Why Do I Sometimes Feel Like Life Is Scripted Or Déjà Vu Happens?
Maybe you walked into a place you’ve never been before, yet everything felt eerily familiar. Or perhaps you had a conversation where you knew what the other person was going to say before they said it. In such a scenario, you can’t help but think, “Life is scripted or it’s just Déjà Vu,” as we have heard many times.
Déjà vu is one of the strangest experiences a person can have. But what if it’s not just a quirk of the brain? What if it’s a glitch in the very fabric of reality—proof that we’re inside a cosmic simulation?
This idea isn’t just sci-fi fantasy. It’s the foundation of the Simulation Hypothesis, a theory that suggests our entire universe might be an ultra-advanced computer simulation.
Some of the world’s leading scientists—physicists, computer scientists, and even neuroscientists—are seriously investigating whether our reality is real… or programmed.
In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom introduced the Simulation Argument in his paper Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?. Nick is a Principal Researcher at the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. He is known for his pioneering work on existential risk, the simulation argument, anthropics, human enhancement ethics, whole brain emulation, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test.
He proposed that if any advanced civilization could create hyper-realistic virtual worlds, then the number of simulated realities would vastly outnumber real ones. Statistically, it would be far more likely that we are in a simulation than in the one true reality.
Nick Bostrom suggests that in the future, an advanced society called “posthumans” might develop artificial human minds. These posthumans would be beings with extraordinary abilities—living much longer, thinking faster, and controlling their emotions better than we can imagine today.
According to Bostrom’s idea, these super-beings could create detailed simulations of past human societies to study their behavior. In this scenario, we could actually be living inside one of these simulations right now, with advanced humans observing our daily lives without us knowing it.
“We can conclude that the computing power available to a posthuman civilization is sufficient to run a huge number of ancestor simulations even if it allocates only a minute fraction of its resources to that purpose.”
Nick Bostrom (2003)
But is there actual evidence that supports this?
In 2012, physicist Silas Beane, a professor and member of the Nuclear Theory Group (NTG), along with his team, published a study titled Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation. They investigated whether our universe exhibits signs of artificiality. Then, they looked at cosmic rays as potential indicators of a simulated universe.
Their findings suggest something profound and interesting. If we are in a simulation, it might resemble a pixelated grid. Just like a digital image.
Beane’s team found that the highest-energy cosmic rays might reveal an underlying lattice structure. The structure is similar to how pixels form an image on a screen.
If true, this would be a smoking gun: Our reality isn’t continuous but discretized, just like a digital simulation.
Is Déjà Vu A System Error?
What if you’ve already encountered a glitch?
Scientists studying déjà vu have found connections between memory errors and the way our brain processes reality.
A 2013 study by Akira O’Connor, a neuroscience professor, and Chris J. A. Moulin, a cognitive neuropsychologist, published in Frontiers in Psychology, examined the relationship between déjà vu and recognition memory. Their research found no direct correlation between déjà vu and memory recollection. The study suggests that déjà vu could be a mismatch between the brain’s memory systems, creating the illusion of familiarity.
“Déjà vu is amazing. In scientific terms it’s an inappropriate sense of familiarity for something that we know to be unfamiliar. But what really captures people is your memory telling you one thing, but you knowing and piecing together that what your memory is telling you is wrong.”
Dr Akira O’Connor told BBC Bitesize.
Other studies, such as those by Alan S. Brown and Elizabeth J. Marsh (2010), explored additional explanations. They suggested three possible mechanisms:
- Split Perception – Déjà vu occurs when a scene is perceived in two parts but processed as one.
- Implicit Memory Activation – The brain recalls a familiar pattern without remembering where it came from.
- Neural Transmission Delay – A brief delay between brain hemispheres can create the illusion that an experience is taking place once again.
Another intriguing connection comes from epilepsy research. Chris B. Martin, Seyed M. Mirsattari, Jens C. Pruessner, Sandra Pietrantonio, and a few others in 2012 found that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy often experience déjà vu before a seizure.
Their findings indicate that déjà vu has a potential connection to neural misfiring. These misfires are anomalies in brain activity that momentarily disrupt our perception of time and memory.
If our brains are nothing more than biological computers, could these moments be evidence of a system reboot? If so, the feeling of life is scripted or Déjà Vu is possibly a result of this reboot.
Quantum Clues
One of the strangest findings in physics comes from quantum mechanics—specifically, the observer effect.
Experiments such as the double-slit experiment, first conducted in 1801 by Thomas Young and later refined with quantum mechanics, show that particles don’t take on a definite state until they are observed. It is as if the universe is waiting for input before deciding how reality should behave.
This is similar to how video games don’t render an entire world at once but generate only what the player sees.
In 1996, physicist Seth Lloyd published a paper titled Universal Quantum Simulators. In the paper, he proposed that quantum computers could simulate any physical system. This makes them potential candidates for creating future simulated realities.
“The computational universe is not an alternative to the physical universe. The universe that evolves by processing information and the universe that evolves by the laws of physics are one and the same. The two descriptions, computational and physical, are complementary ways of capturing the same phenomena.”
Physicist Seth Lloyd
Lloyd built on Richard Feynman’s 1982 conjecture, which suggested that classical computers struggle to simulate quantum mechanics, but quantum computers could do so naturally.
Lloyd’s conclusion? If an advanced civilization had access to quantum computing, they could generate high-resolution, hyper-realistic simulations indistinguishable from reality.
Could this mean that we are living inside an advanced simulation that renders reality only when needed?
Can We Prove We’re in a Simulation?
If we are in a simulation, can we break out?
The answer depends on whether the simulation has built-in constraints that prevent its inhabitants from realizing the truth.
In 2023, David H. Wolpert published Implications of Computer Science Theory for the Simulation Hypothesis, which explored the logical and computational limits of simulated worlds.
He used Kleene’s Second Recursion Theorem to suggest that if a universe is simulated, it could potentially self-simulate. This indication leads to the paradox of infinite nested simulations.
Wolpert also highlighted Rice’s Theorem, which implies that certain aspects of a simulation may be fundamentally undecidable from within—meaning that if we are inside a simulation, we might be unable to prove it mathematically.
Still, some scientists believe we can test the theory. One approach is to look for inconsistencies in physics, like the cosmic ray grid detected by Beane. Another is to create our own hyper-realistic simulations and see if consciousness can exist inside them.
This could explain why we often feel like there is something beyond our control at play, or the reason behind the lingering feeling that life is scripted or Déjà Vu experiences.
If we manage to create a simulated world indistinguishable from reality, that would increase the likelihood that we are also inside one.
If reality is artificial, the implications are staggering.
- Do we have free will?
- If we don’t have free will, are we just programmed to think we do?
- Is death real, or do we simply “log out” of the simulation?
- Who—or what—is running the simulation?
Some theories suggest that we are inside an ancestor simulation, meaning an advanced civilization might be running our reality to study history. Others propose a recursive simulation structure—where simulated beings create their own simulations, stacking realities within realities.
Even spiritual and religious perspectives get a surprising twist from this theory. Many religious traditions describe reality as an illusion—what if they were onto something all along?
All these come together when crafting an answer to the question of how life Is Scripted Or Déjà Vu.
The Simulation Hypothesis is still a theory, but one thing is certain: Our understanding of the universe is just beginning.
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