Hi Gav,You are most welcome back!Your comment certainly give the...

Hi Gav,
You are most welcome back!
Your comment certainly give the postings some balance, eventhough I get a fleeting sense of Deja vu!
Cheers

Dj vu (pronounced /ˈdeɪʒɑː ˈvuː/ ( listen); French: [deʒa vy] ( listen), "already seen"; also called paramnesia, from Greek παρα "para," "near, against, contrary to" + μνήμη "mnēmē," "memory") or promnesia, is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the recent past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, mile Boirac (18511917) in his book L'Avenir des sciences psychiques ("The Future of Psychic Sciences"), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of dj vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.[1]

The experience of dj vu seems to be quite common among adults and children alike. References to the experience of dj vu are also found in literature of the past,[2] indicating it is not a new phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to evoke the dj vu experience in laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few empirical studies. Certain researchers claim to have found ways to recreate this sensation using hypnosis[3]. However, the subject of hypnosis is indeed controversial among some circles, and such data would demand proof that hypnosis is possible as per the manner the study implies.

Scientific research
Since the last years of the 20th century, dj vu has been subject to serious psychological and neurophysiological research. Scientifically speaking, the most likely explanation of dj vu is not that it is an act of "precognition" or "prophecy", but rather that it is an anomaly of memory giving the impression that an experience is "being recalled".[citation needed]

This explanation is substantiated by the fact that the sense of "recollection" at the time is strong in most cases, but that the circumstances of the "previous" experience (when, where, and how the earlier experience occurred) are quite uncertain. Likewise, as time passes, subjects[where?] can exhibit a strong recollection of having the "unsettling" experience of dj vu itself, but little or no recollection of the specifics of the event(s) or circumstance(s) they were "remembering" when they had the dj vu experience. In particular, this may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the present) and those responsible for long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). The events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of the brain even receives the information and processes it.

Another theory being explored is that of vision. As the theory suggests, one eye may record what is seen fractionally faster than the other, creating that "strong recollection" sensation upon the "same" scene being viewed milliseconds later by the opposite eye.[4] However, this one fails to explain the phenomenon when other sensory inputs are involved, such as the auditive part, and especially the digital part. If one, for instance, experiences dj vu of someone slapping the fingers on his left hand, then the dj vu feeling is certainly not due to his right hand experiencing the same sensation later than his left hand considering that his right hand would never receive the same sensory input. Also, persons with only one eye still report experiencing dj vu or dj vcu (a rare disorder of memory, similar to persistent dj vu). The global phenomenon must therefore be narrowed down to the brain itself (say, one hemisphere would be late compared to the other one).

Links with disorders
Early researchers tried to establish a link between dj vu and serious psychopathology such as schizophrenia, anxiety, and dissociative identity disorder, with hopes of finding the experience of some diagnostic value. However, there does not seem to be any special association between dj vu and schizophrenia or other psychiatric conditions.[3] The strongest pathological association of dj vu is with temporal lobe epilepsy.[5][6] This correlation has led some researchers to speculate that the experience of dj vu is possibly a neurological anomaly related to improper electrical discharge in the brain. As most people suffer a mild (i.e. non-pathological) epileptic episode regularly (e.g. a hypnagogic jerk, the sudden "jolt" that frequently, but not always, occurs just prior to falling asleep), it is conjectured that a similar (mild) neurological aberration occurs in the experience of dj vu, resulting in an erroneous sensation of memory. For someone who regularly has such seizures, there is typically a feeling of dj vu associated with whatever sensations (particularly sounds) may be occurring nearby.[citation needed]

Pharmacology
It has been reported that certain drugs increase the chances of dj vu occurring in the user. Some pharmaceutical drugs, when taken together, have also been implicated in the cause of dj vu. Taiminen and Jskelinen (2001)[7] reported the case of an otherwise healthy male who started experiencing intense and recurrent sensations of dj vu on taking the drugs amantadine and phenylpropanolamine together to relieve flu symptoms. He found the experience so interesting that he completed the full course of his treatment and reported it to the psychologists to write-up as a case study. Due to the dopaminergic action of the drugs and previous findings from electrode stimulation of the brain (e.g. Bancaud, Brunet-Bourgin, Chauvel, & Halgren, 1994.[8]) Taiminen and Jskelinen speculate that dj vu occurs as a result of hyperdopaminergic action in the mesial temporal areas of the brain. Many scientists[which?] are still working towards the actual link of dj vu with hypnagogic epilepsy.

