Nightmarish Deja-Vu and anxiety attacks. What's going on?

I experience this too!!! About twice a year. It usually reoccurs over a period of a few days...

I have experience of this exact problem. Can I ask you a question? Please be honest so that I can help you.

Have you ever taken any recreational drugs? And if so which ones and how often?

Also. what is your age and gender?

My brother and I have shared (just recently) that we have experience the feeling of 'extreme deja vu'. He (35) and me (24) have experienced this feeling since our childhood. Alcohol and drugs were not present.

These are they symptoms:


A sudden rush of extreme deja vu that engulfs you like an anxiety attack. It feels as if you are in a dream. Sound changes. Voices seems to slow down, while everything else seems to speed up. Both of us are artists, and have noticed this while drawing (or being at a computer) for long periods of time.

I have had this since my late teens. I can go up to 6 months between episodes and with me it's definately stress realted. I get an extreme sense of Deja-Vu during which time I can hear and understand what people are saying to my but have big problems constructing sentences to reply. Also I am unable to read during an attack, I can read the words but cannot construct the sentence correctly. I can drive and walk etc absolutely fine.
This is followed by inense sweating and slight physical fatigue. I would guess that this all lasts less that a minute. Observers say I look ok but go a little pale.
I've read that this is very likely to be a temporal lobe seizure.
Additionally I'm 37 now and when I was 34 I had about 5 episodes where I'd bite my tongue badly in my sleep. My brother witnessed this once and it would appear I was having an Epileptic seizure. I was taken to hospital where I had an MRI but nothing was found. I have alo had a sleep EEG but again nothing was found. The doctor has attributed it to stess and told me it is very common. I was relocating from the UK to America at the time so this may explain my high stress levels.
I've never had an episode when under the influence of alcohol which is qute regular. I would go as far to say that it is a purely sober experience and I have them more commonly during the day.

I have had this since my late teens. I can go up to 6 months between episodes and with me it's definitely stress related. I get an extreme sense of Deja-Vu during which time I can hear and understand what people are saying to my but have big problems constructing sentences to reply. Also I am unable to read during an attack, I can read the words but cannot construct the sentence correctly. I can drive and walk etc absolutely fine.
This is followed by intense sweating and slight physical fatigue. I would guess that this all lasts less that a minute. Observers say I look ok but go a little pale.
I've read that this is very likely to be a temporal lobe seizure.
Additionally I'm 37 now and when I was 34 I had about 5 episodes where I'd bite my tongue badly in my sleep. My brother witnessed this once and it would appear I was having an Epileptic seizure. I was taken to hospital where I had an MRI but nothing was found. I have also had a sleep EEG but again nothing was found. The doctor has attributed it to stress and told me it is very common. I was relocating from the UK to America at the time so this may explain my high stress levels.
I've never had an episode when under the influence of alcohol which is quite regular. I would go as far to say that it is a purely sober experience and I have them more commonly during the day.

I might have the same thing. Though varies. Basicly a sense of Deja Vu comes over me, then a chill and pain acompanies it and I feel I have to leave whatever I am doing. By the time I come out I am depressed then the chills go away. Anyone know what this is?

I get this about 2-3 times per week and sometimes only once every 2 weeks. Right now I think I am pregnant and I have gotten them every morning for 3 mornings now. Very frustrating! I start to see something and it makes me really dizzy, nauseas, and faint. i have to stop for a second and if anyone around me is talking it makes it worse, so i have to kind of have a freak out and say "please be quiet, don't talk to me" or it magnifies the effect. I have anxiety and I find that if I'm stress i get them more often. The weird thing about it is that when it's over, for the life of me, I can't remember what it was that made me do that in the first place. I told my doctor about it about 4-5 years ago and she told me to keep a journal of the times it happened. I only got 2 entries because I can never focus on what is making me have the Deja Vu and I can't remember it when I am done. Only approximately 3-4 people have seen my episodes and they just think its weird and have never heard of it before. I am glad to see that I am not the only one.

i cant beleive im not the only one - what everyone has wrote on here explains the same thing i get- especially when i am under alot of stress...i also have a form of ocd called pure o- only obsessions, no compulsions- does anyone know if there is a name for it??

I have also experienced the same, it started when I was young...it would feel like I was having a bad dream, I would get the feeling of deja vu, then it would completely diseappear. It comes again when I start to feel sick.

I am both relieved and frightened to read these posts. Relieved that I am not the only one having these experiences. Frightened because it sounds like a seizure disorder which is made worse by stress, anxiety and lack of sleep. I have been going through a stressful phase (several life changes at once) and just had one of the "episodes". Haven't had one for over a year -- that time it occured the day after I was in a bike accident. So, again, could have been stress/lack of sleep related. I want to know about treatment options. Is there something to take when the sensation is coming on? Do we have to be medicated all the time? I hate taking any kind of medication.

