Just the other day, I was chatting with someone and they talked about a ‘Déjà Vu moment’ they had had earlier in the week. As I listened, their experience of the Déjà Vu moment expanded into what they considered to be some psychic phenomenon. Wow, do we all have such psychic abilities!

Because Déjà Vu kind of rolls off the tongue, it is a term that is often used when the reality of the situation would be easier to explain.

The internet has page upon page of information about this phenomenon but very little of the research has been carried out under scientific conditions. It appears that true Déjà Vu can only be experienced if the situation in which it happens is a completely new or alien environment. I’m not suggesting that little green men from Mars need to be present, just that you can not experience Déjà Vu somewhere you have been before or with those you have previously spent time with.

The Human mind is like a massive hard drive that stores all our experiences and memories, however, if it had to index every single moment in our lives to make them readily available, our thought process would be extremely slow and probably stall completely at times. We therefore have to accept that our mind, only makes readily available certain snippets of information from our past.

We have probably all been in that situation where we start to watch a film that sounds good, and part way through we have that realisation that “I’ve already seen this”. Now we don’t consider that to be Déjà Vu – do we?

A similar thing happens when we visit a familiar place or are talking with friends and then we get that feeling that ‘I’ve seen this before’ or ‘I’ve already done this’. You probably have! It could well be a mix of situations, perhaps someone is telling you something in a certain room, it might be insignificant, but you get that feeling you have been here listening to this before. You ask them about it and they say it’s the first time they have told you. Well you probably heard something similar from someone else in the same room or a room just like it, and our memories are stirred enough to let us believe it is an example of Déjà Vu.

Another offering is this. You may have been sitting down with a friend talking, and then that same feeling comes over you ‘we’ve had this conversation before’. When we are familiar and comfortable with people, we kind of tune into the way they respond both physically and verbally. This is not always on a conscious level but on an unconscious one, where our recognition of the others responses are not so obvious. As you continue discussing or chatting on a more relaxed level, your unconscious mind already has a pattern of predictable responses in place, especially as you are generating one half of the conversation. Consequently, what you hear may be deemed to be Déjà Vu but it is actually a form of precognition, as you have previously experienced similar responses, you just haven’t logged them so well.

For Déjà Vu to be considered real, you would have no prior knowledge of the situation or those involved, and have no expectation to experience something familiar. Perhaps you are travelling somewhere and stop in a place you have never been before. Everything appears quite normal until you step into a shop to buy a drink and find the shop assistant has started to play the piano, and you get that feeling for a moment that you have experienced this before. Now this store does not sell pianos, only food and drinks so you would not have expected to see such a thing. They were not playing as you approached so you could not have predicted what greeted you. This is true Déjà Vu.

I am no expert in the field of Déjà Vu, and much more can be read about the subject on sites like this, but it is important to recognise the potential we have shut away in our minds, ready to bring us benefits.

Our minds are truly amazing, and so often hold the keys to the solutions we seek. It is this wealth of knowledge we store, that is accessed during hypnotherapy allowing us to make incredible changes in our lives.

Alan Herbert – Hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner | acehypnosis.co.uk | follow me on twitter