A blind man suffering déjà vu. It sounds like a contradiction in terms — but the first case study of its kind has turned the whole theory of déjà vu on its head.
Traditionally it was thought images from one eye were delayed, arriving in the brain microseconds after images from the other eye — causing a sensation that something was being seen for the second time.
But University of Leeds researchers report for the first time the case of a blind person experiencing déjà vu through smell, hearing and touch.
In a new paper published in the journal Brain and Cognition, researchers Akira O’Connor and Chris Moulin relate how mundane experiences — undoing a jacket zip while hearing a particular piece of music; hearing a snatch of conversation while holding a plate in the school dining hall — were examples of how deja experiences were triggered in the blind subject.
“It is the first time this has been reported in scientific literature,” said O’Connor. “It’s useful because it provides a concrete case study which contradicts the theory of optical pathway delay. Eventually we would like to talk to more blind people, though there’s no reason to believe this man’s experiences are abnormal or different to those of others.
“Optical pathway delay is a quite antiquated theory, but still widely believed — and was the basis for the déjà vu sequences in Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22. But this provides strong evidence that optical pathway delay is not the explanation for déjà vu. The findings are so obvious, so intuitive, that it’s remarkable this research has never been done before.”
O’Connor admits that to the person experiencing déjà vu, it feels almost inexplicable. “And because it feels so subjective, psychology, in striving for objectivity, has tended to shy away from it. But psychologists have gone some way to illuminating things like the ‘tip of my tongue’ sensation when you can’t think of a particular word. We just wanted to get to the same sort of understanding for déjà vu.”
For some poor buggers, this can be chronic. For many of us — like any feeling or emotion — it helps to understand causal relationships.
Please, everyone knows deja vu is just a glitch in the matrix.
Its all Bush’s fault.
I swear I have read this somewhere before…………….
I just always assumed that our perception of time is not always perfect. Maybe the phone really did already ring, we’re just out of sync with real time….
Bah, I’ve never thought that this version of deja-vu was that important anyhow. Interesting, but not important.
It’s the more long term ones that are more interesting. People that say they remember doing the exact same thing, or dreamed it. That is where it gets really interesting.
Yossarian lives!
I’m with #5…only without the *bah*. Those are the Deja Vu experiences that have always fasinated me.
I get the same sensation when I have my eyes closed and I fart.