THE UNKNOWN: Déjà Vu

If you’ve ever had the unsettling feeling you've done something or dreamt something before, you’ve probably experienced déjà vu. While some theories suggest it's a memory processing error, there are countless stories that show déjà vu hints at something supernatural in nature. Like a window into past lives or a glimpse at parallel universes…

• 0:01Speaker 00

  You've been here, right? You're somewhere new, maybe somewhere familiar, but doing something you're sure you've never done before. For me, it can be as dull as a meeting about an upcoming project, which I know we have not done before. But then, I keep having this eerie feeling that I've done this all before. I mean, to the point where I can almost predict what the person I'm meeting with is gonna say next. The experience is called déjà vu. The phrase is French and translated into English means "already seen." It's pretty common for people to feel it. I mean, I always thought everyone out there felt this, but it turns out about 60% of folks around the world

• 0:44Speaker 00

  have experienced déjà vu at least once. And while some might have a fleeting sense that they're doing something they've done before, it can be very intense for some individuals. And here's the wild thing. Nobody knows for sure what causes déjà vu. Scientists have been studying it for over a century, and they still haven't nailed down the definitive answer yet. And you guys, I am obsessed with this topic, which is why I had to commandeer this episode for myself to try and figure it out with you. Because this phenomenon could be explained by some faulty wiring in our brains.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Or, it might reveal some fundamental truths about the universe. Maybe even be the key to a secret sixth sense that humanity isn't aware of. Spoiler alert: I think it's the second one. So let's dive in, shall we? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is So Supernatural.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Okay, so I want you to consider yourself in this hypothetical scenario for a second. You've just walked into a friend's house for the first time, and the layout is so familiar. Like, you can almost predict where the door is gonna lead to, or what color the couch is gonna be, or that you've smelled the exact candle here before. But you know that's not the case. It's impossible. You tell yourself that it's just a quick bout of déjà vu. It'll fade soon. Only, it doesn't. With every second that passes, you are more and more convinced that you have been here before. Even after you go home, fall asleep, and wake up the next day, that familiar sensation is still there.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  What about if you went to work, thinking that you'd already finished the projects you were tasked with? But when you check your files, there's no evidence that they're done. Or how about if every time you sit down to watch a TV show, you can predict where the story is going? Like, more than you're just good at TV plotlines. Like, that's my husband, but his is a true guess. This is different. Like, you know what you're watching, like you've seen it before, even if you haven't.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  At a certain point, this constant stream of inescapable déjà vu makes you feel paranoid, like you're losing your grip on reality and you have no way of knowing what's real about your life and what's not. It's one thing to have one of those happen in isolation, but all of the things, all together, that would be pretty terrifying, right? Except, for one young man living in the UK, it's just a fact of life for him. His identity isn't public, so for simplicity, I'm gonna call him Jason. In 2012, Jason is 20 years old, and he's just taken a break from college due to his intense anxiety. But that's when he develops a case

• 4:16Speaker 00

  of what's known as chronic déjà vu. In other words, he has déjà vu almost every single day, and it lasts for minutes at a time. It'll wash over him and be too intense for him to ignore. After a while, this becomes unbearable for Jason. He begins to question his reality, like he's some kind of character in a psychological thriller. In his words, he says it's like being trapped in a weird, quote, "time loop." And this chronic déjà vu doesn't just last for a few days or weeks. No, Jason has it on and off for years. And while I don't know if he sees any doctors in the meantime, I know it gets so bad

• 5:01Speaker 00

  that he eventually self-medicates. After he starts back at school, he tries LSD, hoping that will make him feel better. Instead, his symptoms get worse. From that point onward, he has déjà vu pretty much nonstop. Like, it doesn't fade after a few minutes and then come back. It's just always there. Soon, he's actually getting déjà vu about his déjà vu. Like, he literally thinks, "I've been here before, remembering being here before." And you guys, I have gotten that one. It is freaking weird, and mine only lasted for a brief moment. Not Jason's, though. He even compares himself to Donnie Darko.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  And this isn't some sci-fi movie, though. This is his life. Eventually, Jason is at the end of his rope. He just can't keep going on like this. So he finally goes to a doctor to see if they can figure out what's wrong with him. They give Jason a ton of tests, including brain scans, and all of the results come back pretty normal. There's nothing physically wrong with him as far as they can tell. So in the doctor's mind, that leaves one possibility. If the problem isn't physical, it must be psychological. Their guess is that Jason is suffering from severe anxiety, and it's somehow causing his déjà vu.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  And I know that sounds vague, but at this point, the doctors only have theories to work off of, which means they can only guess at how to treat Jason. They come up with a lot of different remedies that may or may not work. Like, at one point, they think maybe hypnotherapy will do the trick. Shocker, it doesn't. But they think if they could trigger his déjà vu, then they might be able to study it while it's happening, and that could give them a lot more answers. According to the BBC, there's this one technique they use to try and trigger déjà vu, called caloric stimulation. Typically, it's used to test for vertigo, but since people with vertigo also commonly report déjà vu,