Well, I'm pretty freaked out about all of this. But I appreciate the connection with others...

I'm a 16-year-old female and I suffer from the "extreme deja-vu episodes" as well. They started when I was 5, but they went away for most of my later elementary-school and middle school years. A couple years ago they came back. I recognized the feeling the second it hit me, and it was really quite terrifying. They were the same as when I was little, but much much worse. I can be doing anything and all of a sudden I feel like I've been in this situation before. I can vividly describe a scene that took place there, but it obviously never happened, so I have always called them past "dreams". I feel like the room I am in is the only room in the universe, that I am the only living being, like I am the only human left. Sounds and sights around me only make the "sick" feeling worse. I usually get very dizzy, and my head gets 'buzzy'. Like someone else said, I can understand what everyone else is saying, but it almost feels like I just barely can speak the language that is needed to respond to them. If I have multiple ones through the day, I usually get a headache in my right or left temple, but almost never in both at the same time.

I've had an MRI, 6 or 7 sleep-deprived EEGs, and just this past year I had a 24-hour ambulatory EEG. Everything came up normal, perfect alpha-waves, and no tumors :) Maybe if I was hooked up during an episode, then they'd catch something, but that opportunity never seems to arise... Then, just this morning, I was driving to school and I had another deja-vu episode, and had to pull over because the 'buzzy' feeling was too strong to handle. I ended up having between 15 - 20 episodes in the 7 hours I was at school. It was very overwhelming, so I ended up calling my mom crying, telling her I was calling in at work and that she should schedule me an appointment with my Neurologist ASAP. Luckily, they got me in within the next few hours, and I did a 1-hour EEG. Of course, it picked up nothing. Actually, the time I was there was the only break I've had from them for the past 18 hours. I just got back from the hospital no less than 3 hours ago, and I had one in the car on the way home, over 5 just sitting here at the computer, and 1 just while typing this up.

To leave the neuro's, knowing that what they had just recorded was once again totally pointless, was aggravating enough. But what really bothers me is that I felt like I was the only one going through this, that nobody know what I was talking about. So I decided to do a Google search, and this is where I landed. I just found this webpage today, and it gave me such an amazing feeling to read that other people are experiencing the same thing as me. I now feel more confident when I tell my Neuro. about what's happening, it's reassuring to know that my head isn't making this all up. I would just like to let other people know that they too are not alone with this, and that there is always at least one other person in the world that is going through the same thing as you, no matter how difficult of time you are going through. Nobody is truly alone. I hope that someone can get some insight from what I have said, maybe have a better idea of how to explain it to people that just don't understand.

-Emily

hey, are you sure you guys aren't experiencing panic attacks? I suffer from panic attacks and from what I've read it sounds like this could be what you're experiencing ... dreamlike feeling (scientific word is depersonalization I think), dizziness, nausea etc plus a few people have mentioned feeling stressed which may have triggered these attacks. I'm really not sure about the de ja vu feeling you're experiencing but maybe that could be a feeling of unreality and dreamyness that you've interpreted as de ja vu simply because it feels so strange and cut off from everything else?

Hope this has helped.

I thought about that too, but I also experience "normal" anxiety attacks. These episodes feel nothing like a panic attack. The feeling is difficult to compare to anything else.

Thanks for the feedback, though.

I too have had some of the same experiences, as recent as today in fact (at least 3 times). Dating back to 1999, I actually passed out in the shower (then) and since I was taking Sign Language classes at the time, when people asked if I was ok, I responded with the Sign for "Yes"... they took this to mean my hand was shaking as if I was having a seizure. They did the sleep deprived EEG which found nothing. But because of the hand movement, the Dr. thought Trileptal would be the best option. Emily, be careful, if the Doctors put you on anti-seizure medication, your driving privileges can be suspended. I experienced that for about a year after the episode above.

The feelings of Deja Vu are very much like feeling as though I've been there, heard the same things, had the same conversations, food, smells, etc, and never had been there before. I feel like all the blood is draining from my face and a little nauseated. I think stress, lack of sleep and possibly anemia could have something to do with this. Another thing I notice when I experience these, I chew ice. A lot of it, I just get a cup fill it with ice and a little water or soda, I'm more interested in crunching the ice than the drink. Does this happen with any of you?

The deja vu's have been happening more lately, but for about 3-5 years prior, I didn't have them. It is nice to know that there are other people experiencing the same thing. Just wish we could figure out why.