Remembrance

Have you ever met someone for the first time and you couldn't explain it, but it felt like you'd seen them somewhere before? I have, and it is one of the strangest things ever. Not only because I keep staring at them to try and figure out where I've seen them, but because I start going through all my memories to try and recollect one that will explain this feeling of familiarity. I used to think I was just crazy and that stuff like this didn't really happen to anyone else, but I was wrong. As time went on I started telling all my friends about this and they would tell me about similar experiences they had had in the past. I saw a connection, so it is when I began to realize it could be related to déjà vu. The sense of seeing someone before is so similar to that of having done something before. There is a connection between the two and knowing this put my mind a bit at ease. So now that I run into a stranger at my favorite breakfast place and feel like I know them from somewhere else, I'll know it's normal and I'm not just going out of my mind.

Move In Day

It may sound weird, but my first day of college when I moved into my new dorm I had a sense of déjà vu. As I approached my room I began to feel like it had all happened before: the moving in, opening the room door for the first time, the unpacking. I knew this could not be true because I had never been in this hall before or even seen pictures before move in day, so I just shook the feeling off, but I knew it wasn't just going to go away. I kept reliving it all day and I remembered that I had learned that déjà vu has to do with a memory similar to the one your experiencing. I believed this to be true until that moment when this occurred and I was sure I had no memory of a dorm hall before. This made me even more intrigued by this idea of déjà vu there wasn't really anything that I could do to find an actual answer so I ended up letting it go, that is until it happened again... 

Truth or Speculation?

So I did a little interview. It was to a future psychologist named Ernesto. We talked about why déjà vu occurred and his answer was, "I think it’s all in your mind, you see something and you can’t forget about it, so later on if you see something remotely similar you feel a sense of déjà vu because the event, indeed, has occurred to you before" (Mejia). This is one of the things I had already researched before and so it made sense that he thought the same way. He went on to elaborate that if the event hadn't occurred then there wouldn't really be a sense of déjà vu or so that was his opinion. I also ended up having him ask his grandmother a few questions for the purpose of finding out if age actually had to do with how much you experienced déjà vu. He then explained that she’s 62 and said she has experienced déjà vu in the past, but not in a while. She said she couldn’t really remember when was the last time she had the experience. This helped me prove that Lewis' ideas were correct and memory did affect the recurrence of déjà vu. As you get older your memory gets a bit more foggy so that begins to affect it and in the long run you may end up not having the experience at all. This can be very unlikely, but there have been times it has occurred.

Jordan Gaines Lewis, Ph.D. “Why Do Some of Us Get Déjà vu More Often Than Others?”

VVVVPsychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 13 October 2015,

VVVVhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201510/why-do-some-us-get-d-j-VVVVvu-more-often-others. Accessed 17 September 2017.

Mejia, Ernesto A. Personal interview. 27 September 2017.

Part One

Every other day it happens again. There’s a glimpse of the past or the future, it all depends on a matter or perspective. It's something inevitable. One day you’re walking down the street and suddenly you get a sense of familiarity. It seems like you have lived through it before. There’s really no clear explanation. I said I would look into this and I did, and what I found out is quite interesting. Over time scientists have tried to find a way to explain why this occurs, but none have come to an agreement. Some say it has to do with one’s memory, others just think it’s a natural part of the human existence. Either one could be right, but studies have shown that certain people don’t experience déjà vu as much or at all. In one of these studies a conclusion is drawn up that the less déjà vu you experience the worse your memory might be getting (Hamzelou). The study goes on to further show that the older you are the less déjà vu you will encounter during the rest of your life. While this study links the amount of déjà vu to memory another article while agreeing with this in a way also talks about how not everyone experiences it. “It is estimated that it occurs in 60-70% of us, most commonly in those between the ages of 15 and 25” (Lewis). The author presents the statistics of those who are more likely to experience déjà vu. This makes total sense especially since after interviewing an elderly it was proved to be true that they tend not to experience déjà vu as much. This will be talked about in the next blog post. 

Hamzelou, Jessica. “Mystery of déjà vu explained-It’s how we check our memories.” New  VVVVScientists, 16 August 2016,

VVVVhttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2101089-mystery-of-deja-vu-explained-its-how-we-VVVVcheck-our-memories/. Accessed 17 September 2017.

Jordan Gaines Lewis, Ph.D. “Why Do Some of Us Get Déjà vu More Often Than Others?”

VVVVPsychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 13 October 2015,

VVVVhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201510/why-do-some-us-get-d-j-VVVVvu-more-often-others. Accessed 17 September 2017.

The Beginning...

It all started with one moment, one day, a single time, it all changed. There was a sense of familiarity in the air. Nothing felt new, it was like I had lived through it once before. It tended to happen more than once and I had no idea why or how to explain it. I had to take matters into my own hands if I wanted to find an answer, so I did. I went online and looked up this feeling of reliving the past. I knew they called it déjà vu it was just a matter of going way beyond the surface to figure out what it truly was and that's exactly what I was going to find out.