• 7:12Speaker 00

  they figure that there might be a connection. It works by squirting water into the patient's ear. This disrupts the vestibular system, which we use for balance and spatial orientation. And once that happens, doctors think that sensation might trigger déjà vu. Though, from what I can tell, it doesn't work. At least, not for Jason. And since any methods to try and trigger the sensation don't really work, doctors can't study the brain's reaction while it's happening. There are some exceptions, which we'll get into later, but they require a lot of technology that didn't even exist until a decade ago. So all that to say, everything we know about déjà vu comes from self-reporting.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  People coming to doctors and claiming, "I felt it in this situation," or "at that place," or whatever. But to give scientists some credit, they have figured out a few things about déjà vu. Studies show that déjà vu is pretty common. Lots of people have experienced it. It's hard to estimate exactly how many people, but most of the data says it's around 60% of the population worldwide. Oddly enough, doctors have found that you're more likely to report déjà vu if you're well-educated. In fact, the more degrees you have, the more likely it is. The phenomenon is also more common among people from higher socioeconomic classes and among people who've traveled more.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  People who watch movies are also very likely to experience it. Apparently, it's seen in younger people, more than older folks. And if you're someone who always remembers their dreams, you might be more likely to experience déjà vu as well. Which is all interesting, but it doesn't tell us much about what actually causes it or why it happens. I mean, people have been trying to unravel the secrets of déjà vu for more than 200 years, and they are still basically clueless. The first written record of it might be from an 1815 novel, though the term déjà vu didn't even exist at the time. But the novel is called Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  At one point, there's a sequence where the main character is exploring an old castle he's never been to before. But the whole time he's there, he gets this eerie sense that it feels familiar. Now, this book is a work of fiction, so it's not like this is a documented example of a real person experiencing déjà vu. But you've got to imagine that the author had to be familiar with the phenomenon to write about it. Plus, that's not the only literary reference. Over the next century or so, there are shout-outs to déjà vu in other novels and works of fiction, too. However, I will say, it seems like the people in that era were really eager to investigate it. Because in 1896,

• 10:08Speaker 00

  a group of French psychiatrists and other researchers hosted a conference in Paris. Their entire goal was to study this yet unnamed phenomenon and figure out how it works. Spoiler alert: they do not solve the mystery. The conference ends, and they are no closer to understanding it at all. But they do accomplish something. They are the ones who coined the term déjà vu, or "already seen."

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Before then, no one could even agree on a solid word or phrase to explain what was going on.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  That conference triggers a number of studies, papers, and investigations into déjà vu. People come up with a lot of different theories and hypotheses. Some of them are viable, some are totally off the wall. Like, one explanation is that people who experience déjà vu are just lying to themselves for some reason. Like, we wanna believe that we've been here before, so we convince ourselves that we feel that way. Not the best theory, but they were just getting started, okay? And over time, people come up with more compelling ideas. Like, the more modern possibility that déjà vu might be a harmless mental glitch. The idea is that whenever you do anything, your brain processes the event as it's happening

• 11:28Speaker 00

  and then stores it in your memories. You don't need to be a scientist for that to make sense, right? But sometimes, the process doesn't go how it's supposed to, or doesn't go as smoothly. Like, one part of your mind says, "This is happening right now." And then the other area, which is forming the memory, says, "This happened in the past, and now you're remembering it." Which, in turn, makes it feel like you've been through this before, like, you're recalling it while it's happening, AKA déjà vu.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  Another theory says it happens when we remember something similar to what we're going through now. For example, say you go visit that friend at their new house, somewhere you've never been before. But you have been to a house with a similar layout, with the furniture arranged in basically the same way. The idea is, you can't quite recall that memory of the other house, because it's not exactly the same, but it's close enough to trigger déjà vu. Pretty straightforward, right? Mystery solved. But here's the problem. None of this has been proven. It's still nothing more than a theory, especially considering there's a lot about our brains and memory that science can't even explain.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Plus, there's a lot of people who've experienced déjà vu in circumstances that don't fit those examples, which may be why scientists who've studied déjà vu have treated it like a supernatural event. Literally, there is an old journal article that talks about déjà vu alongside ghosts, ESP, and magic. There's also a book the CIA referenced while studying Project Stargate. It's written by a researcher named Vernon Nepi, who, when talking about déjà vu, claimed, "In some cases, the feeling of familiarity conceivably could stem from an unrecalled prior instance of precognition, extrasensory perception, or out-of-body experience,

• 13:28Speaker 00

  or from largely accessible memories of a previous incarnation."

