The mind is a wonderful thing – there is so much about it which remains a mystery to this day. Science is able to describe strange phenomena, but can not account for their origins. While most of us are familiar with one or two on this list, many others are mostly unknown outside of the psychological realm. This is a list of the top ten strange mental phenomena.
We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! – Charles Dickens
Déjà vu is the experience of being certain that you have experienced or seen a new situation previously – you feel as though the event has already happened or is repeating itself. The experience is usually accompanied by a strong sense of familiarity and a sense of eeriness, strangeness, or weirdness. The “previous” experience is usually attributed to a dream, but sometimes there is a firm sense that it has truly occurred in the past.
Déjà vécu (pronounced vay-koo) is what most people are experiencing when they think they are experiencing deja vu. Déjà vu is the sense of having seen something before, whereas déjà vécu is the experience of having seen an event before, but in great detail – such as recognizing smells and sounds. This is also usually accompanied by a very strong feeling of knowing what is going to come next. In my own experience of this, I have not only known what was going to come next, but have been able to tell those around me what is going to come next – and I am right. This is a very eerie and unexplainable sensation.
Déjà visité is a less common experience and it involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. For example, you may know your way around a a new town or a landscape despite having never been there, and knowing that it is impossible for you to have this knowledge. Déjà visité is about spatial and geographical relationships, while déjà vécu is about temporal occurrences. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about an experience of this in his book “Our Old Home” in which he visited a ruined castle and had a full knowledge of its layout. He was later able to trace the experience to a poem he had read many years early by Alexander Pope in which the castle was accurately described.
Déjà senti is the phenomenon of having “already felt” something. This is exclusively a mental phenomenon and seldom remains in your memory afterwards. In the words of a person having experienced it: “What is occupying the attention is what has occupied it before, and indeed has been familiar, but has been forgotten for a time, and now is recovered with a slight sense of satisfaction as if it had been sought for. The recollection is always started by another person’s voice, or by my own verbalized thought, or by what I am reading and mentally verbalize; and I think that during the abnormal state I generally verbalize some such phrase of simple recognition as ‘Oh yes—I see’, ‘Of course—I remember’, etc., but a minute or two later I can recollect neither the words nor the verbalized thought which gave rise to the recollection. I only find strongly that they resemble what I have felt before under similar abnormal conditions.”
You could think of it as the feeling of having just spoken, but realizing that you, in fact, didn’t utter a word.
Jamais vu (never seen) describes a familiar situation which is not recognized. It is often considered to be the opposite of déjà vu and it involves a sense of eeriness. The observer does not recognize the situation despite knowing rationally that they have been there before. It is commonly explained as when a person momentarily doesn’t recognize a person, word, or place that they know. Chris Moulin, of Leeds University, asked 92 volunteers to write out “door” 30 times in 60 seconds. He reported that 68 per cent of his guinea pigs showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that “door” was a real word. This has lead him to believe that jamais vu may be a symptom of brain fatigue.
Presque vu is very similar to the “tip of the tongue” sensation – it is the strong feeling that you are about to experience an epiphany – though the epiphany seldom comes. The term “presque vu” means “almost seen”. The sensation of presque vu can be very disorienting and distracting.
L’esprit de l’escalier (stairway wit) is the sense of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late. The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult, or any witty, clever remark that comes to mind too late to be useful—when one is on the “staircase” leaving the scene. The German word treppenwitz is used to express the same idea. The closest phrase in English to describe this situation is “being wise after the event”. The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at having not thought of the riposte when it was most needed or suitable.
Capgras delusion is the phenomenon in which a person believes that a close friend or family member has been replaced by an identical looking impostor. This could be tied in to the old belief that babies were stolen and replaced by changelings in medieval folklore, as well as the modern idea of aliens taking over the bodies of people on earth to live amongst us for reasons unknown. This delusion is most common in people with schizophrenia but it can occur in other disorders.
