Ever visited a new place for the first time but feel you’ve been there before? Or maybe you get a strange feeling that the conversation you’re having has happened before—a déjà vu moment?
According to Cleveland Clinic, over 70 percent of people have experienced déjà vu at least once in their lives. Those more susceptible included people with a high level of education, who travelled frequently, remembered their dreams, and held liberal views.
Personally, I’ve never experienced déjà vu, but when we were touring Europe I was present when someone did. It happened while we were visiting the medieval Church of the Holy Spirit (Püha Vaimu Kirik), built in the 14th century and located in the middle of Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia.
At some point I noticed my husband Glenn had left our group and was now sitting by himself in the middle of a pew, staring straight ahead in a daze. After asking him what was wrong, he replied in a quiet voice, “I’ve been here before.” A chill went down my spine. How could it be? It was our first time in this country. He repeated, “I’ve been here in this church before.”
Oxford Dictionary defines déjà vu as “a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time.” A feeling that one has seen or heard something before. Wikipedia describes it as the “phenomenon of feeling like one has lived through the present situation in the past.” Some researchers say it could be a mix-up or glitch in the brain’s processing. A sign from the universe with a deeper spiritual meaning. A dream-based explanation. A memory from a past lifetime.
Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung explained his controversial theory of déjà vu as the “collective unconscious.” The key idea is that information inherited from ancestors—a shared pool of knowledge and experiences—is passed down to future generations and can be unconsciously accessed by all people. Jung introduced the concept of déjà vu as an example of collective unconscious.
While the term déjà vu was not yet created, the concept of it was mentioned as early as 400 A.D. by St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), who called it false memories. Almost 1,500 years later, Charles Dickens described the sensation in his book David Copperfield (1850):
“We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if suddenly we remember it!”
The actual term déjà vu (“already seen”) is credited to Émile Boirac (1851-1917), a French philosopher, parapsychologist, and advocate for the universal language Esperanto. In 1876, Boirac used the words for the first time in a published letter in the academic journal Revue philosophique. Later, in his book The Future of the Psychic Sciences he described déjà vu:
“We encounter a situation that is similar to an actual memory but we can’t fully recall that memory. Our brain recognizes the similarities between our current experience and one in the past…left with a feeling of familiarity that we can’t quite place.”
But what causes the eerie sensation of déjà vu has so far remained a mystery. However, two areas of scientific research are emerging that may someday shed some light on it: genetic memory and epigenetics.
Genetic memory is the idea that memories, certain behaviours, fears (such as fear of water, heights, or fire), or traits from ancestors can be stored in their DNA and later passed on to descendants. Epigenetics is the field of genetic inquiry into how that genetic memory can be transferred from one generation to another without altering the DNA sequence itself. It explores how the mechanism of epigenetic markers works to transfer ancestors’ genetic memory. Researchers clarify that while a person can’t store the actual memory of the ancestor, what can be transmitted from one generation to another is the emotional imprint of, for example, a traumatic experience sustained over time (study by Emory University of Atlanta).
In the BBC News article by health and science reporter James Gallagher, “Memories Pass Through Generations,” a study by a team at Emory University School of Medicine in the U.S. provided evidence of “transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.” In the Nature Neuroscience article, “DNA Memory Exists And Keeps Our Ancestors’ Experiences,” researchers claim that descendants may inherit the responses to the things experienced by previous generations.
In her book Two Worlds Within: A Memoir of Dual Identity, Canadian author Anne Remmel writes about the trauma of people, like her Estonian parents, forced to flee their homeland in wartime. “The scars of war were hidden deep in the people who fled these shores and were still lurking in the next generation. Whether we recognize the signs or not, the scars have been passed down to us. Whether we acknowledge them or not, we carry them with us.”
Could déjà vu also be linked to genetic memory from ancestors? Well, currently no epigenetic markers have been identified for déjà vu. However, one of the possible links being researched is the LGl1 gene on chromosome 10.
