Cryptomnesia
A forgotten memory that resurfaces without its 'I've met this before' tag, so it arrives feeling original — plagiarism with no intent to plagiarise.
Full definition of Cryptomnesia →:: COMPARE ::
CryptomnesiavsDéjà vu
The short answer
Mirror images. Déjà vu labels the new as familiar; cryptomnesia labels the familiar as new. Both are failures of the source tag rather than of the memory itself — in cryptomnesia the content survives while its origin is lost; in déjà vu the familiarity survives while the content stays out of reach.
Side by side
| Aspect | Cryptomnesia | Déjà vu |
|---|---|---|
| Error | Familiar read as new | New read as familiar |
| You notice | Rarely | Immediately |
| Consequence | Can be legal | None |
| Named | 1900 | 1876 |
What each one means
Déjà Vu
The sudden conviction that a genuinely new situation has happened before — and one leading explanation, induced in the laboratory, is a spatial layout you saw once and forgot.
Full definition of Déjà Vu →