What does the feeling of deja vu mean. See what "Deja Vu" is in other dictionaries

... stand for deja vu expressions, jame vu and presquet vu?

deja vu

Each of us has heard of such a feeling as deja vu, and most of us have experienced it. The feeling when you have already seen it, been here, talked to someone, all this has already happened ... We can remember in detail the rooms in which we have never been before, people whom we have never met before and the like. Why is this happening? How does it appear? Many people ask these questions, but the answers to them are still obscured.

For the first time the term "déjà vu" (déjà vu - already seen) was used by the French psychologist Emile Bouarak (1851-1917) in his book "Psychology of the Future". Prior to this, this strange phenomenon was characterized as "false recognition" or "paramnesia" (deceptions of memory in violation of consciousness), or "promnesia" (synonymous with deja vu).

The scientific study of the phenomenon of deja vu was not so active. In 1878, a German psychological journal suggested that the sensation of “already seen” arises when the processes of perception and awareness, which basically occur simultaneously, are in one case or another mismatched due to, for example, fatigue. This explanation has become one of the sides of the theory, which in turn suggests the reason for the appearance of deja vu in the congestion of the brain. In other words, deja vu occurs when a person is very tired, and peculiar failures appear in the brain.

On the other side of the theory, deja vu effect is the result have a nice rest brain. In this case, the processes are several times faster. If we are able to process this or that image quite quickly and easily, then our brain, at the subconscious level, interprets this as a signal of what we have already seen before. As the American physiologist William H. Burnham, who was the author of this theory, wrote in 1889, “when we see a strange object, its unfamiliar appearance is largely due to the difficulty we face in understanding its characteristics. But when the brain centers have finally rested, the perception of a strange scene may seem so easy that the sight of what is happening will seem already familiar.

Later, Sigmund Freud and his followers took up the study of the deja vu effect. The scientist believed that the feeling of "already seen" arises in a person as a result of spontaneous resurrection in his immediate memory of subconscious fantasies. As for the followers of Freud, they, in turn, believed that deja vu is the result of the struggle of the “I” with the “It” and the “Super-I”.

Some people explain their déjà vu topics that previously unfamiliar places or things they have already seen in a dream. This version is also not excluded by scientists. In 1896, Arthur Allin, professor of psychology at Colorado State University Boulder, theorized that the déjà vu effect is a reminder of fragments of dreams we have forgotten. Our emotional reactions to a new image can reproduce a false sense of recognition. The déjà vu effect occurs when our attention is suddenly distracted for a short period of time during our first encounter with a new image.

Also deja vu phenomenon They are also characterized as a manifestation of false memory, that is, in the work of the brain, and to be more precise, in certain areas of it, some failure occurs, and it begins to take the unfamiliar for the known. The so-called false memory is characterized by such age periods when the activity of this process is most pronounced - from 16 to 18 and from 35 to 40 years.

The surge during the first period is explained by the emotional severity of adolescence, the ability to react too sharply and even dramatically to certain events, due to the lack of life experience. In this case, a person turns to fictitious experience for help, receiving it directly from a false memory. As for the second peak itself, it, in turn, also falls on a critical age, but this is already a midlife crisis.

At this stage, deja vu is a moment of nostalgia, some regrets about the past, a desire to return to the past. This effect can also be called a trick of memory, since memories may not even be real, but supposed, the past is presented as an ideal time when everything was still beautiful.

In 1990, Herman Sno, a psychiatrist from the Netherlands, suggested that traces of memory are stored in the human brain in the form of some holograms. What distinguishes a hologram from a photograph is that each fragment of the hologram carries all the information that is necessary to restore the whole image. The smaller such a fragment, the correspondingly reproduced picture is vague. According to Sno's theory, the emerging sense of what has already been seen is obtained when some small detail of the current situation coincides quite closely with a certain fragment of memory, which in turn conjures up a vague picture of a past event.

