Topic: Chronic deja vu
I came across an interesting story this week (see below), in the newspaper for my local area, about a new study of people with 'chronic deja vu'. I've never heard of the chronic deja vu syndrome before and I wonder if it's just a weird psychological condition or do these people perhaps have a permenant connection to their future selves? I bet the psychologists aren't even considering such a possibility!
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...you need the deja vu clinic (unless you're convinced you've already been!)
Is every day like Groundhog Day? Is the news on television just a repeat? Have you seen this page before?...
By Ian Rosser education reporter
WE ALL know that strange feeling when we think we've experienced the exact same moment before. Usually, it's only a fleeting, if unsettling, sensation.
But for some people, deja vu is a recurrent problem that can make their lives a "Groundhog Day" misery.
Now, the world's first study of the condition is being done by psychologists at Leeds University, where Dr Chris Moulin first encountered chronic deja vu sufferers at a memory clinic.
"We had a peculiar referral from a man who said there was no point visiting the clinic because he'd already been there, although this would have been impossible," he said.
The patient, who cannot be named, not only genuinely believed he had met Dr Moulin before, but gave specific details about the times and places of these 'remembered' meetings.
"Deja vu has developed to such an extent that he had stopped watching TV – even the news – because it seemed to be a repeat, and even believed he could hear the same bird singing the same song in the same tree every time he went out.
"Chronic deja vu sufferers are not only overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity for new experiences, they can provide plausible and complex justifications to support this."
Because of its fleeting nature, psychologists have until recently thought the condition impossible to study.
The aim of the Leeds scheme, which is part-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is to find ways to reduce the problem.
Called the Cognitive Feelings Framework, the research includes using hypnosis to induce deja vu in volunteers.
"People might suffer from chronic deja vu, but be unwilling to discuss this with their doctor," said Dr Moulin. "Any hint of 'mental illness' is, particularly to older people, a taboo subject.
"But as soon as we found the first patient, we discovered that if you ask the right questions, you find other people have experienced the same thing."
Chronic deja vu can be distressing to the point of causing depression, with some sufferers being prescribed anti-psychotics.
Dr Moulin's group believe it is not a delusion, but a dysfunction of memory.
"The exciting thing about these people is that they can 'recall' specific details about an event or meeting that never actually occurred," he said.
"It suggests that the sensations associated with remembering are separate to the contents of memory, that there are two different systems in the brain at work."
The team also want to develop a network of patients in Leeds and across the globe who experience chronic deja vu.
"We're finding people all over the world with these problems," said Dr Moulin.
"Chronic deja vu sufferers need the reassurance that they're not alone, and we need them to help us learn more about who has it, what causes it, and why."
http://www.leedstoday.net/ViewArticle2. … ID=1334805