Fregoli delusion is a rare brain phenomenon in which a person holds the belief that different people are, in fact, the same person in a variety of disguises. It is often associated with paranoia and the belief that the person in disguise is trying to persecute them. The condition is named after the Italian actor Leopoldo Fregoli who was renowned for his ability to make quick changes of appearance during his stage act. It was first reported in 1927 in the case study of a 27-year-old woman who believed she was being persecuted by two actors whom she often went to see at the theatre. She believed that these people “pursued her closely, taking the form of people she knows or meets”.
Prosopagnosia is a phenomenon in which a person is unable to recognize faces of people or objects that they should know. People experiencing this disorder are usually able to use their other senses to recognize people – such as a person’s perfume, the shape or style of their hair, the sound of their voice, or even their gait. A classic case of this disorder was presented in the 1998 book (and later Opera by Michael Nyman) called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.
smackson: thanks for telling me about Sleep Paralsys. This is possibily the scariest thing ever.
I only wish that I can un-read yout entry (90).
Oh, and as I was reading down the list I thought of another one, but then I came to #71.
Martin L. You beat me to it!
I often have a premonition of turning on the radio and knowing what song will be playing. Or sometimes, with close friends or family, I will say exactly the same random thing they say at the same time. Strange.
I never tell anyone I’ve just experienced deja vu; I always say that there is a “glitch in the matrix”. Funny that someone else has mentioned the Matrix in the comments section.
Oh yea… well the idiot store called and its running out of you
JwJwBean: That is called The Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon.
From damninteresting.com
You may have heard about Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon before. In fact, you probably learned about it for the first time very recently. If not, then you just might hear about it again very soon. Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that the other day” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.
the phenomena mentioned above “synethesia” is embodied best in man named daniel tammet. there is a 5 part documentary on him on you tube that goes into great detail of his abilities. this guy is amazing. if you watch the first one, make sure to catch the rest of the series.
do describe him a little better…
when he thinks of numbers, he sees shapes, colors and textures. just about all math is very easy for him because he just pictures how the shapes fit together.
his memory is off the charts, he recited pi to 22,514 decimal places.
he learned icelandic, i think this is the correct language, in one week as part of a test and was able to be interviewed on the evening news by to native speakers and communicate fine.
really interesting stuff.
@ tami and Shabob — that’s called sleep paralysis.
Dischuker, that man is amazing. What a great story.
AWH: i sometime feel that i have died before, not only this but i feel as though i have experienced the emotions of dying. strange but true, whatever this means i am sure there is a good explanation.
after reading this list, it only confirms what many have held true, i am insane
62. MajorYoshi, déjà reve: I wasn’t aware there was an actual term for this…I do this all the time! It’s such a weird sensation to be dreaming and realize not only are you dreaming, but that you’ve dreamt the same dream before and you know exactly what’s about to happen. Sometimes I can take control and change what’s going on, but most of the time I can’t.
I used to experiece déjà vu and déjà vécu a lot when I was younger. It freaked me out until I awoke one morning remembering a scene from a dream and experienced that scene later that day…so I just figured I was somehow psychic in my dreams and when I experienced the déjà vu it was a confirmation of the psychic dream.
I’ve pretty much outgrown the déjà vu and déjà vécu but still experience déjà reve.
4 and 6 are my personal favourites. I’ve experienced quite a few of these, but am just now realizing I have *laughs*
Great List! I had never known about 7 of these. This is so cool!
My husband displays deja senti all the time. Not too long ago, he and my two sons started taking showers, putting on good clothes, and getting fixed up for something. Then, as they started to go out the front door, my husband asked me, “Aren’t you ready yet?” And I said, “Ready for what”? We were supposed to be going to a party at an in-law’s house, and I never heard not one thing about it. My husband insists that he told me, but he absolutely never did. He does this very, very often – he insists that he told me about something, but he did not. It took me years to figure out that he THINKS he told me, but he never actually opened his mouth and pronounced the words.
Ummm… Pretty sure everyone gets some of these. But personally, I’d like to meet a sane person with 1,2 or 3.
smackson: Holy crap, I’ve gotten kanashibari three times in my life and I called them panic attacks. I feel slightly better about it knowing that it’s something that happens to enough people to have a classification, but it still scarred the hell outta me.
