Déjà Vu

The French phrase déjà vu is literally translated “already seen” or, less precisely, “already experienced.” It refers to the uncanny sensation caused by an experience in the present that appears strikingly familiar to an experience from a vaguely defined past. The present feels as though it is being remembered. Often, déjà vu is used synonymously with paramnesia; however, there are terms for varieties of paramnesia having to do with other senses and similar sensations.

Explanations of experience similar to déjà vu arose in occultist and parapsychological circles prior to properly scientific investigation, and authors as far back as Pythagoras and Aristotle in ancient Greece examined the phenomenon. Such [Page 283]theories as hereditary transmission of experience, telepathy, precognition, or reincarnation were popular accounts of the sense of time transcendence experienced during déjà vu.

References to and descriptions of the déjà vu phenomenon have appeared frequently in fiction since the early 19th century, and it was first discussed in scientific literature of the late 19th century. Credit for coining the term is often attributed to Emile Boirac in a letter to the editor of Revue Philosophique (1876); however, some note that the topic was discussed by name as early as Arthur Ladbroke Wigan's The Duality of the Mind (1844).

With the rise of the Freudian psychodynamic perspective in psychology, many began hypothesizing that déjà vu is the result of remembering an unconscious wish, blurring of the boundary between one's self and external environment, or the rousing of a repressed memory. Gestalt psychologists believed déjà vu to be caused by structural familiarity of a past experience—lived, dreamed, read, or imagined—to the experience in which the déjà vu occurred.

As scientists found methods for examining the brain, their explanations moved farther away from phenomenological descriptions. The main causes purported in this community became epilepsy, temporal lobe abnormalities, and time lag between brain hemispheres or cognitive processes.

The development of even more advanced research methods in cognitive and biological psychology has sparked a resurgence of interest among those favoring these explanations. Often, contemporary theorists suggest that an adequate account of déjà vu must rely on an eclectic combination of these causes. Different causes might explain different experiences, for example, auditory or visual, and possibly even different occurrences of the same experience.

Social, cultural, and media studies theorists have also taken up interest in this topic today. Under the influence of psychodynamic theory's resurgence in continental philosophy and postmodernism, this literature may be seen as part of a broader interest in the study of culture and memory.