Deja vu experiences: Theoretical assumptions and empirical findings

The aim of the present study was to outline the development of the deja vu- research and to present an own study about the occurence of deja vu-experie nces and their qualitative features. Methodological problems and different explanation models were presented for this study and other recent studies. A German version of the,Inventory for Deja Vu Experiences Assessment (IDEA) (Sno et al., 1994) was used among a sample of 224 college students and the frequency of different experiences and their relation to age and gender wa s shown. The results show that deja vu experiences are more closely related to day dreams than to jamais Mu experiences, which are associated to deper sonalization and derealization experiences. Moreover, deja vu-experiences a nd day dreams were found more often than jamais vu experiences as well as d epersonalization and derealization experiences. The results were discussed on the basis of the meaning of deja vu for the personality.