Déjà vu and Nostalgia
Nostalgia is remembering the past, usually nostalgia is triggered by a stimulus such as a smell that brings back a memory. Thinking of the past with yearning is normal to everyone, looking closely on how this manifestation happen may help us in understanding ourselves better. The brain controls everything in our body, it takes ideas into action. The brain controls the emotion and houses memories. It is connected to our nervous system and dictates how a person will react to a certain situation. Nostalgia on the other hand, is a reaction that the brain processes when it encounters a certain stimulus. Scenes, music and everything in between may create and bring back memories of the “good old days”. Some say that nostalgia is a natural anti-depressant. Some nostalgia quotes suggest that only a few events in our lives create a huge impact in us, which makes us happy, such as this one.
“There are a few moments in your life when you are truly and completely happy, and you remember to give thanks. Even as it happens you are nostalgic for the moment, you are tucking it away in your scrapbook.”
The framework of nostalgia is consisted of memories, emotions and the person; this framework support that remembrance of the past how it felt like, what you have heard and how it created memories which floods us during nostalgia. The brain is a complicated organ, neurons connected by synapses and the brain itself connected to our organs by the vertebra. It is soft but dominant in our bodies. The brain processes stimuli and it dictates the body on how to react to these stimuli. In several occasions we experience Déjà vu’s which are different from nostalgia. When a person experiences Déjà vu he may get experience the feeling of being uncomfortable, strangeness and the sense of familiarity. Although the situation or experience has never happened before. There are times Déjà vu is connected to “prophecy” and precognition, scientifically when a person experience Déjà vu there is an overlap between brain systems that handles short term memories and processes it in a different way, resulting to that eerie feeling of familiarity.
Certain drugs may also cause Déjà vu, this drugs inhibits the short term memory area of the brain, resulting to the overlapping of perceived stimuli and reality, therefore a familiar smell or scene may cause the experience. There are other related phenomena that one person may experience, these are Presque vu or the tip of the tongue phenomenon, where a person wants to say something but is unable to because he can’t find the correct words. Some people may experience this phenomenon in different situations but most encounter this when they are in dangerous situation. Danger quotes may explain this further like this one:
“A person in danger should not try to escape at one stroke. He should first calmly hold his own, then be satisfied with small gains, which will come by creative adaptations.”
Although, there are no concrete studies that may prove nostalgia and Déjà vu are related, it can be said that the feeling of knowing something can be relevant if the stressor are extremely difficult to handle.
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