Paramnesia

Have you ever felt like you had already experienced what was happening at that moment? Or were you completely unable to remember a place you had already been? What you experienced is called paramnesia. Here we explain it better.

Paramnesia is a memory disorder in which delusions are confused with memories, or vice versa. That is, false memories are experienced and interpreted as true, or one is not able to recognize a memory. In fact, in some people it can be accompanied by anosognosia. That is, the inability to recognize the symptom and the resistance to assuming it as unreal.

The paramnesias can occur in two ways. The first, as a conspiracy of memories, in which one believes that one has, or does not have, the memory of something when in reality it is a delusion. The second, as a delusional false identification, in which you believe you identify a situation, an object or a place, when it is the first time you encounter it.

Types of paramnesia

Recognition paramnesia

This category would include those paintings in which paramnesias of delusional false identification. And there are mainly three: Capgras syndrome, Frégoli syndrome and reduplicative paramnesias.

In Capgras syndrome there is an inability to identify another person and it is believed that this has been replaced. That is, a patient is not able to recognize her mother, and thinks that a person identical to her is taking her place. In Frégoli’s, there is the belief that several people are, in reality, the same, but characterized in a different way.

Regarding reduplicative paramnesias, it is believed that a place has been duplicated, two or more existing at the same time, or one of them has been relocated to another place. Thus, those who suffer from it may come to think, for example, that they are living in a copy of their house, instead of the original, which would be found elsewhere.

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Paramnesia of memory

In this category are those related to memory confabulation. That is, those events where something is remembered that has not happened, or something that has taken place is not remembered. The main ones are the well-known Deja vuand the least known, Jamais vu.

The Dejà vu It occurs when you are certain that an experience that is currently taking place has already been experienced., felt or seen in the past. That is, an alteration of memory occurs that generates memories, without having been experienced. Only approximately 10% of the population says they have not experienced déjà vu in their lives, while other people experience it regularly.

This disturbing event, although it is not known with certainty, appears to be due to a failure in the dentate gyrus, located in the hippocampus. Thus, this error could be a variation in the speed of sending neuronal messages through the synapse, causing the event to be sent to memory before consciousness.

That is, naturally, when we are having an experience, we are aware of it and, later, we store it in memory. In this type of paramnesia the opposite would happen, memory is generated before the perceived information becomes conscious.

For its part, he Jamais vu It takes place when a person feels that they are not able to recognize a word, a place, a situation, a person… when rationally it should be known. In this sense, it is as if a memory of a lived experience had not been generated.

Origin and treatment

Why paramnesia occurs remains a mystery to scientists. Today there are very probable suspicions about how some of them happen, such as déjà vu, but the exact process is unknown. Therefore, it is also difficult to find an adequate treatment for these disorders.

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However, when they occur in some specific conditions, such as Korsakoff syndrome, paramnesia usually subsides when the main problem is addressed.