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The fascinating relationship between déjà vu and premonition | Anne Cleary | TEDxLiverpool — Transcript

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0:01[Music]
0:03on a hot summer day
0:05in 2008 a professor leaves his campus
0:08building
0:09and heads across a parking lot toward
0:11his car
0:13ordinarily this would be a routine
0:15experience and not something at all
0:16memorable
0:17but this day is memorable to him it's
0:20memorable to him because on his way
0:22across the parking lot
0:24something stopped him in his tracks he
0:26remembers the heat emanating from the
0:28pavement as he stood there
0:30what stopped him in his tracks was an
0:32overwhelming sense
0:33that he had been through this exact
0:35situation before and this was not the
0:37kind of familiarity that you might have
0:40simply from having been through that
0:41parking lot before nor was it the kind
0:43of familiarity that you might have with
0:45a face that you couldn't place
0:47this was an intense feeling that
0:49everything that he was experiencing at
0:51this moment
0:52he had lived through before the precise
0:54lineup of the cars around him
0:57the clothes he was wearing the feel of
0:59the bag on his shoulder
1:01the sounds coming at him from different
1:03directions the heat from the pavement
1:05he felt as if he knew what was going to
1:08happen
1:09in the near future a bike would be
1:11coming by from his left
1:12from a place where bikes shouldn't even
1:14be riding
1:15the woman would be wearing a white shirt
1:18and
1:18riding a 10-speed this experience
1:21happened to a professor that i know
1:23named matthew and there are two
1:26noteworthy aspects to this story one is
1:29that it illustrates deja vu
1:31which is an overwhelming sense of
1:32familiarity with this situation
1:34that seems like it shouldn't be at all
1:36familiar because it's actually new
1:38the other is that it illustrates a
1:39phenomenon that many refer to as
1:42precognition which is for knowledge of
1:45an event
1:45especially of a paranormal kind if
1:48there's a really strange relationship
1:51between deja vu
1:52and precognition which is apparent in
1:55this story
1:56it's also apparent if you do an internet
1:58search on the term precognition
2:00which will turn up websites like one
2:02entitled top 10 signs your pre-cog
2:05number four on this list is you have
2:06deja vu
2:08another website is entitled 13 signs you
2:10have psychic abilities
2:12number two on this list is you've
2:14experienced deja vu countless times
2:17it goes on to say deja vu is a sure sign
2:19that you have some sort of psychic
2:20ability
2:22but this connection between deja vu and
2:24precognition
2:25is not just the stuff of psychic
2:28websites
2:29researchers who have surveyed people
2:31about their past experiences with deja
2:33vu
2:34have encountered reports of precognition
2:36for example one survey participant
2:38said everything that she said i knew she
2:41was going to say
2:42another survey participant said it
2:44almost feels like i'm having a
2:45premonition
2:46and yet another said it's like an old
2:48memory that i'm in the middle of living
2:51out
2:52then there is this peculiar case from
2:541959
2:56a neurosurgeon named wilder penfield
2:58induced a deja vu in a patient
3:00through brain stimulation dr penfield
3:03was
3:04famous for stimulating the brains of
3:06consciously awake patients during brain
3:08surgery
3:09and having them report on their
3:10subjective experience
3:12the idea was to try to understand how
3:14brain activity relates to subjective
3:17experience
3:18it's not surprising that he was able to
3:20induce deja vu
3:21by stimulating a region known as the
3:23medial temporal lobe region right about
3:25here
3:26and this is not surprising because we
3:28now know that this area
3:29is involved in deja vu we know this
3:32because
3:33patients who have seizures that
3:35originate in this part of the brain
3:37tend to have chronic deja vu as a
3:39symptom
3:41so it's not surprising that he was able
3:42to induce deja vu by stimulating this
3:45part of the brain
3:46what is surprising is that he also seems
3:48to have induced a feeling of seeing
3:50into the future upon stimulation
3:53the patient reported just a tiny flash
3:56of familiarity
3:57and a feeling that i knew everything
3:59that was going to happen
4:00in the near future as though i had been
4:02through all this before
4:04and i thought i knew exactly what you
4:06were going to do next
4:08so can deja vu really lead to
4:10precognition
4:12as a scientist i was skeptical but i
4:15also wondered if there might be a
4:17logical explanation here that's not
4:19rooted in the paranormal
4:20after all there are many phenomena
4:23throughout history that people have
4:25attributed to paranormal causes prior to
4:27understanding
4:28them for example prior to understanding
4:31microorganisms
4:32people often attributed paranormal
4:34causes to
4:35the reason behind contagious disease and
4:38prior to understanding epilepsy
4:40people often thought that seizures were
4:42a sign of demon possession
4:44so i wondered if perhaps there was a
4:45logical explanation to the connection
4:48between deja vu and precognition
4:50as well as a scientist i really wanted
4:53to find a way