Pierre Glur, a neuropsychiatrist, conducted experiments in the 1990s, and stubbornly insisted that memory uses special systems of "recovery" (retrieval) and "recognition" (familiarity). In his work, which was published in 1997, he argued that deja vu phenomenon appears on rare occasions. When our recognition system is activated, but the recovery system is not. Other scientists insist that the recovery system cannot be turned off completely, but can simply be mismatched, which in turn is reminiscent of the fatigue theory that was put forward much earlier.

But, in spite of everything, scientists were still able to figure out which parts of the brain are involved in the process at a time when a person experiences feeling of deja vu. It is worth noting the fact that different parts of the brain are directly responsible for different types of memory. The frontal part is responsible for the future, the temporal for the past, and the main - intermediate - is responsible for our present. When all these parts of the brain are doing their normal work, when consciousness is in a normal state, then the feeling that something is about to happen can only occur when we think about the future, worry about it, warn it, or build it. plans.

But not everything is as simple as we would like. There is an area in our brain (amygdala) that directly sets the emotional “tone” for our perception. For example, when you are having a conversation with someone and you see how your interlocutor's expression changes, it is the amygdala that gives a signal in a matter of fractions of a second about exactly how to react to this. In neurological terms, the actual duration of the "present" is so short that we don't experience as much as we remember.

Specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently announced that they have solved the riddle of deja vu.

We have discovered the region of the brain responsible for the formation of this mysterious sensation, - assured the team leader, biologist Suzumi Tonegawa, Nobel laureate 1987. Our experiments have shown: leading role play neurons in the memory center of the brain - the hippocampus. Specifically, its dentate gyrus, which allows you to quickly - almost instantly - recognize the smallest differences in similar images.

Thanks to the activity of this section, a person realizes which impressions are reminiscent of those that he has already seen, and which are fundamentally new. The hippocampus, as it were, divides a person's experience into past and present. But when two experiences are too similar, the hippocampus fails. Which leads to deja vu.

The researchers believe that a set of neurons, which they call place cells, form a kind of blueprint for any new place we enter. Since we unconsciously begin to imagine it, using previously accumulated information. And when we see the same place already in reality, we try to compare the “virtual” image with the real one. And if this process fails for some reason, for example, in a stressful situation or from fatigue, then the brain begins to consider the previously simulated picture or situation as real and, as a result, gives out “false” memories as true ones. And then it seems to us that we were in this place, although we are in it for the first time.
Short memory stores information for several minutes. The hippocampus, in turn, is responsible for this: memories, which in turn are associated with a particular event, are scattered across different sensory centers of the brain, but they are connected in a certain order by the hippocamus. Including there is also long-term memory, which is located on the surface of the brain, along the temporal part.

In fact, it is quite fair to say that the past, present, and future exist in our brain without having clear boundaries. When we experience something in the present, we compare it with a similar past and already decide how to this moment should respond to what is happening in the near future. It is at this moment that all the necessary areas of the brain are turned on. In the case when there are too many connections between short-term and long-term memory, the present can be perceived as the past, and in this case, the déjà vu effect occurs.

As an explanation for this phenomenon, one can also use global matching models, as psychologists call them. This or that situation may seem familiar to a person because it strongly reminds him of a past event stored in his memory, or if it has a resemblance to a large number of events held in memory. That is, you have already been in identical and quite similar situations more than once. Thus, your brain summarized and compared these memories, as a result of which, it recognized a picture similar to them.

SAD MISTAKE

According to Igor Vysokov, an employee of the Department of General Patterns of the Development of the Psyche at the L. S. Vygotsky Institute of Psychology, deja vu- this is most likely an error that occurs due to the similarity of situations. A person, observing circumstances that really have similarities with those that have already taken place in the past, confuses the mise-en-scenes - they merge for him into one event. That is, the basis of the phenomenon is only the ability of the human brain to associative thinking. Often the effect occurs only at the sight of an insignificant trifle that has a distant connection with the person's past. So, for example, it may seem to a person that he has already met this passer-by if he suddenly sees on him a jacket that he himself once wore in his youth.

