The Facts:
Deja vu is french for ‘already seen’ and occurs in 60-80% of people. Yet, it’s still misunderstood. The people who experience deja vu describe it as an event that they’ve 
already been through but don’t know when or where. By the time they are close to placing their finger on it, the instance is gone. The main reason that deja vu is still misunderstand is because there is no clear identifiable stimulus that contributes to this phenomena.
Glitch?
It is believed that understanding how memory storage work
may help explain why some people experience deja vu more than others. These memories, long terms memories of events and facts to be exact, are stored in the temporal lobes of one’s brain. Within the temporal lobes are specific parts that are necessary for familiarity detection and recognition of certain events. So basically, the temporal lobe is where you make and store any and all memories.
The temporal lobe is believed to be connected to deja vu, but it’s still unknown exactly how. But, there are clues of this connection from people who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy (seizures caused by disturbed nerve cell activity in the brain). From this it’s thought that deja vu events are derived from an electrical malfunction in the brain. The reason this is thought is because patients who have these epileptic seizures commonly report experiencing deja vu, almost like a warning, before they have another epileptic seizure episode. These episodes are found to be originated from dysfunctional neuron (nerve cell) activity across the brain. This then disrupts the electrical impulses that ‘fire’ neurons which spreads across the whole brain thus causing a seizure.
But, even healthy people who don’t have epileptic seizures experience deja vu which scientists explain by saying that there’s a glitch in the brain where the neurons for both recognition and familiarity fire. Thus, the brain mistakes the present for the past. Also, it has been found that the same electrical impulses that occur during epileptic seizures can be present in healthy people. An example of this is hyponogogic jerk which is an involuntary muscle spasm that occurs in people when they are falling asleep, awakening them for a second.
shortcuts?
Another possible reasoning for deja vu is described to be from a ‘mismatch’ in the brain’s neural pathways. This could be from the brain’s attempt to constantly create whole perceptions of the world around us with limited input. An example of this is small sensory information, such as familiar smell, that is engraved into the brain to create a detailed recollection of that one moment. So when discrepancies in the memory systems of the brain occur, it takes the leading sensory information to go past the short-term memory storage and place it immediately into the long-term memory instead. This then creates an unsettling feeling that this new moment has occurred before, also known as deja vu.
Visual systems are believed to be important in understanding how deja vu occurs. A visual system is sensory information that travels through multiple pathways to higher cortical centers of the brain; areas that play a key role in memory, attention, perception, awareness, thought, language and consciousness; with all this information reaching these centers at or around the same time. This may be linked to deja vu by the way that the information is processed. If a difference in processing occurs along these pathways, then the perception is disrupted and is experienced as two separate messages. So the brain interprets the second message, which comes through the slowed second pathway, as a separate perceptual experience thus causing deja vu to occur.
It’s still unsure exactly how deja vu occurs but scientists are working hard to understand this complicated process. This experience also may occur in a different way for each person, thus making the research process much more difficult. Many scientists do believe, however, that the missing piece is around the corner thus meaning that they are on the brink of their discovering and close to solving the puzzle of deja vu.
Essay
I Could Have Said Good-Bye
All you need to know is that my great-grandmother, Mims, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at the age of 89, just after surviving open-heart surgery. She was given four to six months to live. My interview and workshop to get into my favorite summer program for creative writing was in month six. It was in Charleston, SC which is a two and a half hour drive from the little island I knew as home: Hilton Head Island, SC. My dad drove me because my mom knew that time was coming for her grandmother to see her God that she prayed to each and every day. As we went over the bridge from Hilton Head to Bluffton, my dad asked if I wanted to see my great grandmother since we were ahead of schedule. My body felt like a weight, so I said no. Not because I didn’t want to see her but because I didn’t want to have to get out of the car. But afterward I asked my dad what I should do.
“I don’t think you should go,” he said. “She’s lost a lot of weight and doesn’t look too good, you don’t want your last memory of her to be that.”
The words ‘last memory’ replayed in my head as we passed her neighborhood entrance and continued toward Charleston. It was always Mims’s dream for me to continue going to this camp for creative writing. She wanted me to try to go to their boarding school program where I could continue my pursuit in writing. In month five she told me how proud she was of me for starting to follow my interest in writing. As we drove to my interview, I replayed her sitting in her famous blue chair. A white pillow with designs that she sewed herself propped her back up. Her nose was connected to an air tank through clear plastic tubes. I was getting up from the couch across from her, it was time for my family to leave. A voice, that was barely above a whisper came from her chair. I walked toward her to say goodbye. She held my hands and looked me in my eyes and said, “I’m proud of you and all your accomplishments.” We didn’t say that we love each other, the love was already hanging above us. I gave her one last hug and clicked the door shut behind me. I like to say I didn’t know that would be the last time I’d see her, but deep down, I knew that I would never see anyone sit in that blue chair again.
The next day I went to my interview and workshop. Afterward my dad and I turned around and drove home. Again, passing Mims’s neighborhood but I didn’t ask to go and my dad didn’t offer. Yet, I knew that her passing was coming soon. The next morning I woke up to my family sitting in the living room. Everyone grouped together. As my mother told me that Mims took her oxygen mask off. Said good-bye to her three kids. To her. How she asked for them to leave the room so she could just be with her husband of 70 years. That she did it her way. Waited until her husband was asleep, holding her hand. Until the nurse left to use the restroom. As my mom told my dad, brothers, and me this it was as if I was seeing it for a second time. I thought that I must have known while I was in Charleston that it was going to happen this way. This exact way. Yet, I still didn’t want to say good-bye to her. So, as I saw Mims’s death for a second time I listened to sobs and felt warm tears fall into my lap. I saw as my mom covered her face, not allowing us to see her own swollen eyes. My dad holding my brothers and telling them that it’s okay to feel sad. But, they wanted to be men and not cry. They wanted to help their mom be okay again. So they went to hold her. As I held myself in a ball.
we all have eggheads 