Definition of de_ja_vu

(Nathan Rapport, ""I've Been Here before!"...)

Most psychiatrists dismiss these instances of that weird feeling as the deja_vu ( already seen ) illusion , just as they dismiss dream previsions as coincidences .

When a man recognizes a certain experience as the exact pattern of a previous dream , we have an instance of deja_vu , except for the fact that he knows just why the experience seems familiar .

Dreams that display events of the future with photographic detail call_for a theory explaining their basic mystery and all its components , including that weird feeling of deja_vu , inevitably fantastic though that theory must seem .

The degree of circumstance , the ratio of memory to forgetfulness , determines whether a dream will be a recognized , fulfilled prevision , or the vaguely , effective source of the weird deja_vu feeling .

Nevertheless , there are notably frequent instances of deja_vu , in which our recognition of an entirely novel event is a feeling of having lived through it before , a feeling which , though vague , withstands the verbal barrage from the most impressive corps of psychologists .