Mind Games

  • Déjà vu — the feeling of having seen an unfamiliar thing previously
  • Déjà vécu — the feeling of having experienced an unfamiliar situation previously
  • Déjà visité — unaccountable knowledge of an unfamiliar place
  • Déjà senti — a sense of “recollection” of an unfamiliar idea
  • Jamais vu — a sense of unfamiliarity with a familiar situation
  • Presque vu — inability to summon a familiar word

Visiting a ruined English manor in 1856, Nathaniel Hawthorne felt “haunted and perplexed” by the idea that he had seen it before. He later realized that Alexander Pope had written a poem about it nearly 100 years earlier.