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When it comes to ‘Deja Vu’, many people may be familiar with the feeling of familiarity of places that you have never been or situations that have never happened before as if you can see the future. However, when speaking of the opposite pole of Deja Vu which is a sudden feeling that makes you think where am I even though you have been to that place hundreds of times. The strange state is called ‘Jamias Vu’
Jamias Vu is a word in French that literally means ‘have never seen’ In psychology, the Jamais Vu is a state where we are not able to perceive a place, a situation, or even words temporarily. Although we’re very familiar with it, we forget it for a moment.
For example, when we are talking with our close friend, we will think and feel that this person is a stranger to us for a moment.
Or when we write down simple words that we know, but for a short moment, we will think that we write them incorrectly because we feel unfamiliar with those words.
In 2006, Chris Moulin’s research from Leeds University studied the Jamais Vu condition by having volunteers try to write simple words such as “door” 30 times in 60 seconds. According to this study, more than 68 percent of volunteers questioned later whether the word “door” they wrote was really the right word.
The researchers said that the reason why the volunteer group came up with this idea may be because of fast brain stimulation, which causes our brain to become tired and distracted and think that what’s in front of us isn’t true or forgotten for a while until it leads to Jamais Vu condition
In principle, the process of both remembering and forgetting occurs in the brain. When neurons that stimulate the brain cannot process smoothly, it causes disorganization of information in the brain.
Therefore, when the brain gets back to normal, it tries to pull information together later, which sometimes gets misconnected and causes Deja Vu syndrome, where we think this has happened before.
Another theory explains that brain discontinuity for a short moment is the abnormality of electric current originating in our brain or the Temporal lobe epilepsy which will affect emotions, behavior, and memory.
Although momentary forgetfulness may seem normal, if this happens to a group of anxiety patients, it can become a big problem because it can make them feel “unfamiliar” with what happened and increase anxiety.
In pop culture, there is a metaphor which compares this state with “The Matrix” It is about the situation from the movie that the world we are living is controlled by robots and Deja Vu or Jamais Vu are caused by “Glitches in the matrix” or defective from the abnormalities in a system, or can be understood easily as ‘bug’ when we are playing games
Have any of you guys ever had the Jamais Vu incident?
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