A Memory of the Moment
by Anthony Garcia
What is Deja vu?
Deja vu means "already seen" and is "the phenomenon of having a strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past".
I chose to do deja vu as my main topic of this flyer because I don't know a single person who isn't interested in why deja vu happens including myself. Every time someone experiences deja vu they have to point it out to whoever is around them so it note worthy even if it isn't a topic of discussion simply because it is just so weird to experience. Its a weird feeling, being able to remember something that hasn't even really happened yet. gives you a sort of time travel feeling and I think thats something worth investigating.
Why Does Deja Vu Happen?
In our Head
A lot of what we know about Deja Vu is just speculation because it come and goes so quickly at such random times that it is hard to pinpoint and study. However what we do know is that Deja Vu is most commonly found in people ages 15-25 and only happens for 60-70% of people. We have also been able to identify the Temporal lobe as the culprit behind Deja Vu and is caused through stimulation of the rhinal cortex.
A study was conducted a while back and posted in the march issue of Clinical Neurophysiology. The study analyzed the patterns of electroencephalography signals and found that people who suffer from epilepsy are more susceptible to Deja Vu which can also be induced by electrical stimulation.
Is Deja Vu an Important study?
I talked about how Deja Vu is a very interesting topic and is certainly a cool thing to experience but is it really worth investing money into? Deja Vu has no noticeable negative affects and doesn't do anything except give us an interesting couple seconds in our day. Would you be okay with your tax dollars investigating something like this? Yes it is all very interesting but is it really necessary to crack the code as to why Deja Vu happens and if so what could we really benefit from learning as to why it happens. I personally think it is a cool thing to look into but i wouldn't want it to take time away form stuff like cancer research.