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Which may be why, today, when people try to study the science of déjà vu, they get a lot of criticism and not a whole lot of support or funding. But that's a very weird way to handle a normal biological phenomenon, right? Unless, of course, it's not just biological. Because under the surface, there's a lot of evidence suggesting déjà vu could be mystical after all.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  Fair warning: A lot of people who've gone public about their experiences with déjà vu, at least the very significant cases, keep their identities anonymous. I really don't know why, but that was the case for Jason with his chronic déjà vu. And it's true of the next story as well. For simplicity, I'm gonna give this person a pseudonym. We're gonna call him Amar. When Amar is nine years old, he and his family are in a region called Punjab, which stretches across the border between India and Pakistan, though I don't know exactly which part they're in. Regardless, he and his family visit a Sikh temple there.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  And right away, Amar says he recognizes the place, like he's been there before, and he feels this overwhelming sensation that he needs to go inside. Well, right there in the entrance, there is this portrait of a man hanging on the wall. And Amar points to it eagerly and says something like, "That's me. I used to be this man, and I used to preach here." Of course, Amar's parents know this is literally impossible. So they probably chalk this up to an overactive imagination, or maybe they think he's playing some sort of game. Whatever the case, they're not taking his claims seriously. But soon Amar starts causing a bit of a scene.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Like, he's pointing and talking loudly, arguing that he remembers being the man in the portrait. Some temple staff members gather around, and they tell the family that the man in the portrait used to be a spiritual leader who preached at that very temple. But he passed away years ago. So they ask Amar specifically what he remembers about the man. And stick with me, because we're gonna fly well beyond déjà vu and into past lives territory. But he tells them all sorts of facts about the guy, things he could not have known, like personal details that aren't public knowledge. So the staff actually starts wondering, what if Amar is telling the truth?

