10 Explanations For Those Strange Things You Do All The Time

Most people think that they're pretty weird and, although we're sure that you're a special little snowflake in most ways, there are some things that everybody does. What's more, we've got the science to explain it.

Scientists do all sorts of important things, from curing cancer to growing organs in labs to sending people into space. Very noble and everything, but we can't all be astronauts or kidneys.

Luckily for us, however, there are also a great number of scientists dedicating their lives and their research to finding out why you sometimes feel your phone vibrate when it didn't, or why seeing a cute puppy makes you want to squeeze it a bit too tightly - and, frankly, we think that these scientists are also to be applauded.

If you've ever read something on the internet and thought "oh my god, that's sooo me" then the chances are that its one of those odd things that everybody does, but nobody talks about.

A déjà vu glitch is enough to make anyone believe in the Matrix.

Obviously, with it being something that you experience unexpectedly, it's a difficult thing to study, but some scientists think they might know what is behind it.

The way the memory works is that the here and now is processed in the short term memory and the important bits get logged in the long term memory after a while. It is though that déjà vu occurs when an experience bypasses the short term memory and is copied straight into the long term.

The upshot of this is that you brain is tricked into thinking that it is recalling a long term memory that is simultaneously still in the process of being made - hence the sensation that "this has happened before" without knowing what will happen next as you would with a true memory.

Interestingly, some people with epilepsy usually experience déjà vu just before a seizure, offering researchers a slightly more controlled way of studying the phenomenon. By measuring the electrical activity in the brain during these episodes, scientists will be able to get a clearer picture of where the effect occurs in the brain.