Epilepsy Talk
Déjà Vu or Prescience? | July 14, 2024
Think of it as knowing something from the past…or feeling a premonition of the future.
Those who have experienced the déjà vu feeling, describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity, with something that shouldn’t be familiar at all.
Those who experience prescience, feel they have the ability to see into the future in some way.
Déjà vu – Every day is groundhog day!
The term “déjà vu” means, literally, “already seen”.
Déjà vu has been firmly associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal lobe seizure as an aura.
But you can experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the moments between seizures.
Take the neurological circuitry of the hippocampus, a region of the brain where new memories are formed.
Neuroscientists know memories are actually groups of brain cells linked by especially strong chemical connections; recalling a memory involves finding and activating a specific group.
It’s also this circuit, the scientists are convinced, that explains déjà vu.
Every so often, the circuit misfires, and a new experience that’s merely similar to an older one, seems identical.
It doesn’t happen very often to most people. But, some people with epilepsy have this experience all the time.
Why?
Because seizures involve random firing of neurons in the temporal lobes, which include the hippocampus, and that could scramble the circuit.
In a person with chronic déjà vu this circuit is either overactive or permanently switched on, creating memories where none exist.
When novel events are processed, they are accompanied by a strong feeling of remembering.
So, you remember specific details about something that never actually occurred.
Prescience – Crystal ball, crystal ball…
Well, let’s see…
We’ve been described as mutants, aliens, crazies.
But in fact, only one study to date has been done on prescience.
And that study concludes that prescience is an aura of temporal lobe epilepsy.
The study is written up in PubMed and basically says: all of the patients tested had similar experiences.
They described the phenomenon as “knowing” what was going to happen in the immediate future.
The experience was distinct from déjà vu and other psychic experiences.
And all of the patients “probably” had temporal lobe epilepsy.
Only one other description of prescience as an ictal feature was found.
The conclusion was: Prescience can occur as an ictal feature of temporal lobe epilepsy and represents a previously under-reported psychic phenomenon.
Obviously, there a bit more studying to be done.
But speaking from personal experience, prescience is downright scary.
In one way, it’s a gift.
I warned a friend not to go on a skiing trip.
Happily, he didn’t.
But there was a serious car accident and the passenger seat of the car (where he would have been sitting) got totaled.
That’s the good news.
Other times, it’s a curse.
I’ve had the prescience to foresee events (usually unhappy), but I was helpless to do anything.
Because even though I “knew” they were going to happen, I didn’t know when.
So, given the choice, I’d take déjà vu over prescience any day.
What about you?
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Resources:
https://www.activebeat.com/your-health/7-possible-causes-of-deja-vu-you-mightve-heard-before/7/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15270767
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/question657.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/understand/deja_vu.shtml
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-109316.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-science-explain-deja-vu/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180301125046.htm
Tags: aura, deja vu, future, ictal, past, prescience, temporal lobe epilepsy
12 Comments »
Leave a reply to Flower Roberts Cancel reply
About the author
Epilepsy Talk 
My first aura made me feel that I could read the thoughts of people in the room with me. That was 48 years ago, and I’ve had auras, but not that kind.
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Comment by shedlightonepilepsy — July 14, 2024 @ 11:38 AM
Was it scary or enlightening?
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Comment by Phylis Feiner Johnson — July 14, 2024 @ 12:21 PM
Hmmm. Not scary. Not enlightening. It made me feel omnipotent – one of the most fascinating experiences of my life.
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Comment by shedlightonepilepsy — July 14, 2024 @ 12:34 PM
This is nothing new to us. Rose and I both experience these. We only talk to each other about these events. We do not wish to be labeled. I do not have epilepsy.
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Comment by Flower Roberts — July 14, 2024 @ 1:21 PM
I have Temporal lobe epilepsy and have experienced many instances of both déjà vu and jamais vu. I think jamais vu is worse, it can make you feel very “odd” indeed.
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Comment by Michelle Sawyer — July 15, 2024 @ 3:55 AM
Michelle, given the choice, I’d take deja vu too. My jaimas vu experience was terrifying.
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Comment by Phylis Feiner Johnson — July 15, 2024 @ 9:55 AM
ive got left temporal epilepsy and the hippocampus is scarred, I’ve read that some saints visions were probably epilepsy, like St Paul seeing the cross and hearing god speaking, I’ve been the same. I think at first it was PTSD from our Irish terrorism and trying to find peace, thinking I was with god, then in university I got caught up in the 70s religious fervour, believing in healing, visions, things to happen like those TV preachers who take over your whole mind making you believe what they say. 96 I managed to get away and started finding out the real truth. Though there’s one incident I’ve never found a reason for, I was away from home, one evening I suddenly thought mum had just died, too scared to phone home, I got a call during breakfast, mum had been in an operation I didn’t know she was to have, the surgeon had been careless puncturing her pancreas, she nearly did die, dad and my sis stayed with her through the night praying she’d survive, but she pulled through and it was only then that my sis could leave her to tell me. It’s certainly not like any of the other things that I now know were just my imagination
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Comment by Miss Gail Barry — July 15, 2024 @ 6:56 AM
Oh Miss Gail, that’s no imagination, seriously. And you’re right, it wasn’t just an emotional process to get you through some awful times.
Prescience seems to be what set off the alarm, for better or worse.
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Comment by Phylis Feiner Johnson — July 15, 2024 @ 10:11 AM
I can remember a time ago when my Neurologist asked me for sleep deprivation tests and explained to him my “Daydreams “ that were coming true! So much so that I gave a brief description to my boss who and what was going to happen in detail I was even able to get a time of the clock., between 3:00 and 3:15 wasn’t sure exactly. But at about 3:05 they all happened and naturally freaked out every body in the shop. Haven’t had those in quite some time but I know my doctor and university’s were pretty interested in what was happening in my head once they were given the details of my déjà vu .
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Comment by Jeff Hutsell — July 15, 2024 @ 11:48 AM
Wow, I can see how the clockwork aspect would freak anyone out.
Were the narratives different, or was the message basically the same?
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Comment by Phylis Feiner Johnson — July 15, 2024 @ 11:57 AM
There is also presque vu, the sense of something momentous about to happen. It can be disruptive, to say the least.
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Comment by HoDo — July 16, 2024 @ 11:41 AM
I think that’s what many of us have, but don’t know the term.
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Comment by Phylis Feiner Johnson — July 16, 2024 @ 3:25 PM