Cool McJeebs: Like I said, 1, 2 and 3 are mental disorders… If they’re considered phenomena of the mind, that opens pandora’s box of mental weirdness.
I was once watching a movie in Chinese with English subtitles. About an hour in the subtitles temporarily stopped and I couldn’t figure out what they were saying. I kept rewinding the DVD and turning the subtitles on and off. Then I realized that the character was speaking in English. It was like I was so used to hearing a language I didn’t understand I didn’t understand English when I heard it. I swear, it sounded just like Chinese until I realized it was English. Could this be tied into one of these phenomena?
Excellent list, by the way!
This is one that happens to me all the time. I’ll learn something new, then a day later, I’ll be able to use the knowledge. Like prospagnosia. I learned about that just today in my Psych class. Coincidence? I think not.
I am too much familiar with deja vu.. I’ve had them since I was ~13 years old. So it makes 9 years. At first it was just all fun and the feeling of deja vu was really exciting. From then on the sensation of deja vu got stronger every time it happened. Some times I could actually tell what will happen next (like things that a red car will appear from somewhere), although usually I just couldn’t do it fast enough and stayed only as an observer. By the way, have you ever tried to actually change the course of a deja vu? I tried it a few times and I would instantly start feeling another deja vu coming on top. Since then I refused to believe that deja vu is something more than an abnormal reaction of my brain to some particular event.
Then the deja vu either transformed or I started to feel it different. It was like Deja Senti mixed with Deja Vu. The feelings were so strong and in some cases even scary that my head would feel so overwhelmed that my vision started to blur. This feeling would go on anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes. It really felt like being on drugs at times. I had these feelings regularly once a month for the last 3 years. Every time it happened I tried to explore the feeling, describe it but it was fruitless.
4 or 5 weeks ago something weird happened. As I was waiting for a bus, I blacked out. The feeling was so strong and nearly instant. I didn’t even feel my vision blurring out, I just blacked out. It was very short, only like 4 seconds, but it was enough for me to fall down and hit back of my head straight to a rock. I got up instantly and went home bleeding. There’s still a little wound left. Almost healed though. It’s scary when you think about it, especially when it happens to you. Since then I had no deja vu’s fortunately. If it happens again, I’ll go straight to a doctor to check on my brain or whatever.
Also I don’t believe it was any kind of panic attack, because at the moment of black out I felt completely normal.
Has anyone had a feeling that something bad is going to happen and you have physical nervousness like shaking hands etc…
without any reason
Sketsargis: Some deja vu’s have been linked to epilepsy. You really should go see your doctor now and not wait for another episode to happen.
Very interesting list. #90, thanks for the additions. Number 2 is very familiar. When I was a child, I would have “dreams” that I couldn’t move or speak. I would have them, tell my parents and they would just shake their heads at me. We moved from that apartment and the “dreams” stopped. HMMMM!!!!
I have experienced Deja Vu And Deja Vecu Millions of times.
THIS IS DUMB as hell!
144. DEe
so show us how smart you are and explain why ‘this is dumb as hell’. hhmm..?
Fun list, I’ve definitely experienced some of these. Deja vecu is most unsettling.
I get migraines, and usually beforehand I’ll know one’s coming because I get an aura (disturbance in vision or some other sense). Sometimes people even get distortions in their sense of time and/or space. I’ve been doing some reading about it and the current theory is that the electrical signals get messed up–the wires are, literally, crossed. I’m wondering if that’s related to some of the things on the list. . . even if it’s not, it’s interesting.
Will: that happens to me about two or three times a year. Mostly I just get clumsy. Totally freaks me out. . . the creepiest thing is that every time it’s happened, something bad has followed. Of course very few people believe that second part, seeing as I typically don’t say anything until after the fact because I think it’s just my head playing tricks. . .
Wow! I had no idea there were so many “dejas!” Sometimes, I think I’ll have told someone something, but I can’t remember, so I’ll say it again and the person will be like “you already told/asked me that…” Is that what deja senti is?
