A 23-year-old university student dropped out of school due to a case of chronic déjà vu, according to the U.K.'s The Telegraph. He was convinced that everything he read in the papers, everything he heard on the radio or saw on the TV was something he had already read, heard or seen.
He complained to doctors of being "trapped in a time loop," but doctors said he does not suffer from any of the usual neurological disorders - like seizures or temporal lobe epilepsy - that would make him feel that he is reliving the past. Panic attacks or LSD are thought to be possible causes, according to The Telegraph.
Christine Wells, a psychology expert from Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire, England, said it could be the first case of déjà vu caused by anxiety. When the unnamed student began at the university in 2007, his already present anxiety got worse. He had a fear of germs and would shower multiple times a day. At the university, anxiety caused him to take time off from his classes.
That's when the déjà vu started.
"Rather than simply the unsettling feelings of familiarity which are normally associated with déjà vu, our subject complained that it felt like he was actually retrieving previous experiences from memory, not just finding them familiar," Wells told The Daily Telegraph.
"Most cases like this occur as a side effect associated with epileptic seizures or dementia," she continued. "However, in this instance it appears as though the episodes of déjà vu could be linked to anxiety causing mistimed neuronal firing in the brain, which causes more déjà vu and in turn brings about more anxiety.
"If proved, this could be the first-ever recorded instance of psychogenic déjà vu, which is déjà vu triggered by anxiety rather than a neurological condition such as dementia or epilepsy.
"In relation to our case, distress caused by the déjà vu experience may itself lead to increased levels of déjà vu: similar feedback loops in positive symptoms are reported in other anxiety states e.g. panic attacks.
"It is plausible on neurobiological grounds that anxiety might lead to the generation of déjà vu."
A report on this case has been published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.
