The Unexplained

Visual Citation Wells et al.: Persistent psychogenic déjà vu: a case report. Journal of Medical Case Reports 2014 8:414. Summary This case report provides a case study about a young man with anxiety and depersonalisation who reports persistent déjà vu. This case of a 23-year-old White British man dates back to 2007 when he first started to experience symptoms of anxiety and also experience of intense déjà vu. He took LSD once and from then on the déjà vu became consistent. He was referred to specialists and was diagnosed with depersonalization, so he was prescribed medications. His persistent déjà vu caused him to stray away from television, listening to the radio, and reading papers and magazines. In October 2009, they tested his performance on recognition memory. In this study, they had a control group that had a normal range for depression and stress. Out of the 11 males in the study, only 8 have heard of déjà vu and out of those 8, only 3 have experienced it in the past...

Working or Tentative Title: Déjà Vu vs. The Unconcious Mind  Topic Description I will explore the déjà vu phenomenon and its links to dreams and the unconscious mind. Déjà vu has been studied by psychologists for many years and clearly has to deal with the brain, specifically the temporal lobe which encloses memories. There are other elements to the déjà vu phenomenon that deal with the mind such as our dreams, our unconscious mind, and false memories that our mind has tricked us into believing we have experienced. Through studies and real-life experiences, it can be seen that déjà vu has ties to the mind and quite possibly could have a negative effect on us. Déjà vu has been linked to neurological and psychological disorders such as schizophrenia and anxiety, and could possibly even worsen due to déjà vu. To most people déjà vu is just a weird feeling that relates to something you have seen or done. For example, if you rake leaves today and a month later you play ice hockey and e...

  Visual Citation Brown, A. S. (2004). The Déjà Vu Experience . New York, NY: Psychology Press. Summary The Déjà Vu Experience provides a general background of the déjà vu phenomenon and clarifies why people experience déjà vu. The book focuses on parts of the brain while discussing cognition and neurophysiology. The book also includes different experiments and cases regarding déjà vu.  Author Alan S. Brown is a Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Brown’s main research includes the identification of early antecedents for schizophrenia, autism, and bipolar disorder. His research focuses on the brain and how the brain functions which allows him to understand the déjà vu phenomenon. Key Terms One key term I found is “unconscious” which relates to the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind holds unpleasant feelings such as anxiety, pain, and ...

Some questions I thought of while looking through different articles and scholarly sources. Almost every person has experienced déjà vu, but not many people look into the truth behind it. Why does déjà vu happen and what is the true meaning behind it?  Is it our mind falsely creating memories and tricking us into thinking we have already been through this experience?  Why does déjà vu happen more to specific groups of people? Why does déjà vu include feelings of postdictive bias and not just predictive bias?  Can you stop yourself from experiencing déjà vu? If so, how can you stop yourself from experiencing  déjà vu? Scholarly Sources: Cleary AM, Claxton AB. Déjà Vu: An Illusion of Prediction. Psychological science . 2018;29(4):635-644.      doi:10.1177/0956797617743018 Cleary AM, Huebert AM, McNeely-White KL, Spahr KS. A postdictive bias associated with déjà vu. Psychonomic bulletin & review . 2019;26(4):1433-1439. doi:10.3758/s13423-019-01578-w C...

Out of the many topics I wrote about in my last blog post, I’ve decided to pick déjà vu. With déjà vu I feel like I can go in depth with the psychology behind it and also since déjà vu is such a well known topic that many people have experienced, it would be cool to be able to tell people about why this happens to us. Some key terms that can be associated with déjà vu are memory, false memories, and psychology. The term “déjà vu” is french for “already seen” so the term memory fits into this phenomenon by acting as if we have already been through a certain event, but possibly our memory was not good enough to realize this. False memories was an interesting term to me and definitely a term I want to focus more on because it takes a different approach by stating that we are creating these false memories and acting as if it is our memory. We sort of trick our minds into thinking we have been through a certain event already, but we’re not exactly sure how which leaves us with this confusin...