I have had a great epiphany. It makes so much sense!

Deja Vu is a "save error" where we basically skip RAM and throw something straight to the hard drive. So we "remember" as we experience it, but can never get ahead of the present moment to "remember" the future.

Because it's still just the present. We're just experiencing a very short term glitch which is relatively normal, or accidentally inhaled a bunch ether or something similar and shits gonna be weird for 2-3 minutes straight before it wears off and the brain recovers.

Like, there's not just short/long term memory. There's a bunch of different types, but the "now" experience is it's own type of memory and last fractions of a second. Break that even momentarily and you experience deja vu because everything just goes straight to the next level of memory. Which is working memory and cover seconds to minutes.

Flashbacks aren't always traumatic

I'm missing something though. I feel that a deja vu has a different quality. A feeling of familiarity with something that you're not supposed to be familiar with, almost predictive not quite a prediction. While having a flashback, traumatic or not, is a familiarity with something that you're actually already familiar with. And it invokes different emotions of anger, fear, disappointment, joy, etc.

Damn, idk if this is pure speculation that makes sense or based on literature but it's pretty interesting! 🤔

A déjà-vu isn't a flashback at all.

Déjà vu is when you think you've seen/done something before but haven't. It's not a flashback at all.

I think weed gives me deja vu. I was binge-watching a show while stoned that I know I hadn't seen before but I kept feeling like I vividly recognized parts of it

Sometimes I've gotten a sense of delayed deja vu where something I experienced earlier that day feels like it's been in my memory for years

I remember someone telling me that deja vu is just your brain being tired and mistaking the present for a memory. Every time I get it now I ask myself if I'm just tired - turns out I usually am.