ANOMALY OF THE BRAIN

UNEDITED SAMPLE FEATURE ARTICLE
By Jezel Christine Nolasco Quevada
IV-Madame Marie Curie


Have you ever felt familiar to something new? Have you ever felt that you think you have been in that exact same event though it’s just your first time spending it? In short, have you ever experienced deja vu?

Deja vu is an experience where in you feel sure that you have witnessed, done something new. The term deja vu is French and means, literally, "already seen." Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all. The term deja vu was first coined by a French psychic researcher name Emile Boirac in his book L’Avenir des sciences psychiques (The future of Psychic Sciences). Deja vu is often attributed to a dream, although it can also be attributed to something that really happened in the past. There are three types of deja vu according to researchers. The three types are deja vecu deja senti , deja visite (Wikipedia 2008).

The deja vecu refers to a type of deja vu experience involving more than the sense of sight. The sense involves a great amount of detail, sensing that everything is just as it was before and a weird knowledge of what is going to be said or happen next (Wikipedia 2008). Deja vecu is the coomon type of deja vu. Surveys revealed that 70% of the total population had these experiences, usually between ages 15 to 25 (Wikipedia 2008). It is commonly attributed to a mental disorder.

The deja senti is the second type of deja vu. Deja senti is a more complicated one. It happens most of the time to temporal-lobes epileptics. Deja senti is the phenomenon where in it specifies something “already felt”. It is a mere fact and phenomenon that primarily happens exclusively on the mind, mental happening. In this type, a thing makes you remember something that might have or might have not actually happened.

The third type is the deja visite. This experience is less common and involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. The translation is "already visited." Here one may know his or her way around in a new town or landscape while at the same time knowing that this should not be possible (Wikipedia 2008).

Déjà vu is often subjected to serious psychological and neurophysical disorders. It is an anomaly of the brain. It is a sensation where in an experience is being recalled which is not true or did not actually happened. The strongest disorder you can attribute to déjà vu is the temporal lobe epilepsy. In simpler ways, déjà vu happens when an action done in the present, which should be stored at the short-term memory, goes directly to the long-term memory storage. From here, it causes the feeling and sensation that you have done a certain thing before.