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 Dejavu in Islam

Throughout my life, places or things have triggered to me in a sense of a familiarity or  longing for times that existed long before I came to this life. Since in Islam we do not believe in reincarnation, how can we explain these feelings and why  do they occur?

Answer:

What is dejavu?

Dejavu is the sense of feeling that a present situation had occurred previously. It is a feeling of already being in the same place or situation before and is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity. Although people who believe in reincarnation regard dejavu as a proof for reincarnation, neither other beliefs nor science agree with this idea.
Many scientific researches have come up with different theories explaining how and why dejavu occurs. Because of the brain chemicals or brain itself or because of the different sensation of two eyes or as a result of an overlap between the neurological system, an anomaly of memory occurs which is called “dejavu”.

What is its explanation in Islam?

We, as Muslims, believe that the world is not just what we see; we believe that there is “alem-I ghayb”; the unseen, invisible world. This world and the unseen worlds are within the other. Even in our body, we see the example of two worlds; our body that belongs to this seen and physical world and our soul which belongs to the “the realm of unseen.” As they are parts of different worlds, their features and abilities are different from each other.
Feeling of already being in the same place or situation is about “soul”, or rather “a feature of our soul”.
One of the features of soul is its ability to “expand”; a feature that our body which is limited by time and space does not have. We can say that soul is like expanding matters. In Islamic books that the issue of soul is held, it is mentioned that soul expands. Let’s think about a good-smelling rose. Its odour spreads out and fills the room. Think about the air we breathe; it fills the volume of the place it enters. So does the steam. Light also enlightens the whole place it is situated. Similar to these samples, even soul expands and fills the body it is situated to its furthest point. Therefore, soul is in any point of body. If human body were so larger or so smaller than it is today, it would make no difference; soul would even expand or contract and fill the volume of that body also.
Besides, on contrary to our physical body, our soul is not limited to time and space. Due to its feature of expanding, without leaving the body, it can go to and return from different unseen realms; the past, the future, the material and the spiritual realms, grave, paradise and hell. But it can do it with just one condition which is that it can’t leave the body. Because, its leaving the body just happens at the time of death. When the soul leaves the body entirely, body loses all its living properties and it dies. Except the death time; soul goes to aforesaid realms, sees, speaks, feels there and comes back by expanding.
That’s how we see different realms in our dreams. Situations that we see, live and wander in our true dreams are actually happening in the realms that our soul travels and visits while sleeping.
Since soul has the ability to travel to other realms even to the past and to the future, it sometimes goes and lives there. So, time to time we remember and miss some moments, places and events even we have never been physically. Since our soul sometimes travels to the future and sees and lives there, in some events you feel that we have lived that situation and that moment before. Actually we have not lived it before, but through the expanding ability that soul has, our soul has been to the future via “true dreams” and observed the future events before they happened. So, at the time that it happens, it comes familiar to us.
Likewise, since our soul visits the past realms in true dreams, it has probably seen the past events and periods; so it feels a familiarity and longing for the past periods that we have never been physically.
(Quoted from the conference of

Research Scholar and Author Said Yavuz

on “What is Soul?”) Kaynak: http://askaquestionto.us - Dejavu in Islam