We’ve all encountered déjà vu at some point, but what exactly is this mysterious experience?
You might be in the middle of a conversation when suddenly, it feels like a ‘glitch in the Matrix’ with no real explanation. However, one individual has shared his intriguing theory about what might be happening.
Before we dive into that, let’s quickly cover the basics.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, approximately 97 percent of people have encountered this phenomenon at least once in their lifetime. The term déjà vu is French and means ‘already seen’.
The medical center describes it as a ‘transitory sensation of having already lived a totally identical situation at some point in the past’.
Neurologist Jean Khoury explains: “Déjà vu is a false sense of familiarity. Your brain creates a sensation as if you have lived a certain situation before, but you’re unable to retrieve it from your memory and cannot identify the actual situation.
“There’s usually an incongruence between the sense of familiarity and the fact that the situation should not feel familiar.”
“Déjà vu is caused by dysfunctional connections between the parts of your brain that play a role in memory recollection and familiarity.”
There are four main factors that increase the likelihood of experiencing this phenomenon.
These include frequent travel, the ability to recall dreams, a high level of education, and interestingly, holding liberal beliefs, as suggested by the clinic.
Now that we have a better understanding of what déjà vu is, why it occurs, and what makes it more likely to happen, let’s explore Brandon Monhollen’s theory on the matter.
Sharing his thoughts on TikTok, he said: “What’s a conspiracy theory that absolutely blows your mind?
“I’m not exactly sure if this is a conspiracy theory but, I read this about six months ago.
“What if when we die, the light at the end of the tunnel is the light to another hospital. There we are born, and the only reason you come out crying is because you remember everything from your past life and you’re crying at the fact that you died and lost everything.
“As you grow and start to forget your past life, and you focus on the life that you have now, patches of memory stay behind and that memory causes déjà vu.”
That idea is certainly thought-provoking, though unsettling. If Monhollen’s theory is true, at least it suggests a continuation of life beyond death.