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 →:: COMPARE ::
Déjà vuvsJamais vu
The short answer
Déjà vu is unearned familiarity; jamais vu is unearned strangeness — a familiar word or face suddenly reading as alien. Same machinery, opposite failure mode, and jamais vu is far less studied.
Side by side
| Aspect | Déjà vu | Jamais vu |
|---|---|---|
| Error direction | Too familiar | Too strange |
| Trigger | Matching layout | Over-exposure |
| Common | Very | Less |
| Studied | Extensively | Barely |
What each one means
Jamais Vu
Jamais vu is the unsettling sense that something you know perfectly well — a word, a face, a room — has become strange and unfamiliar.
Full definition of Jamais Vu →