Why does déjà vu happen, and can science explain it?
TOI Education / Apr 13, 2026, 13:35 (IST)
Déjà vu, a French term for "already seen," describes the unsettling feeling of experiencing a new situation as familiar. Scientists explain this common phenomenon as a brief mismatch in the brain's memory systems, where the medial temporal lobe mistakenly signals familiarity, and the frontal cortex corrects the error. This indicates a healthy, active brain.