asked
Can déjà vu be explained?
Haven’t we answered this question before? German workers in the 19th century suggested that déjà vu is a sort of cognitive burp. This occurs when the processes of sensation and perception, that normally occur simultaneously, somehow get out of sync. The modern take on this is that the ‘retrieval’ and ‘familiarity’ processes in the brain are not synchronized. But there are many other theories, and no-one really knows, so at the moment the answer is no, it cannot.
