Literature Review #3

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Citation

Gerrans P. Pathologies of hyperfamiliarity in dreams, delusions and déjà vu. Frontiers in psychology. 2014;5:97-97. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00097 


Summary

This article provides information about the déjà vu phenomenon and how it relates to dreams and hyperfamiliarity. While the article does not specifically relate the déjà vu phenomenon and dreams, it actually makes similar connections. When we experience déjà vu, we think to ourselves “I’ve seen this before” or “I’ve been here before”. This is also a similar experience in REM dreams. The same idea goes for hyperfamiliarity as well, but more specifically in terms of location. Hyperfamiliarity and dreams depend on similar cognitive processes in terms of face and place recognition which makes me believe that déjà vu also relies on the same cognitive processes. 


Author

Philip Gerrans is affiliated with the University of Adelaide in the department of philosophy. His main research interest is the use of psychological disorder to study the mind, therefore he is knowledgeable on subjects that relate to the mind including dreams and déjà vu.


Key Terms

Dreams: a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.


Hyperfamiliarity:  a disorder where a person experiences disturbing and abnormal feeling of familiarity for unknown faces


Three Quotes

“Déjà vu-type experiences occur when feelings of familiarity are triggered incorrectly. The patient is then in a situation of experiencing familiarity, which normally drives recollection and further elaboration of contextual detail. The patient proceeds to this stage, producing the recollective confabulation” (Gerrans).


“The experience is initially dealt with by systems that “justify” the experience. Crucially this justification is responsive only to the experience itself: the delusions of misidentification and reflective confabulation for pathological déjà vu provide a belief adequate to the feeling of hyperfamiliarity for face or location” (Gerrans).


“If, however, a subject of a déjà vu experience continued to maintain that she had previously visited the place in question and even elaborated that belief, confabulating corroborative detail, she might attract a diagnosis of delusion of misidentification for place” (Gerrans).


Value

This article allows me to make connections between the déjà vu phenomenon, hyperfamiliarity, and dreams.




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