Do you sometimes get a strong sensation that you have experienced a particular moment in the past? It’s like you already have had experienced the present moment before, but you are uncertain about when was it. This eerie phenomenon is well known as Déjà vu, which originates from a French word meaning ‘already seen’ and is thought to have been coined in the early 20th Century. To take it as a clear example, suppose you and your friends are traveling to Mustang during your vacation, then suddenly this notion emerges in your head, that you were there before, exactly at the same place, at the same time, with your same friends and same surroundings, making it almost feel so identically surreal; that could not have been just the place you saw somewhere on the internet or came across somewhere, but instead it feels like it was perceived by your very own eyes as an experience you’ve previously had.

Déjà vu has baffled scientists all over the world as it is rather intricate and has many theories encircling around it. According to a recent survey, almost 70 percent of the population proclaims to have experienced Déjà vu. Majority of those people still don’t realise what they are experiencing is actually something they have already seen or experienced. This experience usually occurs in individuals in the 15 to 25 year age group.

Some believe Déjà vu is one of the subjects that might suggest that parallel universes do exist. Saying that, you yourself in the other different universe experiencing the situations are linked to you at your universe making you feel that you were the one who experienced that situation, but instead it was your projection in the other universe. While others believe that it’s our brain that mismatches the present moment for the past, making us believe that we have experienced it before. These are some mind-bending theories that give me the goosebumps. Also, as Déjà vu is associated with the temporal-lobe of our brain, so it may occur in people who have had temporal-lobe seizures but for those who are in good health there is high speculation as to why these things happen.

Psychiatrists believe that it could occur simply due to the person’s deep wish fulfilment or fantasy, or can be networked with reference to past life experience, which I think is far-fetched. I think or I would hope to think that it has more deep rooted mystery within it which is unfathomable to traverse, which is yet too complicated to be understood by the human brain, too deep to be penetrated, too labyrinthine to decipher because it’s this mystery of science that makes us keep going further, pushing the boundaries to make the unknown known.

Bastola is a +2 student at SOS Hermann Gmiener College, Gandaki