Is There a Rational Explanation for Déjà vu, Nazar and Karma?

We’ve all come across experiences in life we cannot quite explain. While we want to write these off as certain coincidences, these are an inkling in the back of our minds that it could be something else. Was it something I did? Is karma catching up to me?

Then we’ve all had that feeling of alexithymia when something good happens, fearing the ‘evil eye’ or ‘nazar’. So how do we explain this?

Certainly there must be a scientific explanation for all of this. Right? Well the most we can do is try and look for answers. So let’s start with a phenomenon that’s more mellow, Déjà vu.

Déjà vu; I’ve Done This Before

Before we write this up as ‘how unseen forces work’, let’s at least try to explain it. Déjà vu is described as the feeling of familiarity. Something happens for the first time but in your heart you have a feeling ‘I’ve done this before’. There are many ‘magical explanations’ for this experience from a past life or parallel life experience to precognition and cognitive projection. Of course there are more rational explanations for this feeling too.

The term ‘Déjà vu’ is literally French for already seen. It’s French because the man that first coined the term Emile Boirac was a Frenchman. Bottom line is Déjà vu is basically a feeling. Well if we can scientifically explain why we experience love, the whole chemical process and all. Then why not Déjà vu?

Unfortunately the phenomenon is a brief one. So researchers do not keep people at hand all day with the hopes that someone might experience Déjà vu and they’ll record or document it in some form. If we can take a neuro-image of happiness, then could a neuro-image of the feeling of ‘Déjà vu’ help narrow down the existing theories in this regard? That’s why there are only plausible explanations for the phenomenon, not a concrete one.

That is why this experience is still somewhat of mystery even with possible explanations. One possible explanation is delayed information or dual processing. Information is relayed in the brain via different pathways before we register an occurrence. If one of these pathways has a lag and the information comes at a delay, when our brain does register this it is registered as a separate occurrence. Since your brain just experienced the same information milli-seconds ago you feel that sense of familiarity.

Based on recent developments in cognitive psychology the experience might be due to a relevant memory. While we recall the past memory we don’t identify it properly and confuse it as the same event having happened before, based on some similarity. Basically this plays on how our memory of events is based on what we chose to focus on painting the event in that way. That feeling of familiarity is not due to that experience rather a particular detail. The theory that Déjà vu comes from a sense of familiarity without recollection also explains how dreams could be a source of feeling.

Another similar explanation is that we experience the feeling because even when we aren’t consciously paying attention our brain subconsciously was. So when we do pay attention, your brain recalls what it was subconsciously registered and you sense that familiarity.

Beware the Evil Eye or Nazar

Moving on to a grimmer subject. We’ve experienced that feeling that the evil eye ruined your happiness or it might. Right off the bat this sounds like ‘I can’t have nice things’. So is this a self-esteem issue and linked to sabotage or are there dark forces at work here. The concept of the evil eye or nazar goes as far back as the Sumerians of the Euphrates Valley. In fact, the ‘nazar amulet’ is a Turkish symbol. The Semitic version is the khamsa or hamsa. The evil eye is basically a malevolent look that casts bad luck. So how does a blue eyed bead or hand symbol ward of that negative energy? Sounds like a psychological fix, much like placebo medication.

That explains why various cultures have their own versions of the evil eye. Like Latin America’s ‘mal de ojo’ and Italy’s ‘MalOcchio’. According to folklorist John Roberts’ cross-cultural survey carried out in 1976, 36% of cultures believed in the evil eye. This just makes this sound like a cultural idea passed on through generations and is simply the power of negative thinking and possible unintentional self-sabotage. The thing with self-sabotage is that we do not even realize we’re doing it. It’s just a reflex like pushing people away when you fear intimacy. 

Yet one scientist actually took the time to evaluate the phenomenon scientifically. Colin Andrew Ross proposed that since ‘human ocular extramission is a real phenomenon then perhaps so is the phenomenon. ‘Human ocular extramission’ has distinct electrophysiological properties from simultaneous brainwave recordings over the forehead. If this can generate an awareness of the ‘feeling of being watched’ then perhaps it can distinguish a malevolent glare too. How does that explain the physical negative consequences from that glare? Let’s leave this as a cultural thing.

The Law of Karma

Much like the concept of the evil eye, the phenomenon of ‘karma’ is based on ‘the vibe’. Karma is supposed to be the balance of things. Rebounding negative energy towards negative actions and sending good things towards positive energy. So far it sounds like Newton’s law of action and reaction. If karma is there to maintain that balance, why is the idea counter-intuitive to ‘life is unfair’.

Well according to the law of karma if bad things happened to you it is likely because of wrongdoings you’ve committed in a past life.  That brings us to how karma functions on the idea of ‘what goes around comes around’. So if every action will have an equal and opposite reaction, naturally you must respond to negativity with negativity right? That would just unleash further negativity upon you. That is where writing off occurrences as karma can be problematic, as it sounds like victim blaming while encouraging docility.  Ideally wrongdoings should lead to accountability but moving past that negativity is a good concept that karma introduces.

At the same time since ‘what goes around comes around’ any harm that befalls you is in a way your own fault. It’s something you did. While again the idea of ‘I deserved this bad thing that happened to me’ is problematic. This sounds like self-esteem issues. Understanding you have no control over certain things would be a better approach. In this regard we can explain karma like the ‘butterfly effect’. The butterfly effect is a hypothesis that small, mundane actions add up to produce significant outcomes. Like how when a butterfly flaps its wings this mundane action can disturb air currents, which in-turn can create a hurricane. While the butterfly effect suggests that everything is consequential, it relieves you of the burden of blame, because you cannot even fathom how mundane actions will have great consequences down the line. This hypothesis in the simplest form would translate as ‘we have no control’. So, all we can do is be optimistic. Optimism in itself is a divine experience. Letting God take the reins and allowing destiny to run its course can be refreshing. Since this surrendering control was voluntary in a way we maintain control.

So in the end with all three ideas Déjà vu, nazar and karma we’re left with optimism that we have control, even if there are greater forces at work.