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What Is Déjà Vu and Why Does it Happen? (2013)
- groundhogday1 10y agoMaybe i'm grossly oversimplifying this, but wouldn't it be easy to have participants in a study wear an EEG cap (maybe some work needed to put it in a fashionable form) and keep a X-second sliding window of data? They could then use a smartwatch or something similar to notify the system "hey! i just experienced deja vu!" The EEG data could then be passed back to neurologists so that markers might be identified.
- lawpoop 10y agoEEG doesn't really show that much about what's going on inside the brain. You are going to want an fMRI for that. Someone once compared an EEG to holding a stethoscope up to the outside wall of a factory, to get an indication of level of activity. It doesn't tell you much other than this person is awake, asleep, having a seizure, etc.
- groundhogday1 10y agoI don't know much about this type of technology, but I'm assuming that in it's current state, fMRI machines can't be compacted to the point where it is comfortable to wear on a daily basis. I know that in their current state, MRI machines are huge and cost exorbitant amounts of money. Is there any other emerging tech that might allow users to go about their daily lives while capturing brain activity at a resolution that's useful to neuro-scientists?
- lawpoop 10y agoPresently no, unfortunately :( If we did that would be a huge breakthrough, for more than just deja-vu research ;)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dfsegoat 10y agoYou are also assuming that the brain is the origin of consciousness as we know it. And not just a "reducing engine" for an external "signal" - as Aldous Huxley suggests in his Mind at Large concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_at_Large https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_at_Large While I don't subscribe to it personally based on available evidence - it is a very interesting concept.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoSounds like such experiment could provide evidence in favour or against this theory.
- tombert 10y agoJust to avoid possible shitposting, you might want to put a (2013) in the title.
- teh_klev 10y ago"shitposting"...really? Asking for (2013) on the end of the title would have been sufficient.
- tombert 10y agoI was relatively certain that the term "shitposting" was more or less the official term for posting BS comments on the internet. I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, as that wasn't my intention.
- teh_klev 10y agoIt's not about offence, I like to think HN can live without that kind of low brow smacktalk.
- bostonpete 10y agoHere, here -- keep the smacktalk highbrow!
- crooked-v 10y agoIt's "hear, hear", you pulchritudinous litterateur.
- bostonpete 10y agoDoh!
- tombert 10y agoFirst off, it's not "smacktalk", because I wasn't insulting anyone. I was warning the person who posted the article that smacktalk, or "shitposting" as I referred to it, might happen if you don't put a "(2013)" at the end. Second off, I apologized for offending you, and despite you denying it, it clearly was offensive to you since you called it "low brow". But I've learned my lesson; I'm getting enough downvotes now, I'm glad that the community has decided that certain words aren't allowed.
- dlsx 10y agoDeja-vu is a psychic occurrence. Psychic abilities are real, science does not understand consciousness. Another article where science clearly using it's "science" has no science to prove. Because there is no science to an unknown field, a field that mainstream science does not touch.
- sanatgersappa 10y agoIt happens when they're resetting the Matrix.
- ronilan 10y agoNaaa. Everyone knows the movie is a veil that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Déjà Vu is in fact a side effect of being flashed by MiB.
- estrabd 10y agoI have had a situation where I had what was I thought deja vu, only to realize that I accurately "knew" what was about to transpire for at least 1 minute after. I've had regular deja vu before, and this was not it. I was interacting with another individual, so I don't think I was having a weird seizure or was mentally detached in any way. It was not a lucid dream either.
- funkyy 10y agoSame here. I sometimes dream about situations, conversation with people I do not know to have it re-happen 1-2 years later. The dreams are extremely realistic and very specific. They happen only ~once a year. They are very strong so whenever I have one I wake up and remember it. When Deja Vu happens, its usually a bit longer than few seconds and I know it is happening and I know what will happen next and I dont feel like changing it for some reason. I changed it once, and I felt bad since I wasnt sure if I should.
- MrBuddyCasino 10y agoAnd here I thought this only happened to me. I have sometimes dreams of very specific conversations with someone else, and then days or weeks later it happens. I'm sure its just an interesting psychological phenomenon, but still.
- bhavvik 10y agoi've had similar experiences before as well.
- shock 10y agoHow would a psychological phenomenon work in this case? Do you mean that you unconsciously act out the dream in real life?
- jshevek 10y agoYes, that is one possibility. Another is that the dream and actual events do not match as closely as you believe. Your memory of the dream is rewritten, after the fact, to more closely match what actually happens.
- sdegutis 10y agoMy wife and I constantly have deja vu, like once or twice a month. What's strange about ours is that it always comes with a vert intense feeling of impending doom. Every single time. It's been happening to us for years. Being religious as we are, we have our suspicions that there's something more at play here, some nefarious invisible cause. Or maybe it's just some wires in the brain acting up. We don't really know, and it doesn't really matter, since the only thing to do about it whenever it happens is, well, nothing.
- tsunamifury 10y agoThis can be a mild anxiety attack which significantly messes with your ability to remember and correlate events.
- georgehaake 10y agoI have wondered if Deja Vu is dream related. A crossing of the experiential pools if you will.
- garbage_stain 10y agoI feel like I've read this article before.
- gkya 10y agoIs there any data on in what contexts and situations does dejavu occur more often?
- Cozumel 10y agoIf there are parallel universes and some of them are slightly ahead of us in time, if something happens in one of those of sufficient emotional intensity it could get 'broadcast' to the other universes, so it has already happened just in another universe. That's just some random very unscientific thoughts!
- b3h3moth 10y agoI have to say. "déjà vu" is a great compression technology for digital documents. I love it.
- lalunia 10y agoThis ought to be periodically re-posted!
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y agoI thought it already had been.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 10y agoWhat an odd coincidence that I just experienced Deja Vu this morning. I was a having a conversation with my wife, and about two sentences in I was able to predict the next three, because this exact conversation had happened to us in one of me dreams month ago. I was a mundane conversation about her preparing to go out with our child. But it isn't something that would be "normal" because she was meeting with a very specific friend, which was part of my recall of the event.
- sdegutis 10y agoBut how certain are you that you were able to predict the next three? Did you stop her from saying them and write it down, and let her continue (without letting her see what you wrote down or watching you write it down)? If not, then you may just have been listening along with her and misinterpreted your own thoughts as having "knew ahead of time" what she was going to say, when all you were actually doing is simply comprehending it. It's a very real possibility unless completely ruled out like this.
- gilrain 10y ago"There is Something Deeper to this phenomenon where our notoriously unreliable memories play a spookier, more immediate trick on us than usual. How do I know? Well, it happens to me sometimes, and _my_ memory is accurate and unclouded." I also have memories of deja vu experiences that would seem to eliminate false memory as a possible cause. Most of us do, which is why the phenomenon is at all remarkable and not just called "being mistaken". It is impossible to know the future.
- chopin 10y ago>It is impossible to know the future. That's not entirely true. If that where the case you couldn't play tennis or do any other physical task. In some sense, your brain is a "prediction machine" at least for short term physical events.
- DougN7 10y ago> It is impossible to know the future. Right up until it isn't. We're surrounded by things that were impossible, but aren't any more.