The experiment conducted by psychologists at the University of Leeds also speaks in favor of the "associative" version of the emergence of this phenomenon. They managed to find a way to artificially evoke a feeling in a person deja vu. Volunteers were shown a list of 24 words on a screen. Then they were hypnotized. The participants in the trance were told that when they saw the words in the red box, those words would be familiar to them, although they would not know where and when they saw them.

Awakened test subjects were shown old and new words within different colors. Of the eighteen subjects, ten people had the feeling that they had already seen the words in red boxes somewhere, even if they were completely new words.

However, the psychophysiological cause of the phenomenon is still not clear: it has only been noted that deja vu manifested against the background of fatigue and frequent stress. It also became known that this phenomenon worries 17-year-olds most of all, who have already gained a minimum baggage of impressions and react very sharply to various life situations. And the second and last wave deja vu For some reason, it comes at 35-40 years. And most susceptible to this feeling are melancholic people with a heightened sense of life, very nervous and impressionable.

OPINIONS OF SPECIALISTS

Leonid KARASEV, PhD in Philosophy, Leading Research Fellow at the Institute for Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State Humanitarian University:

My explanation of this phenomenon is closest to the "holographic" hypothesis. The principle of holography means that each point in the image contains enough information to recreate the whole picture from it, regardless of the angle at which the eye falls on it. It is also possible that this amazing phenomenon is built. Almost all the information that we encounter in life is stored in an encoded form in the brain. But everything that we have seen and heard is hidden so deep that it is almost impossible to pull it out in the usual way. This information can jump out thanks to just a small detail. Some smell, sound, lighting, a fleeting meeting with some passerby can give you the illusion that you already found yourself in a similar situation 5-10 years ago. Although a detailed analysis reveals that very much does not match.

Director of the Mental Health Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Alexander TIGANOV:

Phenomenon deja vu stands closest to paramnesia, that is, to certain distortions of memory from the field of psychopathological disorders. It can occur in otherwise healthy people. But nevertheless, every person with such phenomena should be carefully examined in order to make sure that he does not have pathological foci in the brain. After all, this unusual effect in some cases can develop into amnesia, when the past completely disappears from consciousness. Or, conversely, give impetus to the emergence of fantasies such as delusions, hallucinations or idefixes.

Jamevu

Jamais vu (Jamais vu - never seen) - the opposite feeling, when, being in a familiar environment, situation, surrounded by familiar people, a person suddenly begins to feel as if he is seeing all this for the first time in his life.

Psychologists describe it as a sudden feeling that previously known facts and people are completely unknown to us. Also, people who experience jamevu seem to be in the wrong place or at the wrong time.

Let us cite as an illustration a fragment of the text by V.A. Kaverina about a girl with such a disorder that she had after sudden death to her mother: “With a strange feeling, I returned to my empty room - I entered and stopped in surprise on the threshold, as if I had fallen into an unfamiliar house. Familiar things stood on their usual things. But in a different light, I saw this room and myself, standing on the threshold and carefully peering into something new - I myself did not yet know what. As if not in the room, but in the soul, I did not find anything in the old place. And the grief that used to be painfully sharp and so “mine” that I involuntarily pulled away when even close people looked into this “mine” receded a little, moved away - so that now I could look at it from afar.

Scientists consider jamevu as a type of cryptomnesia - the term is used to refer to the distortion of memory. Moreover, jamevu is considered a mental disorder, which is one of the signs of senile psychosis or schizophrenia. It is precisely because the feeling of jamevu is extremely rare that it is considered not a special feeling, but paramnesia or a sign of a serious mental illness.

presquevue

It often happens that for a long time you cannot remember a well-known word that “spins on the tongue”. It turns out that this is not just the case. This phenomenon is called the phenomenon of presquevu (from French presque - “almost seen”), when you forget an elementary word that you have known for more than one year. At the same time, it seems that you are about to remember it, that it is already flying off the tongue. But it wasn’t there: you can even remember it for several days, and then all of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, even for yourself, “blow it out”. Then you start to get angry at yourself, and in general at the existence of that word, you look for other words, but they no longer adequately describe the meaning.

