Having suffered from obsessive-compulsive behavior in high school, entry to university triggered extreme anxiety leading to this unidentified man’s one-time experimentation with LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). The consequence was that his frequent bouts with déjà vu became persistent, causing him to feel like he was trapped in a continual time-loop of experiences that he relived as having happened before. The fear that amplified his anxiety came from the knowledge that these persistent déjà vus were false memories.
Déjà Vu
Déjà vu, though not scientifically understood, is relatively common among almost all people who, on infrequent occasions, feel like they are experiencing something that has happened before even though the present moment is a first-time experience. As the report explains: “Déjà vu is typically a transitory mental state in which a novel experience feels highly familiar.” Déjà vu experiences can elicit reactions that range from feeling a little spooked to feeling puzzled to feeling intensely disconcerted. For the man reported on, his persistent déjà vu was debilitating and profoundly inhibiting.
The case study report discussing this man’s condition has made news because they have associated his persistent déjà vu with an anxiety-based disorder and have newly classified his persistent déjà vu as being psychogenic, as having its roots in a psychological disorder. To quote the lead researcher and author of the medical journal case study, Christine E. Wells: “We suggest that his persistent déjà vu is psychogenic and conclude that déjà vu should be further studied in psychiatric disorders.”
What He Experiences: Déjà Vecu
The déjà vu experiences of this young white British man began when he entered university in 2007 as a 20-year-old student. With a history of anxiety spurring obsessive-compulsive behavior, he soon began experiencing frequent déjà vu, but of a form called déjà vecu [déjà vecu is one of three sub-classifications of déjà vu developed in 1983 by Vernon Neppe; it can differ from déjà vu by degree of intensity and frequency]. This form is a sense of reliving a known experience rather than the common sense of uncomfortable familiarity with an experience; it’s a difference of degree and intensity.
With ever deepening low mood and ever heightening anxiety, driven by déjà vu that might last minutes or much longer, he took a leave from university and went on holiday to a previously visited destination. There, he fell into what he described as a “time-loop” of prolonged déjà vu in which seemingly every moment felt like one he had lived before. Though more and more distressed and approaching the debility he presented by 2010, he returned again in 2007 to university where his grievous mistake of taking a one-time dose of LSD accelerated the déjà vu to a level of persistence so that it was virtually continuous.
Specialists and the Wells Study
In 2008 he was referred to a specialist for a neurological examination. All tests were normal, resulting in a psychological diagnosis of depersonalization. This is a psychiatric disorder, with various potential causes, that means an individual has an abnormal loss of awareness of self manifest as loss of recognition of oneself and loss of a sense of control over oneself.
In 2009 he was referred to the study led by Wells. Besides further neurological examinations, the researchers assessed him on a recognition memory task. They expected that, as in chronic déjà vu in dementia, he would report a high level of false positives. False positives are false (i.e., incorrect) statements that memory task items never before seen are known from previous exposure. Contrary to expectation, this young man reported no false positives, thus indicating that he has no memory deficit as someone with dementia déjà vu has.
Déjà Vu and Anosognosia
Certain conditions express memory disorders that present with déjà vu. In some of the conditions, like dementia, a characteristic of déjà vu is anosognosia. This means the individual has no awareness of the false nature of the déjà vu experiences. In other conditions, like anxiety related disorders and temporal lobe epilepsy, the déjà vu experiences are not anosognosic. This means the individual is fully aware of the false nature of the déjà vu experience.
The young man in the case study does not present anosognosic déjà vu. Anosognosia is a lack of awareness of a neurological or psychological condition. Applied to déjà vu, this means the individual in déjà vu does not realize the feeling of redoing an event is false. For the individual, an anosognosic déjà vu is experienced as though it were a true re-participation in a previous event. This young man, while trapped in time-loops of déjà vu, knows full well they are false memories although so persistent and feeling so real.
The Final Phase
By 2010 his debility was evident as he was avoiding watching television, listening to the radio and reading news sources because he felt that he had already experienced what was presented in each. His mood was chronically low and his anxiety chronically high as a feedback loop between déjà vu and anxiety made each increasingly worse.
This young man is aware of the false familiarity of his déjà vecu experiences; he is aware of their unreality and, as his hesitant memory task strategy revealed, tries to negotiate between what seems to be and what is. Frightened by the experiences, he was increasingly distressed by them.
Study Results
In a burgeoning field of cognitive research, the Wells case study offers new understandings of the science of persistent déjà vu. The Wells study is the first to connect persistent déjà vu with the psychological disorder of anxiety. It is the first to label such cases as psychogenic and the first to identify awareness and distress as relevant features of the disorder. It is also the first to identify that anosognosia is not a feature of psychogenic persistent déjà vu thus separating it from déjà vu in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia.
The young man’s case report, called “Persistent psychogenic déjà vu: a case report,” was published by Journal of Medical Case Reports. Interestingly, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku produced a YouTube video in which he suggests a connection between déjà vu and frequency leakage as the frequency or our universe momentarily interacts with the frequency of a parallel universe.
