Have you ever found yourself stuck in an unexplained feeling of disconnection and eeriness when being faced with some seemingly familiar situation or thing? You could have had jamais vu.
Thus, familiar objects, settings or people may seem odd and alien to you for a few moments. It happens even though your rational mind knows that it can’t be the first time you experience this situation.
You have probably experienced this weird mental state at least once in your life. The most typical example (even though the jamais vu itself is not typical at all) would be when you hear or utter a familiar word and it doesn’t feel real. Maybe it’s been a while since you used this word. Or it could be that you or someone else repeated it too many times. Suddenly, it feels like the word ceases to make any sense and you end up questioning its existence. Sounds familiar?
Jamais vu (from French – “never seen”) is quite a rare phenomenon that is often perceived as the opposite of its better-known counterpart – déjà vu (again, from French– “already seen”). Both are common in people with epilepsy and other neuropsychological conditions.
At the same time, the feelings and symptoms that accompany this mental effect have similarities with short-term memory loss. However, if you delve into the neurophysiology of these two conditions, there are striking differences between them.
For example, the jamais vu effect happens to a person suddenly and without a reason. At the same time, memory loss (even a short-term one) tends to have physiological causes (trauma, shock or neurological illness).
Say you are having a conversation with a close friend. Suddenly, you feel as if every single bit of information you know about him disappears from your mind for a few moments in some inexplicable way. And thus, the person you actually know well now feels like a stranger. A few seconds later, everything comes back to normal.
This is what this vague mental state is about – it has no obvious causes. In fact, after the release of the movie “The Matrix”, neuroscientists sometimes joke that jamais vu and déjà vu are “glitches in the matrix”.
Another important thing about jamais vu is that the eeriness you feel applies only to the here and now. Your sense organs continue to transfer the information about what you see, hear, etc. through neural pathways. Still, the brain gets disconnected from reality. So if you think about it, jamais vu indeed looks like a computer system error.
The jamais vu, as well as its opposite phenomenon of déjà vu, still remains a mystery to science. The main challenge scientists face when studying these mental effects is that it is difficult – even though not impossible – to induce these states in the laboratory. For example, in order to cause jamais vu in study participants, researchers get them to write a common word multiple times in one minute.
In all, both phenomena have to do with the way our brain perceives the signals of familiarity and novelty. When we experience jamais vu or déjà vu, for some unknown reason, our brains fail to interpret these signals in the correct way. Neuroscientists also generally agree that both these mental states involve memory and information-processing centers of the brain.
Have you ever had jamais vu? If yes, please share your experience with us in the comment section below!
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I have this happened to me at least once a year since I had 3 epileptic seizures in my 20s. After ten years of being on medication the doctors took them away since I had no more attacks and eventually I started having withdrawals symptoms regularly. Most of the time then I had periods of jamais vu. I would be driving or walking and suddenly it seemed as if I was watching a movie with no idea who I was or where I was until after a few minutes it came back to me. I would arrive at the place I was going instinctively and would not recognize !y co-workers or the building. Another time I would pick up the kids from school and found myself driving in circles in the am empty lot until one of my children noticed the strange behavior and yelled dad where are you going and I sort of woke up not knowing who they were. the funny thing is I can sence when it's happening and I ask myself is this real or I am I dream it or am I somebody else watching this. I have gotten used to it and told my neurologist but he says is normal.
I sometimes look at my reflection in the mirror and sometimes it looks like a stranger mimicking my every move. The experiencing is a little spine-chilling and reassuring at the same time. I don’t know if I should be scared of him.
I am in my house and I momentarily forget my surroundings and I’m like, “how in the hell did I get here?”
Hello, I am 15 and I’ll be sharing a story of my jamais vu experience on Christmas 2021 early in the morning when I stayed up until around 2 or 3, or maybe 4
Exaggerated story of my jamais vu: Another jamais vu experience I had was where I covered my eyes and I plopped in bed. I now just realized I’ve already seen this situation and it eerily feels like the first time. It was eerie. I was so panicking inside and just felt like I’m just somewhere else in a situation. Shortly after in bed, I got jamais vu looking at the fan and again knowing I’ve been in the situation, it just felt so eerily unfamiliar like I’ve never seen the room before and I was panicking inside like “What do I do?”
It felt like if I try to step out it just leads to something.
Before the next episode, I quickly just jumped out of bed for a bathroom break. In the bathroom, I sat on the toilet and realized I DID look at the bathtub and bathroom like this, but all of a sudden it just felt like I just visited the bathroom in a strange place. I might be sucked in an imaginary black hole, even in the bedroom episode, so I stepped out of the bathroom into another room and it worked.
- End of this exaggerated story
Real story: I did walk into the room covering my eyes because it was dark and I was walking into my room alone. I was covering my eyes because I was scared of seeing my own shadow at that moment. It was supposed to be an experience I am familiar with because I do it almost everyday now a days. However, I walk into the room, trying to avoid seeing my shadow, covering my eyes, but it is a scary experience to feel like it’s my first time and it did. It was eerie because it is just so weird that it is not the first, but it feels so and scary because I’m not sure if I see my shadow and it frightens me. Next moment in bed, it feels like my first time alone in bed and if it’s my first time, I’m not sure what could go wrong. What’s odd is I did experience that moment, but my feelings convince me it’s the first. Before my third episode in bed, I decided to jump out for a bathroom break before I experience the eeriness again.
In the bathroom, I experienced jamais vu. I knew I have been in this situation, but otherwise, I am convinced it is the first time. I am convinced I do not know what could go wrong like I am in a stranger’s bathroom.
After the bathroom, I went into another bedroom.
- End of this real story
Actually, I experience this…all the time…
It is especially when I look at my reflection in the mirror from the wall in my bathroom. I step back at the wall across the mirror. Well, actually, I use two bathrooms. In the small bathroom or “bunny” bathroom because it was wall paper on bunnies. I go to the door across the mirror and see my reflection. I know I’ve been seeing my reflection like that in the same location and the same way, but every time I look at it, it looks strange like a stranger as I am seeing my reflection for the first time, despite knowing I’ve been seeing that situation SEVERAL TIMES. Most of those several times seeing my reflection like that, it feels so strange that it’s like it is a creepily an identical stranger of me. It was like I didn’t know who it was. In the bathroom upstairs, I go to my bathtub part looking at my reflection. Knowing I’ve been seeing it for SEVERAL TIMES, it’s like I’m looking at a stranger who has brownish blackish hair, pinkish glowing fairish half Asian skin. That is me, though. Getting that feeling makes me feel like I’m a different person just looking at someone who would look like the actual me. Do you think jamais vu can be creepy?