• 16:22Speaker 00

  What if that old man is back as a nine-year-old boy with memories from a past life?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Well, Amar finally presents one piece of evidence that's irrefutable. He knows that when he was the man in the portrait, he lived at the temple and he can point them to exactly which room he used to stay in. So he walks all of the temple employees right to those quarters. Except, they can't get in because the door is locked. I mean, it has been since the Holy Man's death. Meaning, there is no way that Amar could have been in there before. But he has even more information. He tells the staff there is a box hidden in the room and that he knows exactly what's inside the box. Now eventually, the staffers are able to get in there.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  They find the box exactly where Amar said it would be. And when they open it, the contents match what he said too. Now, from what I can tell, nothing really comes of the experience. But that's not the sort of thing you forget, right? Which is why the experience stays with Amar well into adulthood. But somewhere along the way, he befriends a man who shares his interest in that unique experience. A man named Santosh Joshi. Santosh is a mechanical engineer, but he also has a side gig. He hosts different workshops and travels all over the world as a motivational speaker.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  And at these events, he helps other people remember their past lives. So, at some point in their friendship, Amar tells Santosh the story of his visit to Punjab. And Amar wonders, could déjà vu be the mind's way of recalling a memory from a past life? Like, could he actually have been that spiritual leader before? In Santosh's mind, the answer is clear. Yes, because he experienced something very similar.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  One time, Santos was visiting Johannesburg, South Africa. He'd never been there before, so he was excited to explore the city. Except, after about forty-five minutes of walking around, he got lost. But before he could panic, this feeling of déjà vu washed over him. And that's when another thought popped into his head. He realized that if he turned left, he would come upon a blue chapel. So, that's what he did. He headed left, walked a little ways, and there it was, a blue chapel. Now, he'd never seen it before, but somehow he'd known exactly how to find it. Then he went a little further and had another thought.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  If he walked in a particular direction, he would get to a spice market. He strolled that way, and once again, he found the market with no problem. Even though it was the first time he had ever laid eyes on it. And little things like this kept happening throughout his day. In Santos's mind, there was only one way he could know this city so well. He'd been there before. Not in this life, but in a past one. Which is why Santos believes that when people experience déjà vu, they're also remembering events from a past life. You don't have to take just Santos's word for it.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Take this story from a man named Art Funkhauser. He grew up in Oklahoma, and one day in the summer of 1956, when he was sixteen years old, he was playing hide-and-seek with some friends. When it was Art's turn to be it, he tracked down a few of his playmates pretty easily. But one boy did a very good job of hiding. I mean, it was basically impossible to find him. So Art looked everywhere, in the neighbors' yards, open garages, bushy areas with lots of overgrowth. Finally, that's when Art yelled that he was giving up, and it was time for the last straggler to come out of his hiding place. Except the boy still didn't come out.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Art and the others headed up and down the street in a huge group looking for their missing friend. And that's when a sensation washed over Art, something very similar to déjà vu. In his mind's eye, he got this picture-perfect vision of himself walking up to his own house. And there, he found his friend lying down in the grassy concealed part of his front yard. And when Art made it back to his home, it was exactly like he'd envisioned. His friend was lying in part of the grass that made him impossible to spot. Art said in that moment, it was almost as if déjà vu had helped him predict the future.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  And after that day, he wanted to understand this phenomenon better. So Art learned everything he could about the human mind. Eventually, he went on to be a psychotherapist. These days, he's a big believer in what he calls déjà experiences. This is a word for a bunch of different phenomena. Déjà vu is one of them, but the term also refers to déjà ré, which is a word for the feeling that you've dreamed this before. There's also something called déjà visité, which translates to already visited, for when you feel like you've been to a particular place before. And déjà lu means already read, and you can probably guess where that comes into play. The list goes on from there.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  According to Art, there are a ton of different kinds of déjà experiences. But Art doesn't necessarily think déjà vu is us remembering our past lives. Instead, he thinks we're remembering things that haven't happened to us yet. In fact, in Art's research, he notices something interesting. People who experience déjà vu also believe they can predict the future, when they're dreaming. And you may remember a fact that I shared earlier, that people who have an easier time remembering their dreams also report more instances of déjà vu.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  So it does seem possible that déjà vu might have something to do with prophetic dreams. And I need to tell you, Art's a leader in his field of psychotherapy. If he says déjà vu might be a vision from the future, I mean, it's worth listening to him. Which may be why some researchers decided to test his theory in a laboratory setting. As for what they found, well, let's just say it leads others to a whole universe of new possibilities.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  In 2018, a team of researchers at Colorado State University find a way to trigger déjà vu so they can test it in a clinical study. Their names are Anne Cleary and Alexander Claxton. And I want to be clear, they do not believe that déjà vu is supernatural. They don't expect to find any proof of premonitions either. Instead, they believe that déjà vu happens when someone encounters an environment that feels familiar to them. It's one of the theories I mentioned earlier, that you can experience déjà vu in a setting that sort of matches somewhere you've been before. And they think they can recreate this by using virtual reality,

• 23:59Speaker 00

  by having their subjects walk through a digital space with a very distinctive layout. Let's say, for example, the virtual room looks like a forest. There is a tall tree on the right, a shorter bush on the left, a big mossy hill right in front. If you turn to the right, you'll see a new scene with a tree on the left and a doorway to the right. It's set up a bit like a maze, and the participant has to figure out how to get through the forest to exit. Then, after the subject is done with the forest room, they go into a new maze-like virtual room. Except, it's not totally new. It has almost the exact layout as before, just different features. So now, instead of having a big tree on the right,

• 24:44Speaker 00

  it's a big stone. And the short bush is replaced with a short rock. The hill becomes a pile of gravel, and so forth. Meaning, the spaces aren't identical, but they're very similar. So Alexander and Anne have their participants go through these rooms. When they get to the second room, the one with an almost identical layout, they ask the subject, "Do you feel déjà vu?" And they're thrilled to hear that the answer is often "yes." Not only do study participants feel it, they think they know how to solve the maze based on that sensation of déjà vu alone. Here's the thing, though. That induced feeling of déjà vu,

• 25:28Speaker 00

  it only gets the participants out of the maze a small fraction of the time, which is why Alexander and Anne think it's not some supernatural precognition. It's just an unconscious memory that's helping that small fraction of people escape. But in my mind, there is a huge difference between actual déjà vu, which happens spontaneously in the wild, and induced déjà vu, which as of now is only possible with virtual reality experiences. After all, if people can't navigate using déjà vu, then how did Santosh find his way around Johannesburg?

