen”. It’s complicated to gather information on deja vu because it’s hard to recall the details of a short experience that took place perhaps months and years ago. But despite its prevalence, surprisingly little data is gathered about the physiological nature of the déjà vu phenomenon. Déjà vu is an apparent similarity of the current situation to something in the indefinite past. Nearly two-thirds of all people experience deja vu at least once in a lifetime.

Deja vu theory meaning