Have I already told you my Déjà Vu joke?

Have I Already told you my Déjà Vu joke?

That's one of my favourite, and it may take a few seconds for your and cogs and wheels to get turning before you get it. 

I'd tell you some more of my hilarious jokes but there really are just too many of them to write in one blog post.

 Déjà Vu:

1) An annoying word to write on an English keyboard. I'll probably start referring to it as 'IT'

2) A French term for already seen.

3) A bloody difficult thing to explain.

IT is one of those events that just pops out of nowhere. You'll be chatting with your friends, eating your once gain unpalatable penne whilst nursing an all too well-known hangover with a strong cup of Joe.

Out of nowhere you'll be hit with a sudden feeling that you've been in this position before. You feel like the conversation you are having with your (also) hover friends is like something from a Back to the Future film.

You just have to proclaim this sudden feeling to the world with this simple catchphrase: 

Surely we've all said this at least once?

And of course you'll be met with the same old responses: nods, eyes rolling, and the painful

"Anyway...".

Why Déjà Vu?

In my previous 'article' I mentioned that I like talk about ideas or theories in Psychology that make me as curious as George.

Déjà Vu does just that. However I couldn't explain it off the top of my head.

My family coined a term for when I try and explain something of the top of my head. It's called a Josh Mann. I may have read something off the news, an article, something from twitter or the deep, dark depths of Facebook and because it was on the internet I obviously believed it (because the internet never lies). I then preach it like it was the truest thing I ever saw. However I do try back it up, with varying success.

Because I could never really explain Déjà Vu I thought I'd do some 'research'.

The end result would hopefully be that I'd be successful in explaining this truly weird phenomenon we all experience. Although it doesn't shape our lives too much, and it occurs extremely irregularly, you might at least finish this thinking: "that was cool, but why is the brain so weird."

What causes Déjà Vu?

For years people have pondered over Déjà Vu. 

Some psychiatrists believe that errors in our brain cause us to mix up the present and the past. Parapsychologists posit that when we have feel this stranger sensation, we feel it because we are replicating a past-life experience.

Another theory suggests a mix-up problem between short and long-term memory. Events that have happened just recently bypass the normal processing mechanisms and end up in long-term memory straight away. This gives us the sort of feeling that we are recalling an event from the distant past though it's really not so distant. 

It is also possible that there is a delay in the transfer of sensory information from one side of the brain to the other. In Déjà Vu one side of the brain may get the information twice in quick, but not immediate succession. They would then get the feeling that what they'd just experienced had happened before. 

Déjà vu, Drugs and Epilepsy

The subheading above may sound like a student written play at the University of Warwick but Déjà Vu, drugs and epilepsy are very much entwined.

In 2001, the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience reported a case of a 39-year-old Doctor who, in order to get rid of the flu, had taken drugs that increased concentrations of the neurotransmitter Dopamine in the brain. Within 24 hours he was experiencing intense and frequent episodes of Déjà vu but upon soon after stopping his course, the episodes went away. 

The study of epilepsy has found a strong association between Déjà vu and the seizures experienced by those with medial-temporal lobe epilepsy. This form of epilepsy affects the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in memory formation and storage. Those with medial-temporal lobe epilepsy were found to have experienced Déjà vu when having a seizure. 

Déjà vu, like Epilepsy, may be the result of misfiring of neurons in the brain at random. This causes healthy people to experience something that hasn't yet occurred. When parts of the medial temporal lobe activate together there is a sudden activation of the system that helps us recollect information.

Don't worry if you think you Déjà vu too often. Most of us experience it and it's more common if you are 15-25 years old. 

It's just your brain's natural way of telling you that it has screwed up a little, but not that much.

Hope you enjoyed this short little blog,