Have you ever walked into a room and felt like you’ve lived that exact moment before? Not just similar but identical. Like the same words being spoken, the same movements, the same feeling in your chest? For a few seconds, it feels like you’re reliving something that already happened… except you know it didn’t. A strange, almost glitch-like experience is called Déjà vu, and it’s one of the most mysterious ways the brain can create. Have you ever really thought deeply about why we get Déjà vu? Like, are we in a simulation? Is it a glitch in the matrix? Well, research shows that tiredness and stress can make you feel Déjà vu more often, or too much dopamine in your brain might also cause it. But why does the brain also experience it even if it’s just a simple conversation? The brain mixes new experiences with old memories due to glitches in familiarity processing, often causing Déjà vu, in which the hippocampus, a part of your brain responsible for your memory and learning, mistakenly flags current sensory input as a past memory. This occurs because the brain prioritizes speed and similarity, using similar past patterns to process present, unfamiliar information, particularly during stress or fatigue. Have you ever walked into a room and felt like you’ve experienced that exact moment before? Not just something similar, but identical—the same words spoken, the same movements, and the same feeling in your chest? For a few seconds, it can feel as if you are reliving something that has already happened, even though you know it hasn’t. This strange, almost glitch-like experience is known as déjà vu, and it’s one of the most mysterious phenomena the brain can create.

Have you ever thought deeply about why we experience déjà vu? Could it be that we are in a simulation? Is it a glitch in the matrix? Research shows that factors like tiredness and stress can increase the frequency of déjà vu, and an excess of dopamine in the brain may also play a role. But why does the brain trigger this sensation even in simple conversations? 

Déjà vu occurs when the brain mixes new experiences with old memories due to glitches in familiarity processing. This often happens when the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning, mistakenly flags current sensory input as a past memory. The brain prioritizes speed and similarity, using familiar patterns to process new and unfamiliar information, particularly during times of stress or fatigue.Ages 15-25 have more of a chance to experience Déjà vu. There is a Theorie called split attention/perception and this occurs when you first notice the scene subconsciously and you’re maybe distracted and then immediately observe it again with full attention, tricking your brain into thinking the first (unconscious) glance was a distant memory. Déjà vu was identified by a man in 1876  named Émile Boirac who was a French philosopher, he described it as an “illusion of the memory”. It’s also said that Déjà vu is commonly linked to temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) as part of a seizure aurua. It is also associated with dementia, specifically frontemporal dementia.  So therefor when you experience Déjà vu it is not a glitch, its simply just your brain gaslighting you into thinking you’ve experienced what you are doing in the moment.