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Mind

Throughout my normal, daily activities, I sometimes incur a feeling of Deja-Vu; almost as if I've lived this particular moment before in my lifetime. It's as if this memory was stored away in my brain for some reason, but if that's the case, how did the memory come to be if the moment hadn't yet occurred? Also, how can our brain recognize a moment such as this, having never lived the particular moment? Alec and Ben Long Island, New York
Accepted:
October 17, 2005

Comments

Peter Lipton
October 17, 2005 (changed October 17, 2005) Permalink

I am innocent of the psychological literature on deja-vu, but one natural hypothesis is that what is happening is that you you have an experience which at the same time gets mis-classified as a memory: the 'memory' isn't actually old, it just seems that way. It's a bit like a forgery, something new made to seem old.

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