Memory-based explanations
The similarity between a dj-vu-eliciting stimulus and an existing, but different, memory trace may lead to the sensation.[3][9] Thus, encountering something which evokes the implicit associations of an experience or sensation that cannot be remembered may lead to dj vu. In an effort to experimentally reproduce the sensation, Banister and Zangwill (1941)[10][11] used hypnosis to give participants posthypnotic amnesia for material they had already seen. When this was later re-encountered, the restricted activation caused thereafter by the posthypnotic amnesia resulted in three of the 10 participants reporting what the authors termed "paramnesias". Memory-based explanations may lead to the development of a number of non-invasive experimental methods by which a long sought-after analogue of dj vu can be reliably produced that would allow it to be tested under well-controlled experimental conditions. Cleary[9] suggests that dj vu may be a form of familiarity-based recognition (recognition that is based on a feeling of familiarity with a situation) and that laboratory methods of probing familiarity-based recognition hold promise for probing dj vu in laboratory settings. Another possible explanation for the phenomenon of dj vu is the occurrence of "cryptamnesia", which is where information learned is forgotten but nevertheless stored in the brain, and occurrence of similar invokes the contained knowledge, leading to a feeling of familiarity because of the situation, event or emotional/vocal content, known as "dj vu".

Related phenomena
Jamais vu
Main article: Jamais vu
Jamais vu (from French, meaning "never seen") is a term in psychology which is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer.

Often described as the opposite of dj vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before.

Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily does not recognize a word, person, or place that they already know.

Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of amnesia and epilepsy.

Theoretically, as seen below, a jamais vu feeling in a sufferer of a delirious disorder or intoxication could result in a delirious explanation of it, such as in the Capgras delusion, in which the patient takes a person known by him/her for a false double or impostor. If the impostor is himself, the clinical setting would be the same as the one described as depersonalisation, hence jamais vus of oneself or of the very "reality of reality", are termed depersonalisation (or irreality) feelings.

Times Online reports:

Chris Moulin, of the University of Leeds, asked 95 volunteers to write out "door" 30 times in 60 seconds. At the International Conference on Memory in Sydney last week he reported that 68 per cent of the volunteers showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that "door" was a real word. Dr. Moulin believes that a similar brain fatigue underlies a phenomenon observed in some schizophrenia patients: that a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor. Dr. Moulin suggests they could be suffering from chronic jamais vu.[12]
[edit] Tip of Tongue (Presque vu)
Main article: tip of the tongue
Dj vu is similar to, but distinct from, the phenomenon called tip of the tongue which is when one cannot recall a familiar word or name or situation, but with effort one eventually recalls the elusive memory. In contrast, dj vu is a feeling that the present situation has occurred before, but the details are elusive because the situation never happened before.

Presque vu (from French, meaning "almost seen") is the sensation of being on the brink of an epiphany. Often very disorienting and distracting, presque vu rarely leads to an actual breakthrough. Frequently, one experiencing presque vu will say that they have something "on the tip of their tongue".

Presque vu is often cited by people who suffer from epilepsy or other seizure-related brain conditions, such as temporal lobe lability.

Dj vu in fiction
The first film of the Matrix Trilogy contains a scene in which dj vu is attributed to the Matrix. In the film, the Matrix is a digital realm for humanity based on the 21st century world, in which all the inhabitants believe that they are living in the real world. The Matrix was actually designed as a prison for the minds of the human race to keep them alive, while the energy emitted by the living human bodies is harvested by machines. While inside the Matrix system, the protagonist Neo sees a black cat walk past a corridor. Experiencing Dj vu, he remarks that he has seen the cat walk past before. The other members of the team explain that Dj vu is a "glitch in the Matrix," and that it occurs when the machines alter an aspect of the Matrix. In this case, the team's escape door was turned into a brick wall by the machines in order to stop the team from getting out of a building.

The Dj vu in the Matrix Trilogy appears in the final chapter of the series: The Matrix Revolutions. The ravaged city in which Neo and a rogue agent Smith fought in is restored, with another black cat that is seen twice.