What's the Opposite of Déjà Vu?

Imagine this: You're walking down the street, making your way home after a night out with friends. One friend makes a comment, another responds, and you perk up your ears—you've heard this exact conversation before. In fact, even though you're in a neighborhood that's new to you, everything from the streetlights to the bustle of traffic to the animated chatter of your friends feels deeply familiar. It's as though you're looping back to a moment that's already been logged in your memory, even though that can't possibly be the case. You may have even paused and marveled at the creepy phenomenon: "Whoa! Déjà vu." 

Most of us know what déjà vu is, and it's fairly common to experience it from time to time. But where does the term come from? What's the opposite of déjà vu? And are there any terms for similar phenomena that are less well-known? 

What does "déjà vu" mean?

As you've probably figured out from the sound of the word, déjà vu comes from French; it means "already seen." And that's appropriate! Déjà vu describes the eerie sensation when something previously unknown to you—like a new neighborhood or a conversation that's never happened before—suddenly feels like a memory of something you've already experienced. 

Merriam-Webster defines déjà vu as "the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time" or "a feeling that one has seen or heard something before." 

Déjà vu can also mean "something overly or unpleasantly familiar." If you keep trying to grow houseplants only to have them wither and turn brown a few months later, you might look at your fading ficus and say, "I'm getting a feeling of déjà vu."

Although both the Oxford Dictionary and Merriam-Webster keep the accent marks from the French spelling, it's not uncommon to see "deja vu" written in English texts without accent marks, in part because the Associated Press didn't use accent marks at all before 2019 because their system couldn't transmit the marks, and even today only uses them in names.

The scientific term for the phenomenon described as déjà vu is "promnesia," which Etymonline tells us is Modern Latin from Greek "pro," which translates to "before," plus "-mnēsia," which is...

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