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I think the term "jamais vu" works. I remember having read the term, but couldn't remember which novel. Thanks, Faldage. Must be time to reread Catch 22--it's been about thirty years now since that first and last reading..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Wouldn't "disorientation" be just what you're describing?
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Carpal Tunnel
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disorientation
that's a good one. gets my vote.
formerly known as etaoin...
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addict
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From a medical point of view, jamais vu would be the most accurate term to describe your experience, particularly as you describe it as the opposite of deja vu. It is well described in the psychiatric literature and, as with deja vu, is usually a perfectly normal experience rather than indicative of any underlying pathology. Dissociation and disorientation have slightly different medical connotations based on their origin (neurology rather than psychiatry) and probable pathology.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have to say, I don't recall ever experiencing this phenomenon--while I was awake. I have dreamed, a couple of times, that what should look familiar has changed completely. Maybe it's to do with the way we see things? I seem to see--be aware of, that is--more than the other members of my family. Even when I'm driving, I'm the one who most often points out such things as "One of those cows is a deer". I haven't ever tried to train myself to be particularly alert; is this just yet another variable in what makes us all different from one another?
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Thanks, doc_c! That's it! There is a term for it!  And, what's more, it does seem to be considered the opposite of deja vu, which I find a bit surprising, but. There are seven hits on OneLook and all concur: jamais vun : the experience of being unfamiliar with a person or situation that is actually very familiar; associated with certain types of epilepsy Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University _________________________________________________ And from the Online Medical Dictionary: jamais vuFrom the French, meaning never seen, the illusion that the familiar does not seem familiar, the opposite of the feeling of deja vu. (12 Dec 1998) disorientedDisorientation doesn't quite fit because you're not really disoriented...you're still cogent, you can still drive, think, converse, react, know who you are, etc...it's just that the surroundings seem suddenly unfamiliar...a pretty cool feeling actually for a short while (as long as you come out of it).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sacre bleu! Jamais vu la dissociation! While Faldage is yet to learn of his liver being chopped, I would like to ask doc C what is meant by ...dissociation and disorientation have slightly different medical connotations based on their origin (neurology rather than psychiatry)... To me the former is usually the psyche's defense reaction to trauma. We can take this to PMs or E-mail if it gets to be too obtuse/abstruse/boring. 
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Disorientation is the loss of awareness of self, place and/or time.
Dissociation is the ... separation of the emotional self from the awareness of self, place and/or time. It is a short-term event, most commonly seen in response to severe trauma, but also occurring in normal situations, such as losing track of time while reading. If it persists, or is recurrent, especially at a young age, a Dissociative Disorder develops. Dissociation sits nicely in the field of neuropsychiatry - it's causes are primarily psychosocial, yet the physical pathology well known and the symptoms reproduceable upon neural stimulation - and my leaning towards a physical basis underlying all psychiatric disorders, along with the initial use of the term to refer to symptoms secondary to emotional trauma (eg shell-shock/PTSD) resulted in my comment that it developed from the field of neurology.
Or something like that.
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old hand
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old hand
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Back in the eighties me and a friend of mine, a manic depressive personality ( as it was current then to call them then) named Richard Morgan, would enjoy weekly bar room chats where we discussed high philosophy, low cabbages and middling Kings. Richard had an easy manner about him and was well liked by all. Once he told me about his periodic bouts where he felt acute alienation from his immediate surroundings, this, he said, was characteristic of some forms of manic depression. He said that during these spells he felt no point of reference to an interrelated existence with the external world. He said that this was a feeling that was beyond death that had no words. He said that the clinical term was "deja va" and his psychiatrist had said that it had an exact opposite meaning of deja vu.
The last time I saw Richard he was drinking Jack Daniels with tears in his eyes. He kept saying, "Why! "Why not a void!" And if you fine people were there to hear the wail of his tormented soul, you would beg for balm, and give a dollar or so to the church.
Richard died young with a heart attack, abetted by the mix of his manic depression medications with alcohol.
I've checked the medical dictionaries before and after WO'N posed this question and can't find the term listed. But I know this; At that time and place Richard Morgan visited hell many times, and Richard and his psychiatrist knew that hell as "deja va".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dearest milum, I have a feeling that your friend misunderstood his psychiatrist. What you said he described sounds like what I learned as dissociation.
Heaven knows, it is easy enough to misunderstand medical info., she said speaking from personal experience. For ex., I went around saying that a certain former med. made me cough like crazy, and that the former doctor had told me so. Yet I have since been told by two other doctors that that med. would not cause that symptom... Yet I am SURE that I was at the Dr.'s office when I was told that--so perhaps it was by a nurse...? And yet, casting back in my mind, I am still seeing and hearing the doctor telling me that (I remember feeling very angry that he tossed it out so casually...). See what I mean?
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