The opposite phenomenon of déjà vu is actually more disturbing

This feeling, known as déjà vu — the feeling of unfamiliarity with something very familiar to oneself — is much less common than déjà vu and can be even more potent, according to research by Christopher Moulin, a cognitive neuropsychologist at Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) and Akira O’Connor, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Some examples given by Professors Moulin and O’Connor include looking at something familiar and finding it suddenly unfamiliar, or visiting a familiar place is like seeing things with “new eyes.” Or even if you write the word… correctly, you look it up over and over again because you suspect it might not be correct.

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In their experiment, the researchers had 94 students write down the same word — ranked from common to uncommon — over and over again as quickly as they could.

Participants provided a variety of reasons for stopping writing, such as boredom or arm pain.

It turns out that the most popular answer (70%) was the result of feeling sick, which Moulin and O’Connor define as a “jamais vu” experience.

For familiar words, this feeling usually lasted about a minute (33 repetitions). After that, only the most recent words were In another experiment, 55% of participants stopped writing “the” after 27 repetitions because of the feeling of “jamais vu”.

Like déjà vu, déjà vu can be a difficult experience to put into words, but participants described how the words began to lose meaning the more they looked at them, losing control of their hands or simple words…she just didn’t look right.

But this isn’t the first time experiments have been done around “jamais vu.” Back in 1907, Margaret Floy Washburn conducted an experiment on one of her students that similarly showed that when looking at words for three minutes, there was a “loss of associative power,” she wrote. Indy 100.

– It makes sense that it has to happen. Our cognitive systems have to remain flexible, allowing us to shift our attention where it’s needed and not get lost in repetitive tasks for too long, Mullin said.

So…which pop star would write a hit song about jamais vu?