Déjà vu: what is its hidden meaning?
Whenever the phenomenon of déjà vu occurs, we are left with a particularly strange feeling. We perceive as if we had already seen or experienced that precise moment or event in the past. That previously experienced event would have been like a premonition of the future, without having initially understood it. In reality, various factors come into play in the explanation of déjà vu, including in the dream world, in fact, various elements appear, some more common than others, which can recur in the form of reality.
What is a déjà vu?
Normally déjà vu is connected to an almost paranormal phenomenon, according to which a certain moment of life has already been experienced in the past or a certain place has already been visited. The French term of "déjà vu"means, in fact," already seen ", although some people recently" have renamed it "déjà véçu", or" already lived ". Whatever expression you want to give it, that of déjà vu essentially consists of a feeling of familiarity, which lasts a few seconds, but which seems to act as an intermediary to the past, present and future.
Déjà vu has always been a phenomenon that fascinates and intrigues, because it is enveloped by that "aura of mystery and the possibility of being able to fulfill one of man's greatest still unfulfilled desires, or to predict the future." Today, however, science has tried to debunk this experience of the human mind, trying to give more rational explanations on the possible meaning of déjà vu.
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The déjà vu and dreams
During the various researches on this phenomenon, it has often been linked to dreams. For some scholars, in fact, initially the déjà vu would have been nothing more than reminiscences of dreams. It certainly happens more than once in everyone's life to forget a dream made at night. The dream material that was lost in the unconscious would remain hidden in the deep memory and then recovered in an unexpected and sudden way in the form of déjà vu.
However, this connection has been shown to have no real scientific foundation. All this because the areas of the brain predisposed to these phenomena are different. The cerebral area where the electrical impulses that are at the origin of dreams occur is located at the base of the brainstem, in the so-called Varolio bridge. The part of the brain where the déjà vu would occur is, instead, that linked to cognitive activities, that is the cerebral cortex, already linked to faculties such as memory, learning and hearing.
What binds dreams and déjà vu would essentially be the set of sensations experienced in both cases. Each time they appear as an escape from reality and an intervention like the supernatural compared to the monotony of everyday life.
Déjà vu: what science says
So, if dreams cannot be the explanation of the phenomenon of déjà vu, what is the conclusion reached by the scientific community? The first studies carried out were of the psychoanalytical type, that is a branch between the psychological study and science itself. For example, Freud had already spoken of déjà vu, considering them as the phenomenon that brought repressed desires and impulses or repressed memories back into reality. According to this theory, the feeling of familiarity that people with déjà vu feel during this experience could have been explained in this way.
Today, however, although science has not reached a precise conclusion, it has nevertheless clarified this episode of the mind. The déjà vu would be the result of the overlap between long-term and short-term memory. When this happens, a brief cerebral epilepsy ensues, which affects the nervous system. Thus, for a few moments, the memory recovery mechanism is damaged.
Therefore, it would be a brief epilepsy in the brain that would cause that strange sense of "eternal return". So, yes, that moment has already been experienced, that place has already been visited and that "image or that something has already been seen, but exactly a moment before the fateful déjà vu. It is a recent memory that for a black out of the brain was unknowingly removed and then resubmitted.
What is the real meaning of déjà vu?
“The deja-vu is very different from a surprise that we quickly dismiss because we find it meaningless. It shows us that time does not pass. It is a return to a situation that has already been truly experienced and which, at that moment, is identical again ».
Paulo Coelho
As far as this quote is from the novel Adeph by Paulo Coelho is certainly fascinating, we must take note of how any supernatural element or characteristic does not intervene in any way in the phenomenon of déjà vu. It is interesting to note that for years this experience of the human mind was condemned by Christian culture because it would have postponed the possibility of reincarnation and, therefore, would have gone against the thesis of eternal life.
Although the myth has been dispelled in this way, déjà vu remains an intriguing phenomenon in the collective imagination, especially as it recalls the possible evasion of common patterns. Thinking that you have already seen something and feeling that sense of strange familiarity partly fulfills that all-human desire for mystery and magic, which shuns the banal everyday life.
