Patients Suffer Déjà Vu … Over and Over
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 30 January 2006
01:34 pm ET
Imagine suffering from chronic déjà vu. You don't even go to the doctor because you feel like you've already been there.
"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," said psychologist Chris Moulin, who runs a memory clinic at the University of Leeds in the UK.
So Moulin has started the first known study of the condition.
Déjà vu hits most of us now and then. We're struck by the sensation that we have experienced an event before, even though we can't fully remember it or perhaps know it didn't really happen. The sensation is fleeting, so researchers can't study it.
But Moulin figures chronic déjà vu sufferers offer an opportunity to do research that might unlock the secrets of the everyday variety.
The man who thinks he's been to Moulin's clinic even gave details of the visit that never occurred. He has déjà vu so bad that he doesn't watch TV news because he feels like he's seen it all before, Moulin said. Things get tricky when the man is asked to predict what's ahead, however...cont'd
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060130_deja_vu.html