cryptomnesia

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English

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WOTD – 18 September 2024

Etymology

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From crypto- (prefix meaning ‘hidden’) +‎ (a)mnesia, modelled after French cryptomnésie,[1] which was coined by Swiss psychologist and parapsychologist Théodore Flournoy (1854–1920) in his work Des Indes à la planète Mars (From India to the Planet Mars, 1899 or 1900).[2] The English word was probably first used in the 1900 translation of Flournoy’s work: see the quotation.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cryptomnesia (countable and uncountable, plural cryptomnesias)

  1. (chiefly psychology, uncountable) The phenomenon of the reappearance of a long-forgotten memory as if it were a new experience; (countable) an instance of this. [from 1900]
    • 1900, Th[éodore] Flournoy, “The Hindoo Cycle”, in Daniel B. Vermilye, transl., From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 276:
      All the witnesses of Mlle. [Hélène] Smith's Hindoo somnambulisms who are of the same opinion on that subject (several refrain from having any) unite in seeing in it a curious phenomenon of cryptomnesia, of reappearances of memories profoundly buried beneath the normal waking state, together with an indeterminate amount of imaginative exaggeration upon the canvas of actual facts. But by this name of cryptomnesia or resurrection of latent memories, two singularly different things are understood.
    • 1981 (date written), Oliver Sacks, “Yes, Father-Sister”, in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, published 1985 (1987 printing), →ISBN, part 2 (Excesses), page 118:
      How much is cryptamnesia-confabulation, how much frontal-lobe indifference-equalisation, how much some strange schizophrenic disintegration and shattering-flattening?
    • 1994, Ted Goertzel, “Measuring the Prevalence of False Memories”, in Kendrick Frazier, editor, Encounters with the Paranormal (Best of Skeptical Inquirer; 5), Lanham, Md.: Prometheus Books, published 1998, →ISBN, part 9 (The Malleability of Memory), page 411:
      The path analysis suggests that cryptomnesia is rooted in a lack of trusting relationships. […] This lack of trust leads to feelings of anomie and anxiety that make the individual more likely to construct false memories out of information stored in the unconscious mind. People who think in this way are susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories, since these theories help them to make sense of an otherwise incoherent world.
      Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer (spring 1994), volume 18, number 3, pages 266–272.
    • 1996, John Farrell, “Paranoid Psychology”, in Freud’s Paranoid Quest: Psychoanalysis and Modern Suspicion, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 56:
      And although [Sigmund] Freud claimed that others’ ideas were of no use to him unless they came at a time when he was ready for them, he proved enormously susceptible to their influence and even noted his own tendency to ‘cryptamnesia’, by which he ‘unconsciously’ contrived to forget his intellectual debts.
    • 1999, John R. Haule, “From Somnambulism to the Archetypes: The French Roots of Jung’s Split with [Sigmund] Freud”, in Paul Bishop, editor, Jung in Contexts: A Reader, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part III (Jung in Intellectual Context), page 253:
      Apparently lacking the time or patience to reveal a comprehensive system of cryptomnesias in his medium, Fräulein SW, [Carl] Jung strenuously asserts the importance of this unconscious device […]
    • 2003, David Edwards, Michael Jacobs, “Conscious and Unconscious: The Next Hundred Years”, in Michael Jacobs, editor, Conscious and Unconscious (Core Concepts in Therapy), Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education, →ISBN, page 136:
      While apparent regressions into past lives can often easily be shown to be constructions based on cryptamnesia […], this is by no means always the case. In 1987, one hypnotherapy client experienced an apparent 'past life' as a submariner who died with his ship in 1942; he provided detailed names and dates that could be confirmed from the records of the naval base where he was supposed to have served […]. If we insist on a Darwinian account, these phenomena must be examples of cryptamnesia, suggestion or fraud.
    • 2008, C[arl] G[ustav] Jung, “On the Method of Dream Interpretation”, in Ernst Falzeder, Tony Woolfson, transl., edited by Lorenz Jung and Maria Meyer-Grass, Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940 (Philemon Series), Princeton, N.J.;Oxford, Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 17:
      In dreams, therefore, cryptomnesias may appear, that is, impressions, elements, thoughts, a piece of knowledge that the dreamer once had, which then vanishes completely and cannot be reproduced, until it suddenly reemerges in its original form on some particular occasion.
    • 2021, Gabriel A. Radavansky, “Memory and Reality”, in Human Memory, 4th edition, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, →ISBN, part 3 (Special Topics in Memory), page 428:
      Some plagiarism is unconscious and unintentional. It occurs when people come up with ideas that they believe are their own but in fact were encountered in the past. This unconscious plagiarism is cryptomnesia […]. One theory of cryptomnesia is that it is a reality monitoring error. People retain the content information, but after some time has passed, and/or because little attention was paid during encoding, the source memory is weak and has no influence.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “cryptomnesia, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “cryptomnesia, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Des Indes à la planète Mars : Etude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie : Avec 44 figures [From India to the Planet Mars: Study of a Case of Sleepwalking with Glossolalia: With 44 Figures], [Geneva; Paris?]: [Atar Fischbacher?], 1899 or 1900.

Further reading

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