It’s so helpful and rewarding to have specific words and terms to name your experience. For instance, I thought for many years that I was prone to frequent bouts of déjà vu, but then I learned the term déjà rêvé, and it was like a self-revelation. I can’t tell you how many times an experience or situation in waking life has flushed weird as I’ve been flooded with the vivid sense, “Wait…I dreamed this.” As in, I felt the situation was a replay of a dream that I had formerly experienced at night, though I couldn’t remember actually dreaming it. This is déjà rêvé, not déjà vu. The latter, more common term refers to the feeling that you have formerly experienced the same situation in waking life. The difference in nuance is critically important. Having specific words to name our experiences is deeply satisfying, and even liberating. And it’s interesting how often one’s own native language comes up deficient.

I have also frequently had the distinct sense, while dreaming, that the dream wasn’t new, that I had dreamed it many times before, even though I realized upon waking up that the dream was new (unless in sleep I had remembered more clearly). Is there a term for that? Rêvé déjà rêvé, maybe?