4:54to study this in the laboratory i just
4:56needed to find a way to induce the
4:58experience of deja vu in the lab
5:00what we would need is some sort of deja
5:03vu generator
5:04and while this might sound like the
5:06stuff of science fiction
5:07it's actually not that far-fetched an
5:09idea
5:11as one of my former students went on to
5:13post on twitter at one point
5:15professor cleary once asked me to help
5:17build a deja vu generator in vr
5:20you say yes to a thing like that vr here
5:23refers to virtual reality and what we
5:26had done
5:27using virtual reality was we attempted
5:29to create
5:30that seemingly inexplicable
5:32juxtaposition
5:33between intense familiarity and newness
5:37that is characteristic of deja vu if you
5:39think back to the definition of deja vu
5:42it's an overwhelming sense of
5:43familiarity in a situation that feels
5:46like it shouldn't be familiar
5:47because it's actually new well our deja
5:50vu generator was based on a theory
5:52about how deja vu works the theory is
5:55that if you're in the midst of a current
5:57experience and there happens to be
6:00a highly similar prior experience
6:03somewhere in your memory
6:04that prior memory can produce a feeling
6:07of familiarity with the current
6:08situation
6:09if you happen to be able to call to mind
6:11that prior experience by consciously
6:13recollecting it
6:15then you won't have deja vu because that
6:17feeling of familiarity
6:18will be explainable however if you fail
6:21to consciously recollect that prior
6:23experience that is sending you those
6:25feelings of familiarity
6:27that is when you're likely to have deja
6:29vu because now you're faced with this
6:30feeling of familiarity that's not
6:32easy to explain in a situation that
6:35seems new
6:36the more intense the feeling of
6:38familiarity the more
6:40likely deja vu is so we attempted to
6:44create this type of experience
6:46using virtual reality and the way that
6:48we did this
6:49was to create high similarity between
6:51otherwise distinct scenes
6:53by creating uh identical spatial layouts
6:57between them this is a bird's eye view
7:00of how we achieve
7:01this on the left is a bird's eye view of
7:04the spatial layout of an aquarium
7:06on the right is a bird's eye view of a
7:08spatial layout
7:09of a reception area so we would place
7:12participants within a scene like the
7:14aquarium and then sometime later on in
7:17the study we would place them in the
7:19identically configured scene
7:20like the reception area here's another
7:23example
7:24this time of a bedroom and here is its
7:26identically configured scene
7:28a clothing store we developed dozens of
7:31these types of identically configured
7:33scenes for use in our study
7:35and the idea was that when a person is
7:37immersed in a scene like this clothing
7:39store
7:40if they fail to recall the spatially
7:42similar scene from memory
7:44in this case the bedroom will that
7:46juxtaposition of familiarity and novelty
7:49lead them to be more likely to report
7:51deja vu in this case
7:53than in a spatially unique and new scene
7:56and sure enough
7:56that is exactly what we found people
7:59were more likely to report deja vu
8:01among scenes that spatially resembled
8:03earlier but forgotten
8:04scenes than among completely uh
8:06spatially unique scenes
8:08now it's important to note that spatial
8:10similarity is not
8:12the only factor that can contribute to
8:14deja vu it's likely only one
8:16we've did another study where we were
8:18able to show that the more similar
8:20a current situation is to a forgotten
8:23situation in memory
8:25the more likely deja vu actually is
8:28so if you think back to matthew walking
8:30across that parking lot
8:31it was likely more than just the lineup
8:33of the cars it was the clothes he was
8:36wearing the heat from the pavement the
8:38feel of the bag on his shoulder
8:40the different sounds coming from
8:41different directions all of these things
8:43likely combined to produce his feeling
8:46of deja vu that day
8:47so we have a deja vu generator and now
8:50i've told you a little bit about how it
8:51works
8:52so the question is can we use this deja
8:54vu generator
8:56to examine the question of whether deja
8:58vu can lead to precognition
9:00if you think back to one of the survey
9:02participants from earlier who'd stated
9:04it's like an old memory that i'm in the
9:06middle of living out
9:07what we really needed to do was find a
9:09way to put people
9:10in the middle of a memory we wanted to
9:13see if we could put people in the middle
9:14of a memory that they forgot
9:16could they then predict what happens
9:18next on the basis of that unretrieved
9:20memory
9:21if so we might have the first scientific
9:23explanation for how people can have
9:25precognition during deja vu
9:28so what we did was we took the same
9:30scenes that we had used in our previous
9:32virtual reality research
9:34and we turned them into virtual tours so
9:36that they would unfold
9:38over time much like a real life
9:39experience might
9:41and so a person might be exploring a
9:43virtual tour
9:44like the aquarium and that tour would
9:47follow a particular navigational path
9:49through the scene
9:50maybe it would end in a leftward turn
9:53then sometime later on in the study the
9:55person would be viewing a virtual tour
