déjà vu
Enable an agent to recognise and describe reported déjà vu, assess the evidence and uncertainty surrounding an episode, and select appropriate clarification or documentation actions.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an agent to recognise and describe reported déjà vu, assess the evidence and uncertainty surrounding an episode, and select appropriate clarification or documentation actions.
Déjà vu is a subjective experience in which a present situation feels inappropriately familiar despite the person's awareness that this familiarity is unwarranted.
It can be Elicit an episode account that separates immediate experience from later interpretation.; Compare a report against attributed definitions and preserve ambiguous classifications.; Record timing, recurrence and accompanying experiences with uncertainty.; Investigate possible prior encounters while retaining the original subjective report.; Compare naturally occurring and experimentally elicited reports using explicit matching criteria.; Prepare a concise episode history for research or a user-requested professional discussion..
Distinguishing features
Ask whether the current situation felt previously experienced, rather than merely similar to something familiar.
Check whether the person simultaneously or subsequently judged the familiarity to be inappropriate; record when that judgment arose.
Distinguish a feeling of familiarity without retrieved context from an apparent recollection containing specific earlier events.
Check for an identifiable prior encounter that adequately explains the recognition, without assuming that failure to recall one proves novelty.
Separate the episode from unfamiliarity toward something known, a claimed remembered dream, or a figurative complaint that events are repeating.
Scope
+ Individual reports of inappropriate familiarity with a present situation
+ The relationship between felt familiarity, apparent recollection and explicit novelty judgment
+ Episode onset, duration, recurrence and changes in awareness
+ Situational context and reported accompanying experiences
+ Definitions, elicitation methods and evidential limits used to classify an experience as déjà vu
- Ordinary recognition supported by an identifiable earlier encounter
- Memory systems and theories of consciousness in their entirety
- Diagnosis and treatment of neurological or psychiatric conditions
- Dream experiences themselves, including independently modelled dream recall
- Cultural works and metaphorical uses of the phrase déjà vu
- Claims about precognition or reincarnation treated as independently established explanations
Characteristics
- Classification under an explicit definition
- meets selected definition | partly meets | does not meet | unresolved; definition and attribution recorded Prevents an unstated definition from deciding disputed cases.
- Strength of felt prior experience
- participant-rated ordinal score with scale wording and anchors recorded Separates intensity of familiarity from confidence that a previous encounter actually occurred.
- Judgment of inappropriate familiarity
- present during episode | emerged afterward | absent | unclear Captures the tension between the experience and the person's assessment of it.
- Apparent memory content
- familiarity alone | specific apparent recollection | dream attribution | mixed | unclear Makes boundaries with recollection and dream-related familiarity reviewable.
- Episode duration
- seconds or minutes, with estimated range and timing method Describes the episode without treating retrospective timing as precise.
- Recurrence
- reported episode count per stated observation window, with completeness of observation Distinguishes an isolated report from a reported pattern.
- Relation to an earlier encounter
- documented encounter | plausible encounter | no encounter identified | not investigated Keeps evidence of prior exposure separate from the subjective experience.
- Accompanying awareness and impact
- free-text account plus explicitly reported awareness changes, distress and interruption of activity Supports contextual assessment without turning déjà vu into a diagnosis.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 14 findings · 22 questions.
Familiarity and novelty conflict Describe what felt previously experienced and how that feeling conflicted with the person's judgment.
A label alone cannot distinguish déjà vu from ordinary recognition or establish whether a chosen definition applies.
Felt prior experience
Capture the immediate quality and target of the familiarity.
Target and quality of familiarity
Record whether familiarity concerned the whole unfolding situation, a spatial arrangement, a conversation or another specific aspect.
- What exactly felt previously experienced, and did that feeling include the unfolding sequence or only part of the situation? definition
- How strong was the feeling on a scale whose wording distinguishes familiarity from belief in a real earlier encounter? measurement
Conflicting novelty judgment
Record whether, when and why the person considered the familiarity inappropriate.
Timing and basis of discrepancy
Keep concurrent awareness of the discrepancy separate from a conclusion reached after the episode.
- Did the person think the situation was new while it felt familiar, or only decide this afterward? boundary
- What supports the judgment that the situation had not previously been experienced? provenance
Recollection and neighbouring experiences Resolve overlaps with ordinary recognition, apparent reliving, dream attribution and other uses of the label.
Classification depends on what the person experienced rather than their initial choice of terminology.
Retrieved or apparent memory
Examine whether familiarity was accompanied by specific remembered context.
Specificity of earlier context
Document any claimed earlier place, time, event or dream and distinguish reported detail from corroboration.
- Could the person identify a specific earlier encounter, or was there only a feeling of having experienced the situation? boundary
- What evidence independently supports any claimed earlier encounter or remembered dream? provenance
Terminology and case boundaries
Make the chosen distinction between déjà vu and adjacent experiences explicit.
