Déjà vu

Déjà vu, literally "already seen", is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has already been experienced, whether it has actually happened or not.
 * "Deja vu" redirects here; for the film, see Déjà Vu (2006 film)

Quotes



 * There are some places which, seen for the first time, yet seem to strike a chord of recollection. "I have been here before," we think to ourselves, "and this is one of my true homes." It is no mystery for those philosophers who hold that all which we shall see, with all which we have seen and are seeing, exists already in an eternal now; that all those places are home to us which in the pattern of our life are twisting, in past, present and future, tendrils of remembrance round our heart-strings.
 * E. C. Bentley and H. Warner Allen, Trent's Own Case (1936), Chapter XV


 * It's déjà vu all over again.
 * Yogi Berra, What Time Is It? You Mean Now? (2003), p. 137 (the origin of this quote is disputed)


 * We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time — of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it!
 * Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850), Ch. 39


 * Madness is the déjà-vu of death.
 * Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (1961)


 * In the condition of "deja vu" it is probable that what takes place is that one or several elements in the present situation are like those which had been experienced in the past, but that the dissimilarities in the situations are not observed. The individual has a memory defect in that he parallels or identifies a complex present experience with a similar complex past experience, although in the present experience the number of elements which are the same as those in the past may not be very great. In other words, the present experience is deemed to be the same as that of the past because of the fact that the past is not accurately remembered and properly localized in time.
 * Shepherd Ivory Franz, "Delusions", Popular Science, January 1915, Vol. 86, p. 90


 * To the category of the wonderful and uncanny we may also add that strange feeling we perceive in certain moments and situations when it seems as if we had already had exactly the same experience, or had previously found ourselves in the same situation. … I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments something is really touched that we have already experienced, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious. In short, the feeling of Déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious fantasy.
 * Sigmund Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), tr. A. A. Brill (1915), pp. 320–321


 * Often on the highway, weary and wary, we spurn the unknown and cheerfully drive on for the promise of a Howard Johnson's and its familiar déjà vu.
 * Gael Greene, "Indigestion on the turnpike", Life, Vol. 69, No. 9, 28 August 1970, p. 12


 * The essential of the déjà vu is rather the negation of the present than the affirmation of the past.
 * Pierre Janet, as quoted in Elton Mayo, Some Notes on the Psychology of Pierre Janet (1948)


 * We wallow in nostalgia but manage to get it all wrong. True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories … but American-style nostalgia is about as ephemeral as copyrighted déjà vu.
 * Florence King, "Déjà Views", in Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye (1989), p. 112

Marilyn Manson: I haven't finished my theory on it, but I feel we will develop the ability to send ourselves messages from the future. That's what I think deja vu is. Psychologists have a name for a disorder called "the delusional self" and that's when you think everything's related for a reason, but I think that it's a higher form of awareness.
 * Boyd Rice: Speaking of numerology, I came here on Friday the 13th, the hotel is at 777 St. Clair, my room is 1111 and the address of your hotel is 1111.
 * Marilyn Manson interview, "I Think the Children Have Come for Me'", in Seconds magazine, No. 40 (1996)


 * Good evening. Tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. That what is happening now has already happened tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived— (pause for realization) Anyway, tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange...
 * Michael Palin from the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" episode "Déjà Vu," in which he plays a TV presenter who is the victim of comedically-engineered déjà vu.


 * When some French were assembling an encyclopedia of paranormal experiences, they decided to leave déjà vu out, because it was so common it could not be considered paranormal.
 * Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo's Dream (2009), Ch. 13, p. 284

Phil: Didn't you just ask me that?
 * Rita: There is something so familiar about this. Do you ever have déjà vu?
 * Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, in Groundhog Day (1993)


 * They [ Romantics ] all seem to have experienced paramnesia, the sensation of déjà vu, the total recollection which does not appear to be recollected; they all aimed at least at the total exclusion of the past from the present by a perfect absorption in the present, as if time stood still and became eternity.
 * René Wellek, "Romanticism Reconsidered", in Concepts of Criticism (1963), p. 212


 * "The déjà vu that united us / comes around again / so we cave in once more | How often will it happen? / How much longer will it stay? / If the day comes when the hours run out…"
 * El Déjá Vu que nos unió / se repite otra vez / y entonces volveremos a ceder | ¿Cuántas veces pasará? / ¿Cuánto tiempo es que quedará? / Si llega el día en que las horas se agotarán...
 * Déjà Vu, Capitán Mio, from the original Spanish