Kittiwake,
I get migraines too! And I’ve seen auras occasionally. Usually they’re little flashing lights, like what you see when a person takes a picture of you with a camera with a flashbulb (and they’re usually purple, for some reason), but anyway, interesting question… I wonder what causes them…
love this list!
man…………loads of times wid me………sbout 5 of dese is already occured wid me………..
funny…..alls dis is gamiliar……..
damn..i suppose……dis IS deja vu……..
ha ha ha
Numbers 1,2 and 3 are really severe mental disorders and pretty disturbing ones at that… Now, the Spirit of the Stairway, well, it happens all too often to me, I guess it has something to do with hyperactivity of the amygdala in stressful conditions.
As for synaesthesia, well it’s just a fancy way for picking up impressionable girls… You only have to picture this “spy” from True Lies whispering in conspiratorial voice to Jamie Lee Curtis “you know, I’m a synaesthesist but you must not talk to anybody about it…”
i’m a sane person who has experienced 3 — i dated my first serious boyfriend for 5 years, and for the first 2, i had a persistent feeling that he was really something entirely different — an alien, or a serial killer — and that some day he would pull off his mask and reveal himself. i guess the sane part is that i recognized that it was ridiculous enough that i never acted on it (although i did tell him; he thought it was weird, obvis) but it really was a very strong feeling that i had to tell myself was ridiculous.
On “Déjà Vu”…Altho it’s not any help in explaining the other “Vu” sensations, my belief is there’s a simple cause for déjà vu: In-the-moment remembering. There’s a certain mental “sensation” which occurs when remembering something, as opposed to what it feels like to experience in real time. Déjà Vu makes sense to me as the result of a sort of “short circuit” which causes the mind to “remember” an event which is happening in the present moment. This overlay of sensation–remembering and experiencing at the same time, causes the odd experience of déjà vu. As a “proof” to this theory, the déjà vu feeling typically ends abruptly once it’s existence comes to our consciousness. This occurs because the “snapping into awareness” that a déjà vu is happening causes it to stop happening because the “short circuit” is corrected.
mrgshelton: I agree with you on that for deja vu – though not deja vecu which includes a type or premonition as well.
yeah I’ve had Déjà vécu On several occasions I often wonder if it’s a form of psychic phenomenon. Evidently scientists want to study the sensation in detail to see perhaps if it could be related to a small seizure within the cortex. It generally feels like a reel moving in the mind. The sensation to me is like seeing a film over reality. Before the reel sinks back in again into the normalcy of everyday thought.
There is a timeslot. If you realize the outcome, you can do something to change it. Which if you ever had more than a second to do so. Can feel really unpleasant to the mind.
I saved a life because of one. But most of the time. I simply know the outcome of some mundane thing. and it passes.
Another theory of deja vu. Feeling like something has happened before may be linked to the brain tricking itself by placing the current event and placing it in a part of the brain where memories are stored.
Most of the time they are dreams becoming reality. Which is why I’m wary of realistic ones.
I was going to the airport last week and I looked at a plane as we were driving in and for a split second I didn’t know what it was. It was familiar, but not a plane, in my mind. Some kind of bus or something. Once the experience passed, I thought it was really kind of cool to not recognize something so familiar. It’s cool to have a name for that.
Ooh – and another question. When I have my eyes closed, I tend to see loud sounds as black and white patterns. Is there a name for that?
April: that is very interesting – I have experienced that too and I don’t know what it is!
I saw a special on brain disorders and the Capgras delusion came up. The person thought his parents (he had to live at home from the head trauma) were imposters and that when his mother returned home from work it was a different person. He commented that she isn’t as nice as the lady who cooks him breakfast. Odly enough when he talked to his parents on the phone he knew it was them.
very cool!!
Is there a word for “Finding out that there’s actually a name for something you’ve been experiencing for years, and it’s not simply that you’re weird”?
