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Déjà Vu Experiences in Healthy Czech Adults
Lacinová L1, Neužilová Michalčáková R, Širůček J, Ježek S, Chromec J, Masopustová Z, Urbánek T, Brázdil M.

1 Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Family, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno; †Behavioral and Social Neuroscience Research Group, CEITEC-Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno; ‡Department of Neurology, St. Anne's University Hospital and Medical Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno; and §Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno, Czech Republic.

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 204(12):925-930, 2016

[Epub ahead of print]  DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000000573  PMID: 27441459 

Abstract

The study examines the prevalence of déjà vu in healthy Czech adults and explores its relationships with a number of variables: age, sex, neuroticism, depression, the degree of irritability in the limbic system, perceived stress, and finally attachment avoidance and anxiety.

The participants were 365 healthy adults ranging from 18 to 70 years recruited in the Czech Republic (mean age = 29.05; SD = 11.17) who filled out online questionnaires. 

Déjà vu experiences were reported by 324 (88.8%) of them. Persons who experienced déjà vu were younger than the persons who had not experienced it.

We found that sex, levels of neuroticism, depression, perceived stress, and attachment did not serve as predictors of experiences of déjà vu phenomena.

Finally, those who had reported déjà vu experiences reported more limbic system irritability symptoms. We discuss the possibility that déjà vu reports together with other studied variables mainly reflect the participants' willingness to report "extraordinal" experiences.