Déjà vu — A Repeated Moment

I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this somewhere. I know him.

What is My Word of the Week?

Déjà vu

What Does it Mean?

This French word is probably more of a phrase than a word. Directly translated from French to English it means ‘already seen’.

It’s that creepy unsettling feeling that you’ve seen that person somewhere, but you can’t remember where.

It’s the notion that you’ve been in a place before, you just can’t pinpoint when or why.

Example:

A sudden feeling of déjà vu assaulted Johanna’s senses as she entered the bakery. She oddly remembered the flowery tablecloths, and the way the painting on the wall hung slightly crooked. She had never been to this bakery. Why did it feel so familiar to her?

A Linguistic Time Line

400 AD — The idea of déjà vu as an experience was first recorded in 400 AD by Saint Augustine. He called it a ‘falsae memoriae’ or false memory as an attempt to explain the phenomenon.

1876 — The term is used by Emile Boirac when he writes a letter to the editor of the Revue Philosophique. A French academic journal in philosophy founded in 1876 by Théodule Ribot. In the letter he tries to explain his experience with déjà vu.