Is there a simple scientific explanation for deja vu?
The simplest answer to your question is no, there is no clear and accepted explanation of Deja vu. There are quite a few theories about what causes Deja vu, but research is continuing into this phenomenon. There was a theory put forth around 2001 which postulated that the visual signals being sent to the brain from the two eyes were being processed at different rates giving the impression that something has been “seen before”. This theory has been widely rejected and discredited due to the different sorts of deja vu that have been identified and the lack of laboratory evidence to support this theory. The current theories in psychology emphasize the processing of short term and long term memory. In essence, there is a mix up in the brain and information stored in short term memory (like what we have just seen or felt) is mistaken for information that is being recovered from long term memory. This gives the person the impression that events have been experienced before (rather than just