9:56of an identically configured scene like
9:58the reception area in this case
10:01that tour would follow the exact same
10:03navigational path
10:04as the earlier similar scene but only up
10:07to a point
10:08it would stop short of that final
10:09leftward turn
10:11this was our method of putting people in
10:13the middle of a memory so to speak
10:15we wanted to see if this would enable
10:17actual prediction so if a person
10:19is stopped at that turn in the reception
10:21area and they can't recall that earlier
10:23tour with the aquarium
10:25can they predict that the turn should be
10:26left without knowing why
10:29well our deja vu generator worked as
10:31planned
10:32deja vu was indeed more likely among
10:35virtual tours that were highly similar
10:37to earlier viewed but forgotten tours
10:40however there was no predictive ability
10:42whatsoever people showed no precognition
10:45i was very disappointed and i actually
10:46threw in the towel at one point
10:48and let this study sit untouched and
10:50unpublished for many years because i
10:52deemed it a huge failure
10:54and then years later it occurred to me
10:56well wait a minute we never actually
10:58asked people
10:59if they felt like they could predict if
11:01you think back to the patient from 1959
11:04in the brain stimulation study
11:05presumably he didn't actually predict
11:07what the doctor was going to do next
11:09presumably that was an illusion and so
11:12we ran this study again
11:13and this time we added the question do
11:15you feel like you know
11:16the direction of the next term and sure
11:19enough people were more likely to feel
11:21like they knew what the direction of the
11:23next turn should be
11:24when they were experiencing deja vu than
11:26when they were not
11:27so there really is something to this
11:29link between deja vu and precognition
11:31it just turns out to be illusory
11:35now i know what some of you are probably
11:36thinking some of you are probably
11:38sitting there thinking
11:39no that's not my experience with deja vu
11:42when i have it i
11:42really do predict what happens next i
11:45was talking about these results at a
11:47conference once
11:48and a scientist approached me afterward
11:50and he kind of looked both ways to make
11:52sure nobody was around and he lowered
11:54his voice and he asked
11:56well how do you explain when you really
11:57do predict
11:59and so i thought about this for a long
12:01while and i began to wonder if perhaps
12:03our brains have a way of
12:05tricking us into thinking that we
12:07predicted after the fact
12:08when perhaps we hadn't and so the idea
12:12goes like this perhaps when we're in the
12:14midst of a deja vu
12:16state it feels to us like we're right on
12:18the verge
12:19of retrieving from memory this entire
12:22situation around us
12:23including how it unfolds this might be
12:25somewhat similar to when you have an
12:27experience of a word on the tip of your
12:29tongue
12:29you feel like it's right there you don't
12:31quite have it yet but you're going to
12:33have it any moment
12:35we might call it in the case of deja vu
12:37being on the tip
12:38of an experience if you're on the tip of
12:40an experience it might feel like you're
12:42right about to retrieve exactly what
12:44happens next
12:45and this might give rise to a feeling of
12:46precognition
12:48then as the situation continues to
12:50unfold before your eyes
12:52it continues to feel intensely familiar
12:55well perhaps that intense familiarity is
12:58taken to be a signal of having correctly
13:00predicted maybe it makes us feel
13:02like we knew it all along when we really
13:05didn't
13:06so to test this in the lab we used our
13:08virtual tour
13:09approach again so we had people view
13:11virtual tours where they would stop
13:13short of a turn and they were asked are
13:15you experiencing deja vu
13:17and do you feel like you know the
13:18direction of the next turn
13:20but then what we did differently this
13:21time is we then let it continue
13:23into the next turn now we had set this
13:26up
13:27so that it would essentially be like
13:28trying to predict a coin flip
13:30for every participant there was a 50
13:32chance that the turn would be last
13:33and a 50 chance that the turn would be
13:35right
13:36in this case the turn went left but the
13:39participant was then
13:40asked did that unfold as you had
13:42expected
13:43and sure enough what we found was that
13:46people were more likely to feel like
13:47they knew it all along
13:49following deja vu we ran a slightly
13:52different variant of this study
13:53where we additionally asked people to
13:55rate how intense their feeling of
13:57familiarity with the scene was
13:59and what we found was that high
14:01familiarity intensity
14:03is the common thread to all of this when
14:06you're faced with that juxtaposition
14:08of familiarity and novelty that's
14:10difficult to explain
14:11if that familiarity is really intense it
14:14can lead to an illusion of precognition
14:16like you're right about to predict
14:18and then after the scene does unfold it
14:21can lead to an illusion
14:22of having known it all along so in short
14:26deja vu doesn't lead to precognition it
14:29leads to
14:30illusory precognition thank you

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