HAVE you ever been chatting with friends or walking through a place and suddenly a feeling hits you: you’ve experienced this exact moment before. You become more aware of what is happening, but within a matter of seconds, the sensation disappears. You are experiencing a Déjà vu – a French term that literally translates to “already seen”, it is said to be experienced by 60-70% of people.
Recent research has shown that this phenomenon takes place in the medial temporal
lobe – the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory including facts, events,
memory formation (hippocampus)and emotion (amygdala). Other studies describe the
mechanism of the sensation as a “mix up” between old and new experiences which may be triggered by a familiar song, smell or face.
We have strong feelings about the connection, which we perceive as déjà vu. The cause of this phenomena remains a mystery.
