About twenty years ago, I heard Carl Sagan give a brief explanation of the experience called deja vu. Since I have had dozens of ‘deja vu' experiences, I was interested in his explanation. Interested, but not surprised because although the feeling of deja vous feels supernatural, I always knew there was a rational explanation.

For those who have never had the experience, it goes like this: You go into a place completely new to you. Say you have never been to Alabama, and you have never been to an ‘international market.' As you walk up and down the aisles of unfamiliar produce, you have the certain feeling that you have done exactly this same thing before. Along with the feeling of familiarity comes a feeling of wonder and mystification. Because it is so common, the French phrase ‘deja vu' doesn't need translation for those of us who have felt it.

The scientific explanation is that one part of your brain has noted your surroundings just a fraction of a second earlier than another part of your brain processes the same information. One event is experienced by different parts of your brain in a slight time delay making it seem as though there were two events exactly alike.

I can predict I will have this feeling after flying or if I have a head cold. If my inner ear is irritated and if I go into a building such as a factory or supermarket- something with a high ceiling and acoustics that promote echoing- I feel deja vu.

As I said, I heard the rational explanation for this from a reputable source, twenty years ago. So when I hear someone who is less than thirty years old talk about deja vu as though it was a supernatural event, I get a little impatient.

We have a lot of scientific information that isn't being disseminated. In the past twenty years many more brain functions have been demystified. Scientists predict that we are on the verge of solving many more riddles, and many scientists have been very good at explaining what they know in terms that the average person can understand. Now all we have to do is tell people that the knowledge is out there, waiting for them to learn.