That he had once been in a similar situation, but this feeling is not associated with a certain moment in the past, but refers to "the past in general."

The term was first used by the French psychologist Émile Bouarac (-) in the book L'Avenir des sciences psychiques (Psychology of the future).

• Similar phenomena are déjà vécu ("already experienced"), déjà entendu ("already heard").
• Opposite term jamevu (jamais vu) has never been seen before. The state when a person in a familiar environment feels that he has never been here.

Manifestations of deja vu and causes of the phenomenon

The state of deja vu is like re-reading a long-read book or watching a movie that you used to watch, but you have completely forgotten what they are about, you cannot remember what will happen in the next moment, but in the course of events you understand that you saw it in detail before and it is these words were spoken. Deja vu can appear instantly or in successive bursts over several minutes as a reaction to several successive events. The whole power of experiencing deja vu lies in the feeling as if there were hundreds of options for how this moment could pass, but as if you preferred all the previous actions (right or wrong for you), as a result of which you were "destined" to be in this situation and this place.

The impression of deja vu can be so strong that memories of it can last for years. However, as a rule, a person fails to recall any details about those events that he thinks he remembered when he experienced deja vu.

The state of deja vu is accompanied by depersonalization: reality becomes vague and unclear. Using Freud's terminology, we can say that there is a "derealization" of the personality - a kind of denial of its reality. Bergson defined déjà vu as “remembrance of the present”: he believed that the perception of reality at this moment suddenly bifurcates and is partly transferred to the past.

Deja vu is quite common, studies show that up to 97% healthy people experienced this condition at least once in their lives, and patients with epilepsy much more often. However, it cannot be caused artificially and each individual person rarely experiences it. For this reason, scientific research on deja vu is difficult.

The causes of the phenomenon have not been precisely established, it is believed that it can be caused by the interaction of processes in the areas of the brain responsible for memory and perception. There is a hypothesis that when additional neural connections arise, the perceived information can enter the memory area earlier than the primary analysis apparatus. Therefore, the brain, comparing the situation with its copy, which has already entered the memory, comes to the conclusion that it has already happened.

At present, it can be considered reasonable to assume that the déjà vu effect can be caused by preliminary subconscious processing of information, for example, in a dream. In those cases when a person encounters in reality a situation that was previously “thought out and lost by the subconscious” in a dream, and successfully modeled by the brain, close enough to a real event, deja vu occurs. This explanation is well supported by the high incidence of deja vu in healthy people. At the same time, psychiatrists classify deja vu as a mental disorder if it occurs excessively often.

Deja vu in cinema

• In "The Matrix" main character Neo sees the black cat pass by twice in a row. Neo says "déjà vu" to himself, which draws the attention of everyone else. Trinity explains to Neo that déjà vu is a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when those who control it want to change something in the virtual reality created by the Matrix. In the film, this is the appearance of a cat that ran in the same place 2 times in exactly the same way. But in fact, the situation shown in the film is not deja vu in the usual sense, since Neo knows for sure that the situation repeated itself, and remembers when exactly the same events occurred for the first time.

• In the short story "Obsession" from the film "Operation" Y "and other adventures of Shurik" the main character, once again getting into the house of the girl Lida, begins to experience a feeling of "déjà vu" from the smell of flowers or the striking of a clock, however, unlike situations where this feeling false, Shurik really was in this room, although he does not remember this at all.

• The film "Deja Vu" describes a fantastic situation in which the main character goes into the past to prevent a terrorist attack (ferry explosion). In the course of action before this, he discovers messages from himself on an answering machine, a magnetic board ... In order to stop the inevitable, he is forced to sacrifice his life. However, at the same time, now to investigate the fact of the explosion of one of the cars on the ferry, his double appears - a hero living in the parallel dimension that has developed as a result of returning to the past. Thus, the authors of the film set out a version of the existence and interaction of parallel worlds, in which the latter gives rise to Deja vu.