(This is largely personal, being based on personal experience)
D�j� vu, it has happened to most people at least once in their life times. I'm not sure how often this happens to people naturally, but the frequency I get is roughly 2-3 times a year. Before last year, most of my experiences with d�j� vu was largely limited to just feeling that I've seen that particular scene before. My d�j� vus are also, till now, one frame type. Meaning, it's like a still shot, a photograph of that particular period in time.
Scientific studies have came up with hypotheses that the d�j� vu experience is not in true, seeing into the future but rather a sort of "memory error" that causes one to feel as though the situation has happened. It feels plausible for me to believe that, but last year totally threw all those hypotheses out of the window. For me, that is.
For those of you who know me and are my school mates, you would be aware of the sheltered link via a bridge that connects the IB block with the old block. I remember crossing it toward the old block somewhere in Jan or Feb last year for some reason. As I passed a certain point on that link, I saw, suddenly, as though I was daydreaming, a snap-shot of the back of a female student wearing a sweater with a pink bag walking diagonally in front toward the right of me. That vision puzzled me for about a minute, so I decided to let it go, but to keep the vision in mind for future reference.
True enough, I think it was April, about 2 months later, during the group IV project, as my class was walking toward the CPA for the briefing before we started the grp IV, we took that same link, and at that same spot, in the exact same position, same attire, the vision just clicked. It was exactly the same, and I discovered who that female student was.... none other than my classmate whose initials are HY.
That was one "scary" moment. Eerie would be a better word to describe it. Another soon followed. The vision probably came somewhere in dec 2007 or so, and probably came in a dream as much as I can remember. I was wondering why on earth was I in a plane with students from my school wearing the yellow corporate T-shirt, and why of all things, was I doing some sorta academic related work in the plane when none of the others were! I remember the scene was me at the plane's isle seat, looking toward the left at other students while figuring out something related to the work on my tray table.
In June, during the WoW trip, that vision made itself clear. I was there on the plane headed toward Cambodia. We were wearing the yellow corporate T-shirt for easy recognition purposes, and I was doing work because...... I was preparing for the World Scholar's Cup competition. It all just fell together at that split moment (I need not say that the ambient lighting for both situations were exactly as I had saw it) and of course, I froze to think about it.
If it had been a "memory error" like what had been suggested by scientists, it clearly does not explain how I would have those questions to myself from the earlier vision, unless, within that split moment, I had both asked and answered my own questions. It is highly unlikely that it should have been that way, or so I feel. There is definitely more to it. I certainly for both incidents remember when I had first saw the vision to the accuracy of half a month (so it makes a total error margin of a month) and was able to ask myself those questions which puzzled me, till their answers were revealed when the actual situation took place.
Certainly, this d�j� vu thing will be a mystery that I doubt anybody would be able to solve. But it does pose a very important question, to me at least since I believe that my experiences were true to the sense that it was visions from the future, of that, is our future determined already? Can we change the path that we walk on from day to day?