Classification with attributed criteria
Record the definition being applied and how it handles apparent reliving, dream-related familiarity and missing insight.
- Whose definition is being used, and does it include or distinguish déjà vécu and déjà rêvé? definition
- Does the account describe inappropriate familiarity, ordinary recognition, unfamiliarity toward something known, or figurative repetition? boundary
Episode course and context Describe how the experience unfolded and what was occurring around it.
Duration, recurrence and accompanying experiences are necessary to judge the state of a reported episode without assuming a cause.
Onset, duration and recurrence
Capture temporal boundaries and any reported pattern across episodes.
Episode timeline
Record onset, ending and recurrence using explicit observation windows and confidence in recall.
- What marked the beginning and end of the familiarity, and how was its duration estimated? measurement
- How many comparable episodes were reported during which period, and could episodes have been missed or combined? measurement
Accompanying experience and interruption
Record context, awareness and practical consequences separately from causal interpretation.
Context and functional impact
Describe the setting, reported accompanying sensations, awareness and interruption of activity without inferring a diagnosis.
- What else did the person report before, during and after the episode, including any changes in awareness or ability to continue the activity? measurement
- What contextual or impact details should be retained in an episode history for a requested research or professional discussion? action
Report evidence and explanations Track how the report was obtained and what would justify interpretations of it.
Subjective reports, laboratory proxies and proposed mechanisms answer different questions and require separate evidential judgments.
Elicitation and report quality
Document the delay, prompts and operational criteria used to obtain an account.
Report origin and operationalisation
Preserve original wording and identify whether the report was spontaneous, prompted, retrospective or experimentally elicited.
- How soon after the episode was the account recorded, and what wording or examples were supplied before the person described it? provenance
- For an experimentally elicited report, what establishes both felt prior experience and judged inappropriateness rather than familiarity alone? boundary
Interpretation and causal restraint
Separate the person's explanation, a research hypothesis and evidence bearing on a mechanism.
Explanatory claim and support
Treat explanations as attributed claims whose support and alternatives must be recorded.
- Who proposed the explanation, and what evidence beyond the episode's felt familiarity supports it? provenance
- What observation could distinguish this explanation from alternatives, and what remains unresolved for this episode? measurement
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- This describes the experiential memory phenomenon, not the figurative use for a repeated situation.
- The listed kinds distinguish occurrence contexts rather than a universally accepted subtype taxonomy.
- Mechanisms remain debated; familiarity without recollection, processing mismatch, and memory-monitoring accounts should not be presented as one settled explanation.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Spontaneous déjà vu in everyday life
- Experimentally elicited déjà vu
- Déjà vu occurring as part of a focal epileptic seizure
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Studied to investigate familiarity, recollection, and awareness of memory errors.
- Used in experiments to examine familiarity with new scenes that resemble previously encountered spatial layouts.
- Recorded in neurological histories as a possible experiential seizure symptom, interpreted alongside other features.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Self-reported episode frequency - No universally accepted normal range - episodes per specified recall period
- Proportion of experimental trials producing a déjà vu report - Depends on the task and reporting criterion - percent of trials
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Treating a feeling of familiarity as proof that the situation has actually occurred before.
- Inferring epilepsy from an isolated déjà vu report; the experience also occurs outside epilepsy.
- Combining ordinary brief experiences with persistent or seizure-associated phenomena without distinguishing their context.
- Retrospective reports are vulnerable to recall bias and differences in how participants understand the term.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Familiarity - Ordinary familiarity need not conflict with a person's judgment about prior experience; déjà vu includes a sense that the familiarity is inappropriate.
- Recollection - Recollection involves retrieving details of a previous event; déjà vu does not require retrieval of an identifiable prior episode.
- Déjà vécu - Often denotes a richer sense of having already lived through an unfolding episode, sometimes with apparent foreknowledge; its boundary with déjà vu varies across authors.
- Jamais vu - A known situation feels unfamiliar, rather than a new situation feeling familiar.
- Presque vu - Involves a sense of being on the verge of retrieving something, rather than inappropriate familiarity with the present situation.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of déjà vu this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Which research definitions require concurrent recognition that familiarity is inappropriate, and which admit insight that emerges only afterward?
- How consistently do research traditions distinguish déjà vu from déjà vécu and déjà rêvé, and which distinctions should this registry entry retain internally?
- Which elicitation methods and rating instruments best distinguish inappropriate familiarity from ordinary recognition without prompting the expected report?
- What evidence establishes that a laboratory analogue captures the same experience as spontaneously reported déjà vu?
- What evidence is sufficient to connect a particular episode to a proposed mechanism, and which contextual observations remain merely associations?