Meaning:

The term déjà vu is French and means, literally, "already seen." Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all.

Déjà vu has been firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal-lobe seizure. People suffering a seizure of this kind can experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the moments between convulsions.

Since déjà vu occurs in individuals with and without a medical condition, there is much speculation as to how and why this phenomenon happens. Several psychoanalysts attribute déjà vu to simple fantasy or wish fulfillment, while some psychiatrists ascribe it to a mismatching in the brain that causes the brain to mistake the present for the past. Many parapsychologists believe it is related to a past-life experience. Obviously, there is more investigation to be done.

Many of us (believed to be 60-80%) have experienced that random Deja-Vu' feeling, the feeling that we have been there before, heard something or done something once before, even when we know for sure we have never been there or ever done it.

We have also all heard about people claiming they were once someone else in a past life.

Well I have my own theory which could possibly explain these two strange events !

Not being a religious person, not believing in the 'After Life' and therefore obviously not believing in 'Prior Lives', it started me thinking.

There have been endless magazine articles, television documentaries, even books, that tell us about revelations of former lives discovered either through dreams or through the process of regression under hypnosis. Some believe that they were once famous people in a past life, some even believe they have been more than one person from the past.

We have heard so many stories of people claiming they were once 'Joan of Arc', Florence Nightingale, famous kings and queens or another person from our past history. We hear of people claiming they were of the opposite sex, of a different nationality or colour, and evidently living many generations ago. Psychologists have used Hypnosis methods and 'Regressed' them, where they have then explained sometimes in great detail events experienced in that 'previous life'.

In death our body gradually breaks down, unless of course we have been cremated, then the break down procedure is rapidly accelerated. Whether or not our 'Soul' or our 'Energies' remain as a Ghostly form is debateable and cant be proved one way or another. Therefore the possibility we can be later 're-born' as a new individual is highly unlikely.

I know it has happened to me before on many occasions, but how can it be possible I know this information when I have never been there?. Yet our Brain tells us we have, and seems to have a lot of information stored about it!

OK so thinking logically, many of these experiences could be a subconscious retrieval of information that we have seen or heard in the past, either from media sources, e.g. seen on television; in a film; documentary; read in a book or magazine; heard on a radio, or maybe something we just overheard in conversation. Maybe this input of information was even done without us fully realising it, we may have seen a film which used the location, and without consciously being aware, have stored this information away in the back of our minds. So the Deja-Vu feeling that we have been to a place before may just be be a recollection of something we have seen in media form that our brain has stored away.

To some extent that may also explain some of the 'Past Life' experiences, a recollection of information about people from history that we have read about and since forgotten about, from our school day history lessons, or maybe in these modern times something we have watched on the History Channel. Even if we were eating our dinner or talking to someone else on the phone at the time the information may have been subconsciously stored away. We take in information even when we are not aware of doing so.

Yet this does not fully explain the results of Deep Regression under Hypnosis, where much more complex recollections about events has been made, even the ability to answer 'new' questions made by the hypnotist.

It is far easier to recall information in the order that it was ingested, if we read a history book then the order of information is set for us and implanted in memory. If asked to recall this information we tend to recall it in the same order as it was originally given to us. But answering new questions that were not included in our original learning material is far more difficult, as these are not memories or recollections, but need processing as 'new' thoughts.

So how can we explain someone who has the memories of someone from the past?

 Firstly regarding these sessions of 'Regression', obviously not everybody could of once been 'Joan of Arc', yet there has been more than one person who claimed they were. Two or more people could not have been the same person in a prior life, and it is this reasoning that lead me to my thoughts and theories below.

We sometimes also see that mannerisms, body size and shape, or individual traits have been passed down through generations, even our looks can sometimes be similar to those of our ancestors. This is done through the make up of our DNA and Gene structure, certain genes are passed on from one generation to the next, our own DNA contains replicated parts of the DNA of our parents, and theirs contained DNA of their own parents, so we are genetically made up of bits of all our previous generations.

The Brain and Memories.

The Brain is made up of living tissue, the majority of it is fluid. Unlike a modern day computer there is no 'Hard Disk', Video tape, DVD, Transistors, RAM or Memory Modules.

So where are all our memories stored, and what stores them ?

Our Memories must be stored in the mix of fluid and tissue cells... The same cells that carry diseases, carry genetic conditions.

In our DNA !

So what has this to do with Past Life experiences and Deja-Vu ?

This is where my theory comes in....

If our bodies can store the genetic structure required to pass down Disease, conditions, traits or structural similarities within its genes, then is it not possible that these same genes that make up our DNA could also hold memories ?

That these memories could be passed down through the generations just like genetic diseases, at times even skipping generations, possibly even many generations. That they may also be present in our parents and grandparents, but have not been recalled.

That the memories of being someone else from the past are in fact memories passed on from previous generations within our families. That what we are recalling is in fact something that our ancestor saw, heard or experienced those many years before.

This would then also explain how it would of been possible to have been of a different gender, as we received a mix of DNA containing memories from both Male and Female relatives.

So maybe we were related to Joan of Arc, Henry the VIII or even Ivan the Terrible !

Maybe If we traced back our bloodline and DNA back far enough, then maybe we are a distant descendant to many of these people that some claimed to have been in a past life.

 ' A new shoot on an old tree'.

Generations branch out all over the world, they have done for many thousands of years.

Take for example Australia:-

Due to mass emigration to Australia in the 60's, many 'Australians' now have elements of British, German, Italian, American, or one of the many other races. Of course this began way before the 60's, when convicts were transported to Australia.

Similarly we may not be 'Australian', yet the chances are we now have Australian elements within our own family. Due to past migration our families have branched off and become part of a new race. 

DNA can now show who we are related to and where we originated from.

But unfortunately there is not the DNA evidence available from these people of the past to prove it !

Who would you want to be a descendent of ?

more importantly

Who do you hope your not related to ?