Déjà-vu is common in both healthy subjects and epileptic patients suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy, , ]. Consequently, no scientific study has ever focused on déjà-rêvé to the best of our knowledge.Īn additional reason that probably prevented adequate study of déjà-rêvé is that it has often been confused with déjà-vu. However, Van Buren and other authors in the following decades were more interested in experiential phenomena in general, ,, , ] and did not have many examples of déjà-rêvé. Dreams correspond to a sensorimotor hallucinatory experience that follows a narrative structure, and these patients seemed to have experienced fragments of it. I felt the atmosphere of the room I saw a color, an orange color.” These examples literally correspond to an “already-dreamed” experience, in other words a “déjà-rêvé”. Another patient evaluated in our epilepsy center said exactly at the moment of EBS in the entorhinal cortex: “I had the reminiscence of a dream I had few a days ago Well, I was like in a closed room It was very fleeting. reported that patient MB experienced a prior dream after EBS of a depth electrode in the anteroinferior temporal pole: “I saw something, a dream, a nightmare I had a couple years ago.

Some epileptic patients have reported specific experiential phenomena that appear related to dreams during spontaneous seizures or pre-surgical electrical brain stimulation (EBS). These include a wide range of déjà-experiences, which phenomenology and content-wise vary from déjà-vu (a transitory mental state whereby a novel experience feels as if it is familiar) to reminiscence (the involuntary recall of memories, either semantic or episodic). Various psychic symptoms, also known as “experiential phenomena”, reflect altered contents of consciousness during partial seizures.

Deja vu dreams meaning