Deja vu 'recreated in laboratory'

Scientists believe they have found a way to probe the mysterious phenomenon of feeling you have witnessed something before - deja vu.

Leeds Memory Group researchers say they have gone some way to recreating the sensation in the lab using hypnosis.

Two key processes are thought to occur when someone recognises a familiar object or scene.

First, the brain searches through memory traces to see if the contents of that scene have been observed before.

If they have, a separate part of the brain then identifies the scene or object as being familiar.

In deja vu, this second process may occur by mistake, so that a feeling of familiarity is triggered by a novel object or scene.