Cultural and racial differences

In Japanese, déjà vu is caleld "kishikan", but it turrs out that this is simply a modern translation of "already seen" and not an ancient word for it. Persons deeply acquainted with the Vedas and Upanishads, enormous Indian collections of ancient spiritual and psychological knowledge and wisdom, have told me there are no terms for déjà experience in them. If there is such a term or terms in the Talmud, I have yet to hear about them. It seems amazing that knowledge and speculation about such a prevalent phenomena should only appear in the West and fairly recently. Just why this is remains to be investigated.

A look at the tables in the surveys section of this website will show that the incidences of déjà vu among various university populations and races is pretty much the same. Such studies need to be made in still more cultures, especially indigenous ones. The accounts of déjà experience that are given above sound very similar, even those coming from non-USA countries. A lot more accounts need to be collected, however. The fact that up till now no cultural or racial differences have been found does not mean there aren't any. There is still a lot of work to be done.