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Déjà vu is the phenomenon of feeling like one has lived through the present situation in the past. It is an illusion of memory whereby—despite a strong sense of recollection—the time, place, and context of the "previous" experience are uncertain or impossible. Approximately two-thirds of surveyed populations report experiencing déjà vu at least one time in their lives. The phenomenon manifests occasionally as a symptom of seizure auras, and some researchers have associated chronic or frequent "pathological" déjà vu with neurological or psychiatric illness. Experiencing déjà vu has been correlated with higher socioeconomic status, better educational attainment, and lower ages. People who travel often, frequently watch films, or frequently remember their dreams are also more likely to report experiencing déjà vu than others.
“We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time — of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it!”
“Often on the highway, weary and wary, we spurn the unknown and cheerfully drive on for the promise of a Howard Johnson's and its familiar déjà vu.”
“The essential of the déjà vu is rather the negation of the present than the affirmation of the past.”
“We wallow in nostalgia but manage to get it all wrong. True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories … but American-style nostalgia is about as ephemeral as copyrighted déjà vu.”
“When some French were assembling an encyclopedia of paranormal experiences, they decided to leave déjà vu out, because it was so common it could not be considered paranormal.”
“They [ Romantics ] all seem to have experienced paramnesia, the sensation of déjà vu, the total recollection which does not appear to be recollected; they all aimed at least at the total exclusion of the past from the present by a perfect absorption in the present, as if time stood still and became eternity.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.
Not who you're looking for? Others named déjà vu: 2006 film directed by Tony Scott · 1997 film directed by Henry Jaglom · album by Metrô · 2015 single by Giorgio Moroder featuring Sia