Déjà vu
I often feel something strange. I go to a place, do something or talk to people I know, and suddenly, things start to feel almost eerily similar, like I’ve been through this exact same moment before; it freaks me out.
Almost every single one of you must have had this experience. Like you’re re living moments of your life, and you wonder what the hell is happening. This is called ‘Déjà vu’ (French for ‘already seen’).
Déjà vu
What might be causing this chilling phenomenon? Well, it’s not exactly clear to science, mostly because it is hard to study ‘Déjà vu’. But such situations can be induced in people through techniques like hypnosis, to help scientists study it better. And the most prominent theory of why these experiences occur is that it’s a simple anomaly in our brains.
Our unconscious brain records everything, even things our conscious brain misses. Imagine it this way, you walk into a room one day and find your friends sitting together and talking (This is A). You join them and talk about something for a while (This is B), and later on, you go ahead to do something else (This is C). All this is recorded in your unconscious brain even if you have forgotten about it. Then on another day, you again enter the same room and find your friends talking, and you join them. Now we have A & B. Human brains have a very high tendency to relate things, it helps us understand things better; this is why we have given shapes and names to constellations. So, our brain immediately triggers the neurons all together and says, “Hey, we have A and B and so the next one must surely be C!”. It gives us a feeling that all this has happened before, even if C isn’t the same thing as last time. Hence, a ‘Déjà vu’ occurs!
Though very rare, ‘Déjà vu’ can also be a sign of Temporal lobe Epilepsy. Epilepsy is a disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures. About 60 percent of people with epilepsy have something called a focal seizure, which is in just one part of the brain; it could be the same part of the brain where memory is stored: the temporal lobe. So, even if all other parts of the brain are as fit as a fiddle, this one disorder can cause the memories to go haywire, resulting in a ‘Déjà vu’ accompanied by seizures. But don’t panic, you have nothing to worry unless you experience ‘Déjà vu’ frequently; if you do, make that doctor’s appointment right now!
But what about another really interesting theory? The theory of parallel universes! Though not everyone believes in it, it surely is one hell of a theory to explore.
Physicists believe that there exists a MULTIVERSE even inside our own living rooms! You heard that right. Multiverses. For those of you who might not know what that is, a multiverse is a hypothetical group of several universes, of which our universe is just one. This means that there can be several versions of you in many other parallel universes, i.e., for instance, if in reality you are from a middle class family, in a parallel universe you might be filthy rich, in another you might be very poor; in one you may be married to your lover, in another your lover dumps you. You get the idea.
But what about another really interesting theory? The theory of parallel universes! Though not everyone believes in it, it surely is one hell of a theory to explore.
Physicists believe that there exists a MULTIVERSE even inside our own living rooms! You heard that right. Multiverses. For those of you who might not know what that is, a multiverse is a hypothetical group of several universes, of which our universe is just one. This means that there can be several versions of you in many other parallel universes, i.e., for instance, if in reality you are from a middle class family, in a parallel universe you might be filthy rich, in another you might be very poor; in one you may be married to your lover, in another your lover dumps you. You get the idea.
Now, a ‘Déjà vu’ is probably not you slipping between parallel universes, and here’s why. I hope you’ve heard of Schrödinger and his famous wave equation. It states that everything, including us, vibrate as waves. These waves vibrate, but with time, they split apart. If two universes are coherent (having the same phase relationship), they vibrate with the same frequency, and theoretically you can jump back and forth. But as time progresses, these universes become incoherent or, they decouple and start to vibrate with different frequencies making it impossible for them to interact.
The famous physicist and Nobel prize winner, Steven Weinberg, compared this to something simpler; if you’re in your living room listening to a radio station, that radio is tuned to a particular frequency. In the same room, you also have numerous other radio stations with their own radio frequencies, but as your radio is tuned to one particular frequency, you don’t hear the other radio stations. In other words, your radio is incoherent and the frequencies no longer vibrate in unison with each other.
The atoms that we are made up of, also have stopped vibrating in unison with the atoms in other universes. We have decoupled from them. So, in theory, even though it is possible that there are lots of parallel universes right next to you, it is almost impossible for you to get in and out of them, period☹.
All I’m saying is, well, what physics and biology are saying is, ‘Déjà vu’ might probably be your brain messing with you, using your past memories, trying to connect the dots and find something to relate to, which of course freaks you out.
The famous physicist and Nobel prize winner, Steven Weinberg, compared this to something simpler; if you’re in your living room listening to a radio station, that radio is tuned to a particular frequency. In the same room, you also have numerous other radio stations with their own radio frequencies, but as your radio is tuned to one particular frequency, you don’t hear the other radio stations. In other words, your radio is incoherent and the frequencies no longer vibrate in unison with each other.
The atoms that we are made up of, also have stopped vibrating in unison with the atoms in other universes. We have decoupled from them. So, in theory, even though it is possible that there are lots of parallel universes right next to you, it is almost impossible for you to get in and out of them, period☹.
All I’m saying is, well, what physics and biology are saying is, ‘Déjà vu’ might probably be your brain messing with you, using your past memories, trying to connect the dots and find something to relate to, which of course freaks you out.
But as science always has room for improvement, there might arise another, even more mind-boggling theory of why ‘Déjà vu’ occurs. And when it does, Sciendrome will be here to let you all know about it.
A
C
O
N
-
S
C
I
E
N
C
E
A
R
T
Comments
Post a Comment