My thanks to Dr. Art Funkhouser for bringing this “article” to my attention. I am a huge admirer of the work of Akira O’Connor and have quoted his research many times in my books and articles. However I find of significance that the “elephant in the room” is, as usual, avoided in this short discussion on Deja vu and what causes it. I am pleased to see that at least the hoary old “visual pathways” theory is no longer cited (mind you as it was Dr. O’Connor’s work that finally disproved the ever-popular “Efron Thesis” it would be difficult for him to discuss this as an “explanation.”) So what we have is a somewhat generalistic “errors in brain chemistry”, a passing comment about micro-seizures and “some evidence that a brain chemical called dopamine can be involved”. Note the careful use of words here. Having spent the last two months researching everything I can about dopamine, serotonin and glutamate I know that this is clutching at straws. The link here is that dopamine may link temporal lobe epilepsy and migraine because many TLERs and migraineurs report similar Deja vu experiences during their “aura” states. This is a logical association but it does not prove anything. To ram the message home that this is “real science” the article has a nice stick diagram of the dopamine molecule. Cool, but signifies nothing. One could argue a similar case for glutamate to be the link, but there you go, such comments are to give the impression that science has a handle on the Deja phenomenon and there is nothing at all “weird” about it. The “elephant in the room” are precognitive Deja vu sensations. I have some classic classes from various academic … i.e. “peer-reviewed” …. articles that will be quoted in my forthcoming book that shows that researchers are more than aware of these precognitive aspects and discuss them in detail between themselves but NEVER discuss such cases in any article or interview read or listened to by the general public because that might facilitate discussion that they do not want to take place. Better to continually present the case that a Deja sensation is a vague recognition of a set of circumstances rather than face up to the self-evident truth that a deja vu is exactly what it feels like … a recognition of a place or set of circumstances that have been lived or experienced before at some time in the past …. and that the observer is living that experience again. If this is at least acknowledged as a possibility then PROPER research can be done. For example in my new book I have a series of cases in which individuals have stated categorically to their doctors that they are re-living their lives and they know what is about to happen next. In not one of these reports did the researchers actually think to test if the subject was actually seeing the future. This was simply ignored (or not reported …. and I am sure that if the person’s “predictions” we’re proven wrong the authors would have had no hesitation in reporting this fact ….. if not at least to convince both the subject and the article’s readers that such beliefs are totally hallucinatory and in error). I am delighted to see that virtually all of the responders to the article are far from convinced with regards to the “explanation” and indeed many cite their own experiences of the precognitive aspects of the phenomena. I am keen to have your thoughts on this guys…. and maybe some comments placed below the article may focus attention away from the self-evident reasons for this experience …. we have lived this life before!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/k…/this-might-be-why-you-get-deja-vu