This story begins in Medieval Scotland in 1200, during a time when kings and queens ruled the lands from their wooden, fortified castles and bailey residences. This time and place reveals how and where Laura Sauer's 24th great-grandparents lived, loved, and survived to provide a better life for their families, children, and country. The family members who came before her were strong, resilient people who passed down their admirable and not so admirable qualities, skills, abilities, and lessons through their DNA. It tells a story of how a twist of fate changed everything and how their descendant's resilience was needed for their survival.
Some refer to it as instinct, coincidence, common sense, or a sixth sense. Others call it déjà vu. Intuition is known as the highest form of intelligence and it's less about suddenly knowing the right answers and more about instinctively understanding what information is important and what isn't, without the need for conscious reasoning. Intelligence is a polygenic trait, meaning that it's influenced by over 500 genes, studies have shown heritability for IQ as high as 86%. Common sense is also a polygenic trait.
Memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime were previously thought to be taught to later generations or personally experienced. Research has now shown that that it's possible for some information to be biologically inherited through chemical changes that occur in our DNA. Our genetic inherited memories, also known as instinct or déjà vu, are lessons from our ancestors passed down from their DNA to ours. These lessons can include survival skills from traumatic events. It brings out our strengths, passions, and talents that we are born with rather than learnt ones, similar to other mammals. Even salmon find their spawning pools all the way from the ocean.
Our genes carry memories in our genetic material and can be stably inherited through cell division (mitosis or meiosis), known as genetic memory. Certain traits tend to be inherited together because the genes are closer together on a chromosome. Cellular memory, or inherited memory, can be stored outside the brain in all cells. This has been proven by those who have received organ transplants and have experienced inherited memories from the organ donor. Inherited memories are an encoded readiness to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli. It could be from a smell, taste, sound, sight, a feeling of déjà vu, or a premonition that something bad is about to happen.
Inherited memories can also come through in dreams as memories, fears, knowledge, behaviours, and answers to questions. The newest research in epigenetics shows us that we can inherit gene changes from traumas that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents experienced. This adaptive DNA change can then be passed down to our children, grandchildren, and further generations biologically to prepare them for similar traumas. The first law of behaviour genetics is that all human psychological traits and intelligence are to some degree inheritable.
Déjà vu is French for 'already seen or experienced.' What causes the feelings of déjà vu? The common factor is being busy, tired, and a little bit stressed out. People who are exhausted or stressed tend to experience déjà vu more often. This is because fatigue and stress relate to what likely causes most cases of déjà vu memories. Inherited memories, like survival instincts, can also be brought on by adrenaline, fear, and near-death experiences.
Have you ever wondered how you just knew?