Have you ever experienced a moment when something that should be very familiar feels strange instead? For example, we often use certain words, see the faces of close friends, or hear our own names, but for some reason feel, "Why does this feel so unfamiliar and unrecognisable?" This is called jamais vu, which means "never seen" in French. This is an interesting concept, different from déjà vu, where something new feels familiar.
According to research on jamais vu, this strange feeling can arise in normal situations. Moulin and his colleagues conducted an experiment in 2020 where participants were asked to write the same word repeatedly. After some time, the word became unfamiliar and felt strange, as if it were not a word they had ever known before. According to this research, the brain can become "saturated" in recognising something and then lose that sense of familiarity.
The jamais vu phenomenon is similar to when our brain suddenly "disconnects" from the reality we normally take for granted. Moulin's research is interesting because it shows that our brain has a saturation limit when it comes to familiarity and is not a machine that automatically repeats the process of recognising objects or words. We write a word over and over again, for example, "pen". At first, it seems normal. However, over time, the letters begin to lose their meaning. Jamais vu is a kind of disturbance in our perception system, occurring when the brain thinks, "Is this really a familiar word?"
This shows that our brains can get tired of things that are repeated too often. Our brain is an extraordinary organ that can recognise many things, but sometimes it becomes a little overwhelmed. When that happens, it is as if our brain loses its connection with what it is recognising. For example, when we see the face of someone we know well, but then feel a little strange for a few seconds.
Certified neuropsychologist Dr. Karen D. Sullivan, interviewed by Medical News Today (Corrie Pelc, 2023), said that a temporary mismatch between perception and memory in the brain, particularly in the medial temporal area, causes the phenomenon of jamais vu. This mismatch makes familiar things feel unfamiliar.
Jamais vu is actually a small piece of evidence of how fragile and flexible the relationship between perception and memory is in the human brain, as explained by Dr. Karen D. Sullivan. When a "temporary disconnect" occurs in the medial temporal lobe, a part of the brain that is very important for recognition and memory storage, the brain seems to lose its ability to connect what it sees with the memory associated with it.
If we want to think more freely, we can view jamais vu as our consciousness "peeking" into another version of reality. Just imagine, what if we had a whole new world of knowledge to explore? This experience is a huge change, opening our eyes to a completely different way of seeing the world. From an interesting metaphysical point of view, some people argue that jamais vu is an exciting sign that, even if only for a moment, our consciousness has happily detached itself from the physical world and entered another dimension.
The feeling of jamais vu is like a small signal from the universe or the brain, encouraging us to pause for a moment and really pay attention to the things we often overlook. It is natural to feel a little strange when the things around us suddenly change. We may see familiar words and faces in a new way, or our daily routines may feel slightly different. This can make us think "Are we really paying attention to our own lives?"
Isn't it interesting how jamais vu makes us realise that reality is relative? When we look at it from a different perspective, even things we usually consider stable and safe can feel unfamiliar.
References:
Moulin, C. J. A., Bell, N., Turunen, M., Baharin, A., & O'Connor, A. R. (2021). The the the the induction of jamais vu in the laboratory: word alienation and semantic satiation. Memory (Hove, England), 29(7), 933–942. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2020.1727519
Pelc, C. (2023, October 3). Jamais vu, the opposite of déjà vu: Why does the familiar feel strangely new sometimes? Medical News Today.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/jamais-vu-whatjamais-vu-the-opposite-of-deja-vu-why-does-the-familiar-feel-strangely-new-sometimesexplains-the-opposite-of-deja-vu