• 26:09Speaker 00

  And how did Amar know his way around that Sikh temple? I'm not saying we should ignore these findings entirely. I just think that we can't completely rule out the idea that déjà vu is some sort of precognition after all. Especially because I don't know how else to explain art's hide-and-seek story. On top of that, I keep thinking of Jason, the guy who lived with chronic déjà vu. By the time his story made the news, he'd been having non-stop déjà vu for three years.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  In 2014, his doctors published a paper on his condition. They'd never seen chronic déjà vu before. They thought they had discovered a brand-new phenomenon. But as soon as Jason's story went public, other people started coming forward saying that they have chronic déjà vu too. And they were people from all over the world. Some of them set up video calls with Jason's doctors in the UK. But when the physicians sign into Skype and start talking to these potential patients, they all keep saying the same thing: "We've met before." Except, of course, they haven't. The doctors would have remembered if they'd heard their stories,

• 27:26Speaker 00

  which tells them, and me, that this phenomenon can't only be about navigating familiar feeling spaces. It may not have anything to do with the future or the past. It might be a case where our minds are connecting with something right now. But to explain it, we have to look at a very controversial theory, one that hinges around alternate universes. Namely, that déjà vu happens when people cross over from one reality to the next. I've touched on the idea of parallel dimensions before, but let's just take a quick second to recap so we can really understand this theory.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  The idea is that we live in a multiverse, which is a word for a whole bunch of universes all existing together, basically on top of one another. And I don't mean just like one or two universes, or even a few dozen. There could be an infinite number of alternate realities. If you've watched movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, or if you've seen the second episode of the new Black Mirror season, like that's what I'm talking about. Because there are an infinite number, some of them might have their own laws of physics that are totally different from ours. Some could have intelligent life, like our dimension does, and some probably don't. In theory, there are some universes that might even be like mirrors to our own, like almost identical.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  And get this, there actually is some evidence that parallel universes exist in real life. And these different dimensions might be able to influence one another. Meaning that the things we do here might affect people in another reality. And the things they do there could create consequences for us here. So here's where it gets really wild. Some researchers don't only believe in alternate universes. They also believe that they're tied to déjà vu. Take this theory that comes from Dr. Michio Kaku. He's a theoretical physicist, so it's safe to say he knows his stuff.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  And he thinks it's possible for some people to actually travel between universes. At least in our minds, if not our bodies. And maybe when we experience déjà vu, it's our brain's way of telling us that something isn't right, like something has changed. He compares it to listening to the radio. Like, you've probably experienced this before. Usually your dial is tuned to one station, right? Like, you just want to jam out, let's say, to Sasha Alex Sloan. Except then another station cuts in, interrupting the song that you want to hear. So like every few bars, Sasha is intercut with a talk show, or a fast food commercial, or another tune. And for a little while, it's like both frequencies are broadcasting at once.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  You get a few seconds of Sasha, then a DJ introducing the next Garth Brooks ballad, maybe a little bit of static, and then back to Sasha. And it just goes on. According to Dr. Kaku, the same thing can happen to us. We can get temporarily caught between universes, just like how your radio is caught between two stations. You're flickering from one reality to the next. And you can't quite process what's going on. But on an unconscious level, your mind knows that something isn't right. And as your brain is trying to make sense of it, it triggers a sensation. Déjà vu. The good news is this situation tends to resolve itself quickly, just like how your

• 31:04Speaker 00

  radio eventually settles back on the Sasha Alex Sloan song, and hopefully in time for the final chorus. In the same way, your body will eventually phase back into our universe again. And the only memory you'll have of your parallel reality hopping adventure is a vague sense that you've been through this before. Now, I want to be clear. Dr. Kaku isn't saying that's the only explanation for déjà vu, or even the most likely one. He's a scientist, so he is very careful about not reaching conclusions until he has all of the evidence. He's just saying that this is one possible explanation for déjà vu as a phenomenon,

• 31:47Speaker 00

  which, I'm not going to lie, is bad news for people suffering from chronic déjà vu, like Jason. Because all they have are competing explanations for what's going on. It could be a mental glitch, or a past life, or a premonition, or an alternate universe, or something else entirely. We don't know anything definite. Which means, there's no good way to treat something like that. As far as Jason goes, I don't know if he ever found a remedy that worked for him, or if all the other people with chronic déjà vu got the help they needed.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Odds are, we won't know exactly how to cure it until we understand what causes it. And since that's as far as the science can take us, that's where I'll end things today. But I'll see you next time. Or will it just feel like we've seen each other before?

• 32:55Speaker 00

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram @SoSupernaturalPod and visit our website, sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Make sure you come back and join Yvette and Rasha next Friday for an all-new episode. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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