But since dГ©jГ vu is difficult to induce in a laboratory setting, he set out to create the effects of jamais vu among a group of study participants by subjecting them to the same punishment Moulin had endured as a schoolboy - writing the same words over and over again. Some of the first research on jamais vu stems from Moulin's own interest in dГ©jГ vu as a doctoral candidate. His research seeks to label jamais vu and raise awareness of it in hopes that doing so will help broaden the understanding of memory disorders and ultimately benefit those who have them. This may be why the phenomenon is so rare and likely underreported, Moulin explains. It may be dismissed by the person experiencing it because explaining it to another person may be met with skepticism. This odd feeling is only momentary, lasting only a matter of seconds or minutes before dissipating. (That is an important distinction we'll discuss later.)

He may even appear to be a stranger, yet at the same time, you know that he is your father and not some impostor, Moulin explains. One example of jamais vu is when you look at someone very familiar - like your father - and suddenly find his features new or unusual. 'Jamais vu, on the other hand, is the feeling of unfamiliarity for something which is not lost or forgotten.' 'In memory loss, someone will appear unfamiliar to us, even if we have met them recently, because we have forgotten some crucial piece of information,' he says in an email. Those who have experienced jamais vu may mistake it for short-term memory loss, but it's entirely different, says Chris Moulin, Ph.D., a memory researcher at the Laboratory of Psychology and Neurocognition at the University Grenoble Alpes in France, and one of the foremost experts on jamais vu, dГ©jГ vu and the like. Jamais vu (French for ' never seen') is considered the opposite of dГ©jГ vu (French for ' already seen'), but thought to be even rarer.

Opposite of deja vu