Deja vu is a mental state in which a person thinks that he has already been in a similar situation. But this feeling is not associated with any specific moment in the past. Let's figure out what this phenomenon is and why the déjà vu effect occurs.
What is deja vu
The state of déjà vu is somewhat like re-reading a book you have already read or watching a movie that you have already watched but completely forgot the plot. At the same time, it is impossible to remember what will happen in the next minute.
Deja vu is quite common. Studies have shown that 97% of all healthy people have experienced this condition at least once in their life. People with epilepsy experience it more often. It cannot be caused artificially, and by itself it appears extremely rarely. Therefore, scientific research on the effect of déjà vu is very difficult to conduct.
Déjà vu reasons
A possible reason for the phenomenon lies in the change in the way the brain encodes time. It is easier to imagine the process as a one-time encoding of information as "past" and "present" with the simultaneous experience of these processes. Because of this, detachment from reality can be felt.
There is a work on this topic called "The Phenomenon of Deja Vu", its author is Andrei Kurgan. Studies of the structure of time in a state of déjà vu lead the scientist to the conclusion that the reason for experiencing a phenomenon is the layering of two situations on top of each other: experienced in the present and once experienced in a dream. The condition of layering is a change in the structure of time, when the future intrudes into the present, revealing its existential deep project. At the same time, the present is, as it were, "stretched", accommodating both the future and the past.
Conclusion
Today, the most reasonable assumption of the occurrence of the effect of déjà vu is to trigger this feeling by unconscious processing of information in a dream. That is, when a person encounters in reality a situation that is close to a real event and was modeled by the brain at an unconscious level, then the déjà vu effect arises.
