“Déjà vu” stands for “already seen” in French. This refers to a common phenomenon many experience that, just like its name, means to experience something you feel you have lived through before, in that specific situation, but without being able to identify what is actually happening.

If you’ve ever found yourself doing something and having the unsettling and strange sensation as if you have experienced it before, you are probably amongst the people who have experienced déjà vu. Research shows around 97% of people have experienced it at least once in their lives, whereas 67% of people experience it regularly. It only lasts a few seconds; the overwhelming sensation passes as quickly as it appeared.

The concept itself has been around for a long time. 1876 was when the French philosopher Émile Boirac came up with the term for it, and ever since then it has been studied by many, but science has yet to find the actual cause of it. Philosophers and scientists alike have been throwing theories around for a while, linking it to many disorders; neurologist Dr. Khoury MD for example says it is linked to stress, exhaustion, but might as well be a sign of “seizure disorders, migraines and disorders affecting the memory.” Sigmund Freud himself, the founder of psychoanalysis studied the concept of déjà vu and proposed it occurs when a person unexpectedly recalls an unconscious fantasy. The content of the fantasy is buried from awareness since it is unconscious, but the feeling of familiarity seeps through and causes the déjà vu feeling. Still, these are all theories and there hasn’t been a concrete conclusion of what a déjà vu is caused by.

Dr. Vernon Neppe said déjà vu was a “subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined past,” which practically means when experiencing a déjà vu, you have the impression that you are going through something that is most likely not possible for you . A few days ago, I experienced a déjà vu myself when I felt like someone who was talking to me had said the same thing to me before but that was just impossible since it was the first time meeting this person so there wasn’t even a possibility that it had happened and I had perhaps forgotten about it, this proved that a déjà vu regardless of making you feel like you have experienced it before, you most likely haven’t.

Déjà vu is something many experience and despite being linked to many disorders like the most common one linked with, temporal lobe epilepsy, it usually isn’t anything to worry about. Even though many studies have been made and we have found that it is most likely linked to the temporal region of the brain, the true origin of it is yet unknown.