The Explanation of Deja Vu?

[zeon23445]

Hi,

 

I just had a question in my mind, What creates Deja Vu? We we know a couple things. Many have speculated different theories on the subject (e.g, There's a delay in data modelling images from 1 eye to thr next giving a 'Memory' type feeling of what your seeing).

 

But not all of the Daja Vu can really be explained. Michio Kaku even has his own theory here:

 

 

My hypothesis: The Brains attempt to succesfully make a datamodel of the future (Much like when someone makes a data model of a pants color, and they expect to see that color again when they see the pants)

 

When the brain makes a succesful data model of a image, the Designer (Beholder) typically remembers the image when they look away, and is attracted to the image upon looking back bcause the brain recognises it.

 

So Deja vu (According to my hypothesis) is the data model of a succesful Prediction.

 

How did I experiment? Well, I imagined me in the 4Th dimension (Time as some speculate). Everywhere I go, and any way I move, is 1 merged object in the 4Th dimension. So I imagined that object, it was eveywhere in my home.

 

So using the same concept of creating a datamodel of a sight, I thought of past places ide be, and then made a prediction of a 4D Object that shows the future path of my body movements. I imagined about 20 hours ahead of my time, and sought back 24 hours before the current time, to give me a good datamodel to predict on.

 

Sure enough, as soon as I did a couple tasks (walk to my fridge, ate pudding, then walked into my living room) I had a major wave of Deja vu. Where then, I realizes I spent more time in the living room then I predicted, and went to the computer.

 

Conclusion? I can't possible have a conclusion cause I'm the only test subject. (Although I'll be experimentating for the next weeks to come) I would like to know what you guys think, and if any of you are willing to help give reslults by doing experiments of your own.

[iNow]

Most likely an encoding error when short term memories are being potentiated into long-term memories and their "label" or "tag" has a faulty "timestamp."

[PureGenius]

I think deja vu is very hard to explain because in the past I have had the experience so intensely I knew what everyone in a room would say before they said it . A few times I actually altered my own responses just to see what might happen , it never seemed to change the scenario . Also your idea is interesting, controllable deja vu now that is original .

[iNow]

Due to the effects on temporal perception when smoking pot, cannabis users tend to "experience" deja vu much more frequently than non-users IINM.

[arc]

Due to the effects on temporal perception when smoking pot, cannabis users tend to "experience" deja vu much more frequently than non-users IINM.

 

I knew you were going to say that before you said it.

[iNow]

Clever.

 

But let's be pedantic for a moment and use this as a teachable moment. Let's assume you really did think you "knew someone was going to say that." You may have suspected a high probability that this feedback would be given due to your past experiences and what we colloquially call "intuition," but you hardly "knew" it was going to be said. The fact that it was said and you had an "aha! I knew it!" type reaction only shows our tendency toward confirmation bias... To over-represent those situations that affirm our preconceptions and to more easily ignore or forget about those situations that contradict it. In other words, had nobody made the comment, you would not likely have realized or acknowledged the fact that your intuition was wrong and misguided in this situation.

Edited August 8, 2013 by iNow

[Nouveau]

Confirmation bias does certainly seem to make us place greater importance on particular events if we thinking about them prior to there really taking place in the manner we may have felt most likely. If we equate it to making multiple predictions and then being amazed that some of them came true it highlights just how exaggerated such reactions are. We simply tend to ignore the negative results as if they had never occured and as such the possitive results can seem miraculous.

 

Let's just consider for a moment what deja vu is, pretty much most of us will have experienced it at some stage. It feels like you can be in 2 minds at the same time, one where you have this sense of memory, yet not actually a memory, of having done something before. Whilst also the other mind is telling you haven't done this before. Certainly a strange feeling going on here, but perhaps that is the key to this particular experience. Perhaps it is all about feeling and little or nothing to do with memory or any form of precognition. Deja vu is always described in wooly terms, it's not an easy experience to clearly recall because it tends to be more of a sense of feeling without any real focus or sharpness of clarity.

