the science behind jamais vu
▸ Type: Article
▸ Creator: Akira O’Connor, Christopher Moulin
▸ Host: The Conversation
▸ Year: 2023
- jamais vu makes the familiar feel strange or unreal
- jamais vu serves a functional purpose
- jamais vu can be reliably induced
- research links jamais vu to OCD
- the cognitive system becomes oversaturated by repeated exposure
just some thoughts
I was reading an article about déjà vu when I read a term I had not heard before, not in the context of neuroscience anyway. So, jamais vu.
My first reaction was, I’ve never experienced that. But on second thought, it’s actually not that rare for me. Writing a word that seems unfamiliar all of a sudden, I’ve had that. A flash of unfamiliarity in familiar surroundings, that too. But the strangest thing, and I don’t know if this actually counts as jamais vu, was one time when I was talking and I forgot the word “ik”, which is Dutch for “I”. It probably lasted less than a minute, but it was very unsettling.
Some years ago, there was the case of a man who was in a constant state of déjà vu. Quote: “His recollection of these early episodes was that they would last for minutes, but could also be extremely prolonged. For example, while on holiday in a destination that he had previously visited he reported feeling as though he had become ‘trapped in a time loop’. He reported finding these experiences very frightening.”
If déjà vu is familiarity without memory, jamais vu feels like memory without familiarity. But what would it be like to have part of you constantly lagging behind or walking in front, but rarely truly be in sync? Is that even possible?