REALITY: Déjà vu

Good God, I love labels.

In a New York Times article this morning there is a very interesting piece on a scientific study being conducted on that familiar “I’ve been here/done this” feeling we call déjà vu. We can all relate to this, and I’m most anxious to follow this particular research as it evolves.

But this, within the text of the article elicits even a greater interest in my mind:

“For one thing, déjà vu appears to be more common when people are exhausted or stressed, conditions that are known to cloud short- and long-term memory (and that may also accompany jamais vu, the opposite experience of staring at familiar words or objects and having no recollection of them).”

Ain’t that neat? I had multiple or… experiences of jamais vu last night just studying Statistics formulas and working out the problems. Maybe I can relax now that I know what it’s called, and if the study proves this part of its theory about stress, memory will return before tomorrow’s exam.