For years I have been experiencing “false awakening”, or dreaming that I’ve woken up. Sometimes I “wake up” in something approximating the real world, but quite often I “wake up” somewhere completely different, but it feels completely “real”. Then strange things start happening in my dream, and I consciously think: “This is strange. This is not my house. I must be dreaming. I’d better wake up.”
I found the term “false awakening” on wikipedia about a year ago. I thought “OMG. There’s a name for it!”
#3 Capgras Delusion: afflicting all believers in the Beatles Paul-is-dead Conspiracy!
My little brother had an AVM (Arteriovenous malformation) repaired when he was 15. After the surgery he could not remember what things were called. Like a towel. Or the name of his Aunt. He had to go through a lot of physical therapy to be able to train his brain to remember those things.
Is there a thing where you think a random sound is saying your name over and over? Like the wind will sound like your name, or sometimes some other word.
Lets not forget the one that George Carlin talks about. “Vu JaDe” “None of this has ever happened before!”
Sometimes I meet people and feel very strongly that I have met them before although in all likelihood I probably haven’t or have at least met someone who is very much like them.
Sometimes I can figure out who it is they remind me of, but often I cannot. Is there a name for this?
I was going to add this one too. Sometimes, I find myself staring at people because I am trying to place where I’ve seen them before. I have to look away, though, when they show obvious discomfort with the way I am examining them. They don’t seem to recognize ME. On the other hand, I have had all sorts of people come up to me and call me by another name; I recall one lady going on and on, asking me about my mother – she had me confused with someone else. Odd, isn’t it?
tourmaline: I have had a very similar experience in which I see a person and do a double take because they seem suddenly very familiar – the weirdest thing is that they often do a double take too and look back – it is very strange.
I tend to see people that seem familiar to me and get a flash of a place or someone. They usually are someone I have met before and the place or someone is almost always associated with them.
jfrater- I did that the other day. We stood there trying to look like we weren’t, but we were doing the same thing, trying to recognise each other.
It was creepy.
LePetiteMort: I agree – definitely one of the more eerie experiences I have on a fairly regular basis!
My farts stink.
Mary: Deja poop? Ok, I think this thread has run its course. I can’t believe I read the whole thing!
Why is it that when i have deja vu it makes me feel or be sick? does anyone else get that?
it Scares me to death. Espescially things having to do with coïncidence. I think of a name and bam, there I read it in a book or see it on tv. Happens to me very often!!!!!!
Nice. Great List there mate.
i’ve experienced most of these besides the last three daily. I had a time where i was having deja vecu multiple times throughout the day and all the other ones too. I have about the top 5 at least once a week, is this unnatural?
I experience L’esprit de L’Escalier all the time. Someone will say something and then later, I will think of what I should have said and it sounds so smart and then I get angry because I wish I would have said it. It’s so funny. I do this almost daily and wonder why I didn’t think of it in the moment, it’s so frustrating. It makes me feel almost like I’m tongue-tied at the time, but I can be witty after the fact when it does me no good.
I wonder if there is a Deja….term for what I frequently
experience and that is seeing faces in clouds and in foliage, who appear to be wanting to pass on messages to me.
In some cases these images actually represent famous people who have passed on, like John Lennon.
I also occasionally experience “live” day dreams, where I may witness an accident about to happen, or see one image on a regular basis, which I put down to experiencing a flash from a past life, or me witnessing an actual accident somewhere in the world that I can do nothing about.
As our spirit is “Infinite” surely all of this, could just possibly be the result of a highly tuned spirit that could be multi tasking and sending back images of what it has experienced.
Kinda like a big bowl of Quantum soup!
Deja sounds good though, very chic very French! voila!
The main one this fellow forgot:
Synaesthesia is the mixing of the senses. Those affected by it hear colors, see sounds, and taste tactile sensations.
Can you imagine? Someone shouts at you and your only sense is to see a burst of opaque purple. They hiss and for you, the room strobes. When they smile, a sinusoidal stream of green rolls at you. A touch on your shoulder is experienced as a blaring trumpet.
Very very strange mixed up brain signalling.