What Is Triggering Deja Experience?

There are surprisingly scant data on the precise nature of the deja vu experience. Most surveys only ask about incidence, and among those probing the various dimensions of the experience, the data are either unavailable (Sno et al., 1994) or based on very small samples (Neppe, 1983e).

Brown et al. (1994) and Neppe (1983e) both found that the deja vu experience was primarily triggered by the visual scene and lasted for only a few seconds. Neppe (1983e) discovered that the experience was associated with mild stress or anxiety and was not accompanied by substantial changes in thinking or emotion. Brown et al. (1994) also noted that the primary psychological reaction was surprise and that participants’ time sense seemed to slow down.

There are obvious limitations in deriving such information from retrospective designs. Aside from the difficulty of remembering the personal details of a brief experience that may have happened months or years ago, one’s memory of the deja vu is most likely dominated by the perceptual experience which seems to be duplicated rather than details of one’s physical state and psychological reaction.

In prospective research (Heymans, 1904, 1906), most deja vu experiences occurred in the evening, in the company of others, while listening, in a state of fatigue, and following unpleasant or confusing mental activity or physical exertion or excessive alcohol consumption. However, no descriptive summary statistics were provided on the contextual and behavioral correlates (cf. Sno & Draaisma, 1993).