Definition

Noun: 1. The feeling that one has already experienced the present situation: A psychological phenomenon where a person feels a strong sense of familiarity with a current event or scene, accompanied by the conviction that they have witnessed or experienced it before, despite knowing it is logically impossible or highly unlikely.

Examples of Usage

Advanced Usage

• "A sense/feeling of déjà vu": The most common way to describe the experience.
  • I was overcome by a powerful sense of déjà vu.
• "It was déjà vu all over again": An idiomatic expression (popularized by Yogi Berra) used to comment on a situation that is tediously or frustratingly repetitive.
  • When the same arguments started, it was déjà vu all over again.

Variants and Related Words

• Jamais vu (noun): The opposite phenomenon, where a familiar situation feels strange, new, or unfamiliar.
  • Staring at a common word until it looks wrong is a form of jamais vu.

Synonyms

• Familiarity: A feeling of knowing or recognizing something.
• Recurrence: The fact of happening again. of recurrence, not necessarily an actual repetition.)*

Related Idioms

• "Like déjà vu": Used to compare a current situation to the feeling of déjà vu.
  • The meeting was like déjà vu—we were discussing the exact same problems as last month.

Noun

1. the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before