I've experienced it a lot so far in my life. What do you think causes it?

Nothing.

Something familiar?

I think it's funny that once I had a deja vu in someone's kitchen.
The deja vu was a memory that I was there before and that I had a deja vu that I was there before as well.
That was quite strange to me.

Maybe I was there before when I was little with one of my aunts or uncles,
they may have visited that same house before,
or
it looks similar to a kitchen in a house that I have been to before.

Glitch in the Matrix

I forget where I learned this but I heard it has to do with synchronicity, where as the placement of things is similar to an experience that has happened before, I have had it alot and I am not sure I am describing it well, but basically your surroundings are familiar perhaps in space and distance but not entirely exactly as you recall....sort of like reliving a moment in a different way or setting...quite fascinating

I'm no neuropsychologist, but I've heard deja vu works a bit like audio feedback...

When you perceive an environment, the information quickly transfers to your short-term memory centers. Deja vu happens when those memory centers glitch and immediately kick back that information as you are still initially taking it in. In other words, your brain is for a moment both playing and replaying what you perceive, resulting in a sort of cognitive "noise," or feeling you've already experienced it.
[Edited 5/24/09 20:39pm]

My deja vu comes in dreams. I'll have some weird random dream, like I'm in a particular place I've never been before, and don't know any of the faces. Nothing substantial is happening, it's just like flipping a TV channel. I just catch a few seconds of it. I often don't think about it. But about six months later, sometimes longer sometimes shorter, I'm IN that situation. I don't even see it coming. But when I'm in THAT moment, it hits me.

Example: I had a dream I was in a store. The counter was a table with a green table cloth around it, and a cash register on top. The store was filled with little and bigger boxes. They were in stacks, neatly arranged. Three girls were around me. That was about it. But I remember the girls faces and the store in general.

Fast forward to about 4 months later. I get this seasonal manager gig for one of those temporary stores in the mall, that's only open during the holidays. San Francisco Music Box Company. The store space was empty when I applied. When I got hired, most of it was already set up. I ended up doing very little in setting up the store once I got in there. It never hit me that the green table cloth around the table where the temporary register set was the same I had seen in my dream. A month or two went by, then one day, I'm standing in just the right spot. The right girls are around me (the ones I hired later, and a couple that were already hired just before I got there.) All of a sudden, like a ball bat to the head, I remembered the dream. It was like a wave of ....something, coming over me. I thought, "I dreamed this moment. I knew I'd be here." I had that weird feeling the rest of the day.

That stuff happens to me all the time. So where does it come from? God.

Déjà vu was recently explained on an episode of the TV show Fringe. It's when the mind briefly becomes in sync with alternate versions of ourselves from parallel universes and we recall their memories from those same situations. Sounds as good as any explanation to me.

sextonseven said:

I thought parallel lives would be DIFFERENT to ours, you mean we actually share common experiences?

Didn't we have this thread before?

ernestsewell said:

That's me to a tee.

I wish I knew why it happens.

Nothinbutjoy said:

damn it, you beat me to it!

Lammastide said:

I have heard something similar.

Because you really have been here before.

PANDURITO said:

Someone had to say it!

Lammastide said:

that pretty much sums it up

I've seen a scientific program on this a while ago, and it's even up on youtube:

MrSmoketoomuch said:

Monty Python

Dave1992 said:

Wait.. I think I've seen this somewhere before! I have this terrible feeling of deja-vu!

Dave1992 said:

MrSmoketoomuch said:

Thank you, no. Thank you.

ZombieKitten said:

Yes, the déjà vu experience is specifically recalling the point where another reality diverged from the one you're in. You made a different decision in the other universe which is why that one was created.

sextonseven said:

parallel universes exist?! I knew it!!

Lammastide said:

I heard something similar…but different.

I heard you have (simplified) short-term and long-term memory.

Deja Vu occurs when something you are encountering accidentally is written into your long-term memory causing you to recall the exact event you are experiencing.

(rather than being written into your short-term memory where live events should be stored.)

But what do I know....

DuckPurple said:

in other words, just a parity error

DuckPurple said:

Hey, sounds good to me.

ernestsewell said:

I usually have a "dream" that I can't quite remember. Then later on, I notice that I am living it out...

For example I was watching an episode of daria while also coloring a picture on photoshop. I noticed that, for lack of a better term (which would probably support the long term/short term theory) everything was beginning to overlap. I felt like I painted the picture before, and remembered the clip that I was watching.

Then problem I have about the memory explaination is how can your brain process stimuli that has not been presented yet?

I was hoping to have less scientific responses as to what causes it. To me, scientific explainations are incomplete and don't take into account that which is unknown.
The different universe thing kind of makes a lot of sense...
[Edited 5/25/09 9:31am]

I sometimes have "Double Deja Vu" where I get the feeling that I've been in a place twice before.

Something familiar?

I think it's funny that once I had a deja vu in someone's kitchen.
The deja vu was a memory that I was there before and that I had a deja vu that I was there before as well.
That was quite strange to me.

Maybe I was there before when I was little with one of my aunts or uncles,
they may have visited that same house before,
or
it looks similar to a kitchen in a house that I have been to before.