 

Could one explanation be that deja vu is simply a kind of emotional memory, a series of emotions that the mind has previously experienced in combination and remembered that particular state, then when this unique emotional state is once again encountered it triggers the memory. It would be logical to conclude that if this is the case then other external information about a situation is less relevant. This could certainly mean that anybody would be capable of achieving this type of emotional memory even in unfamiliar circumstances creating this strange kind of paradoxical state of a unique situation and yet still a sense of memory.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Nouveau

[iNow]

I suppose it "could" be just about anything, but I find the explanation of a memory encoding error to be the most satisfying, myself.

 

http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2013/01/10/why_does_deja_vu_happen_106435.html

[Nouveau]

That's certainly a possibility, it seems there are several researchers who seem to favour that particular hypothesis.

 

Just out of interest on the subject there was an interesting article, from a few years ago now, that seems to run along similar lines you may be interested in. It contends that deja vu occurs due to a discrepancy in memory systems leading to the inappropriate generation of a detailed memory from a new sensory experience.

 

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=101580&RelatedWidgetArticles=true

Edited August 9, 2013 by Nouveau

[iNow]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. That definitely aligns well with my current thinking on this subject.

[iNow]

A nice short 4 minute video from TED on some of the more meritorious explanations:

 

[WWLabRat]

Unfortunately YouTube is blocked, so at the moment I'm unable to watch either video. However, I have read extensively over the years on this phenomenon and I have to agree with iNow. It would seem that this happens when your brain mistakes new data coming in as being retrieved from memory. Unfortunately, it's difficult to test this, since it appears to happen mostly at random, unexpected, times. And in regards to the "I knew it!" moments, if you know a person and know how they generally will react to various things, it's easier to have those moments, so it's a false positive.

 

In response to OP's experiment, that I know of, the brain only tries to "predict" the future during times of high stress (ie. being attacked, moments of high adrenaline, sports, etc) to allow the mind to take in as many details as possible to make subconscious calculations to figure out the best possible reaction. Deja vu could, possibly, just be an extension of this. When going to a new place the brain is trying to know everything there is to know to aid survival. Being that I was in the military, this is something that I actively trained my mind to do and I find myself doing when going over to a person's house for the first time. Granted my doing it has always been to find every possible entrance/ext and if it's a shady place to begin with, what can be used as weaponry if needed. I know I seem paranoid by saying that, but that's the way I was trained.

[arc]

 

In response to OP's experiment, that I know of, the brain only tries to "predict" the future during times of high stress (ie. being attacked, moments of high adrenaline, sports, etc) to allow the mind to take in as many details as possible to make subconscious calculations to figure out the best possible reaction. Deja vu could, possibly, just be an extension of this. When going to a new place the brain is trying to know everything there is to know to aid survival. Being that I was in the military, this is something that I actively trained my mind to do and I find myself doing when going over to a person's house for the first time. Granted my doing it has always been to find every possible entrance/ext and if it's a shady place to begin with, what can be used as weaponry if needed. I know I seem paranoid by saying that, but that's the way I was trained.

 

There was a time tens of hundreds of thousands of years ago when all those that we would call are human ancestors behaved instinctively exactly the way you were trained to respond.

 

Or was it always there, subconsciously, in a sort of evolutionary deja vu

Edited September 10, 2013 by arc

[WWLabRat]

The difference though is that my daily survival doesn't depend on such base instincts in the same way as they would have eons ago. I don't have to constantly be on alert for large predators, war with a neighboring village, or anything else. Only thing I have to watch out for is the person texting and driving while on my daily commute to work each day. Following these base instincts likely (speculating here) was a "second nature" type thing. Their reaction time to hazardous stimuli could have been faster than ours due to more regular use of their adrenals.

[PureGenius]

The brain is capable of seeing the future it's really a quantum information overlap , the space time complex is directly influenced by emotional energy, the exact mechanism for this is unknown but there have been some interesting studies done on layers of memory based on situational response ie extreme emotional distress.

[iNow]

The brain is capable of seeing the future it's really a quantum information overlap , the space time complex is directly influenced by emotional energy, the exact mechanism for this is unknown but there have been some interesting studies done on layers of memory based on situational response ie extreme emotional distress.

[Citation Needed]