Have you read this sentence before? Perhaps it feels strangely familiar? The experience of déjà vu is a common one, but in rare cases, it can become a disorder. In
a fascinating new Cortex paper
, French psychologists Julie Bertrand and colleagues discuss the phenomenon of pathological déjà vu. Bertrand et al. present an English translation of what is probably the first description of the condition, published in 1896 in French by the psychiatrist Francois-Léon Arnaud (1858-1927). Arnaud described a patient called Louis, a French army officer who had served in Tonkin (in Vietnam) but who had been sent home suffering from 'ague' (probably malaria) and symptoms of amnesia, possibly as a result of cerebral malaria.
In January 1893, 18 months after his ague, characteristic symptoms of déjà vu were observed: Louis reported recognising as having read previously some newspaper articles, and even said that he wrote some of them... ...
