The French actually have many names for deja vu. He acted on it, justified it with false memories.” “But we wouldn’t describe it as deja vu anymore because for them the feeling of familiarity is so intense they can’t overcome it. “I’ve worked with about 13 or 14 people like that,” says Moulin, who admits he “sort of became a deja vu researcher because there wasn’t a deja vu researcher” while trying to treat them. I t turned out, there were other cases like him – all older people (“so, late onset”), generally with some form of dementia or memory issue but otherwise very functional and engaged, as was AKP. This got pretty frustrating for his wife.” In fact, when he was first referred to the memory clinic where Moulin worked, AKP insisted he’d already been. “He’d invent far-fetched stories for how, he got to the newsagent that morning just as the papers were being unloaded. “He wouldn’t even read the newspaper because he said he’d already read it,” says Moulin. In fact, the man was convinced he was living his life over. Everything felt familiar to this 80 year old – every song, every TV show, snippets of conversation, strangers in the street. Moulin, now a memory researcher at the Universite Grenoble Alpes in France, first became interested in deja vu two decades ago when a woman came to him about a strange case: her husband, known as AKP, had what she called “permanent deja vu”. So, what is going on when deja vu hits? Is it a glitch in our heads – or the Matrix? And how are scientists using hypnosis, puzzles and The Sims video game to find out?Ĭredit: Artwork Aresna Villaneuva What is deja vu? But what he experienced isn’t uncommon, he says, a kind of faux prescience that extends the jolt of classic deja vu into something truly spooky. Thankfully, Moulin was not actually having a premonition that day and the plane kept on flying. It evolved into this sense of dread – because I also felt I knew what was coming and what was coming was the plane was about to nosedive.” Moulin recalls a particularly powerful wave of deja vu hitting while on a plane leaving Canada. Some people even become convinced they can predict what’s about to happen next, as if they are replaying a moment in time. In French it means, “already seen.” But the feeling of familiarity where there should be none can arrive with sound, taste, smell and more. Today, the neuropsychologist is a world expert on the strange phenomenon of deja vu. “It couldn’t be right but it was so strong,” he says. Chris Moulin was visiting New York for the first time when he turned down a street and was suddenly struck by an impossible feeling: he’d been there before.
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