Have you ever walked into a room that you’ve never entered before or engaged in a conversation about something you haven’t previously discussed, yet you’re struck with an intense sensation that it has already happened? You have no recollection of ever having lived through the experience at hand, but the feeling of familiarity is all-consuming and entirely convincing. 

Are you psychic? Is it time travel? Or perhaps, a glitch in the matrix? 

Anne Cleary, a research scientist and professor of psychology at Colorado State University, studies memory and perception, focusing on déjà vu and similar concepts.

 “(Déjà vu is) the sense that you’re reliving something — you’re re-experiencing something — that seems like it’s impossible because this is the first time you’re doing it,” Cleary said.

Though many people report experiencing déjà vu, the question of why this phenomenon occurs and what purpose it may serve remains up in the air. Cleary has dedicated her career to an investigation of this experience.

In 2001, Cleary began working as an assistant professor at Iowa State University, where she studied a concept called Familiarity-Based Recognition. She described this as the sensation that “something seems really familiar but you can’t pinpoint why.”

Cleary later connected with Alan Brown, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University, in 2003 when he published an academic paper on déjà vu. Brown’s piece drew Cleary toward the previously understudied subject.

“(The paper was) a call for researchers to take up the study of déjà vu in laboratory settings,” Cleary said.

Cleary and Brown worked together conducting trials and experiments, which led to significant discoveries surrounding déjà vu, even co-authoring a book on the topic titled, “The Déjà Vu Experience.” Today, Cleary has spoken several times on TEDx, served as program director for the Perception, Action and Cognition program in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences and actively directs the Cleary Memory Lab. 

“(Déjà vu) may serve as a critical window into how our cognition works and might be able to be used in future technology.” -Anne Cleary, Colorado State University psychology professor

Initially, Cleary conducted her research on déjà vu by showing participants images on a screen. The participants would then record whether the image induced a feeling of déjà vu.

 “People have a higher likelihood of responding that they’re having déjà vu for scenes that had the same spatial layout as an earlier scene — when they couldn’t recall that earlier scene,” Cleary said.

Cleary’s team has since taken to using virtual reality to amplify the immersive nature of the experiment, taking people through scenes that are sometimes new to the participant and, other times, resemble previous layouts intended to trigger déjà vu.

Some have theorized that déjà vu indicates psychic abilities or evidence of past lives. However, the results of Cleary’s studies actually support a theory called the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis. Cleary’s studies became the first to provide data regarding this century-old theory.

Cleary said the hypothesis comprises the idea that déjà vu may be “a familiarity of the spatial layout of an otherwise novel space.”

She also examined other standing theories that could contribute to the phenomenon. Cleary has looked at the single element hypothesis of déjà vu: the idea that déjà vu could be triggered by a singular item in a layout.

Overall, Cleary found that the chances of experiencing déjà vu increased with the number of similarities that an environment contained compared to something seen previously by subjects.

Not everyone experiences déjà vu to the same degree; Cleary observed that young adults between the ages of 18 to 24 experienced the most déjà vu, and the frequency tended to decrease with age.

On average, most people experience déjà vu a couple times every year. However, there are people who experience an abnormal amount of déjà vu — as many as several times a day — which may actually be an indication of epilepsy and seizures. 

There are also people who report never having experienced déjà vu, which Cleary said could be as high as one-fourth of the population. Why some people have never experienced this phenomenon is yet to be discovered. Understanding the phenomenon’s cause could be a source of valuable information in the future.

“(Déjà vu) may serve as a critical window into how our cognition works and might be able to be used in future technology,” Cleary said. 

Cleary said she wondered why the peak age for experiencing déjà vu is young adulthood, as this happens to coincide with frontal lobe development.

“That keeps me up at night,” Cleary said. “I just go over in my head; are they connected or are they not?”

What may seem like a strange quirk or glitch may actually be something biologically significant.

“It’s giving us a glimpse of the mind,” Cleary said.

Research into the concept also has the potential for aiding in education, as it could drive curiosity and information seeking.

“If we can create a feeling of familiarity without just giving people the answer, you kind of get them to a point where they’re curious and they really want to continue,” Cleary said. “There may be situations where we can make (déjà vu) happen.”

Reach Addie Mitchell at science@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.