Getting deja vu
Getting deja vu is the sense that a new moment has happened before. Research links it to scenes that resemble something you saw and forgot, a sign of how much of your past travels into every new place.
This page only describes folk beliefs. If the sensation keeps coming back or worries you, please see a doctor.
What it may mean
Deja vu is the strange certainty that this exact scene has happened before, down to the sentence someone is halfway through. The French name dates from the 1870s, and around two-thirds of people say they have felt it at least once. One line of research offers a plain account. In lab studies, the feeling came most strongly when a new scene shared its layout with one people had seen and forgotten, so something in them recognized the arrangement before they could name the source. Ordinary life does this without the shiver: a new boss who stands like an old teacher, a city whose streets bend like your hometown's. An English belief recorded in 1903 took the feeling as news about the place itself. The research version is gentler: it shows how much of your past walks with you into every new room.
Depending on how you saw it
Getting deja vu a lot
Some people notice deja vu in clusters, several times in a few weeks, often during a stretch of travel, a new job or a move, when everything around them is new. The feeling grows sharper the more you watch for it. What has been new in your days lately, and what about it feels oddly known?
On a first visit somewhere
An English belief recorded by Daniels and Stevans said that feeling you had been somewhere before on your very first visit foretold that you would end your days there. Read more kindly, it describes a place that feels like yours from the first hour. Which place has felt like home to you on sight?
Mid-sentence
Partway through a sentence, you know what the other person will say next, and then they say it. Long friendships and familiar rhythms make speech easy to predict. Whose words can you finish, and do you let them finish anyway?
Why it happens in nature
Researchers describe deja vu as a strong sense of familiarity without the memory that would explain it. About two-thirds of people report having it at least once, and it is reported more often by younger adults. In laboratory studies, the feeling has been linked to new scenes whose layout resembles one seen before but not recalled.
What folk beliefs say
England
In England, a 1903 collection says, if on first entering a place you are impressed that you have been there before, it is a sign that you will die there.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 908. View the page
To reflect on
Which stranger lately seemed oddly familiar, and who might they remind you of?