Deja-Vu (Part 2)

Kinds of Vu

Déjà vu. The subtle, recurring confusion between illusion and reality
that was characteristic of paramnesia fascinated the chaplain, and he
knew a number of things about it. He knew, for example, that it was
called paramnesia, and he was interested as well in such corollary optical phenomena as jamais vu, never seen, and presque vu, almost seen.
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Psychoanalysts have, in fact, officially named jamais vu. Meaning
'never seen', it refers to any familiar situation that seems strange
because the individual thinks it is being experienced for the first time.

Presque vu means 'almost seen'. Not scientifically recognized, it is
the sense that one is on the verge of a large mental breakthrough,
almost seeing the absolute truth about something but not quite getting it.

Arthur Funkhouser, a Swiss psychologist, divides déjà vu itself into
smaller, more specific areas to study them more closely. For example,
if an individual feels he is in a place he has been before, he is
experiencing déjà visité, 'already visited'. If a person feels she is
experiencing something just as before - everything is exactly the same
- it is déjà vecu, 'already lived through'.

Psychology. The illusion of having already experienced something
actually being experienced for the first time.

Deja-vu... Part one

Déjà vu

Have you ever felt that something that is happening right now for the first time has happened the same way before. You feel like a vague dream coming true. For example you go to a coffee shop with your friend and she orders for some coffee and gives the menu card to you and says “How I wish we had our friend XYZ here” and immediately something rings inside you as you think you have heard the same thing some where before by the same friend but you are not sure.
That is DÉJÀ VU for you.
Déjà vu is nothing but a feeling of what is happening now has happened before exactly in the same way. Déjà vu is a French word that means “ALREADY SEEN”. Psychologists call this as “promnesia” or “paramnesia”.

Ken Richard writes that: "Promnesia is the paradoxical
sensation of recollecting a scene which is only now occurring for the
first time" and then he calls this "the sense of the déjà vu." (That
is, the sense of the "already seen".)

This weird feeling is so nice and it collates the experience in a very nice clear way. Anyone can experience it; it is the feeling one gets when doing something for the first time that it has happened before in exactly the same manner - the same people are present, the same atmosphere surrounds, everything so familiar.
Almost each one of us would have experiences déjà vu at some point of time in our lives. Psychologists are not very sure of why this occurs. But they attribute it to late stage of brain development.

Déjà vu might also be brought about as part of another memory. A
current sight or smell or taste might evoke an entire past memory. The present is then associated with the feeling of remembering and,
therefore, the past.

Think it this way: déjà vu is nothing but a short stint of something happening in the past life. It kind of happened similarly before and you just happened to be stuck between the occurences.