Have you heard of "presque vu"?

I’ve heard of the phrase, but didn’t remember what it meant. I experience it a lot, though! My brain is like Swiss cheese, so there’s a lot of crap in there that I can’t access at any given time. For words I can’t recall, I nearly always remember the letter they start with or part of the word I’m looking for. I start saying similar words, and most of the time, the right one pops up eventually.

For instance, a friend and I were talking about sterilizing things, when I started to say “I wish I had a…”, and my mind went blank. All I could think of was clavicle, and I knew that wasn’t right. I said it anyway, with a disclaimer, and she and I spent about five minutes throwing out similar words, trying to think of the right one: autoclave. And she’s a nurse!

When you finally get it, it’s a huge relief. :)

Happens to me all the time. I keep on searching my daft thoughts until I get it. Even if it takes hours. Ugh.

It means, literally, “almost seen”. I love the phrase, it happens to me a lot, more since I had chemo. It’s kind of frustrating, but sooooo satisfying if you finally get it!

It happens to me almost on a daily basis and it really annoys me. It is sometimes a word but more often the name of someone I just can’t bring to mind though I know that I know it. I try different ways to recall it and sometimes I know the first letter and the number of syllables but it refuses to appear. Later, when I am thinking of something else it pops up in my mind without any effort.

Yup all the friggin time. Didnt know there was a word for it though. Awesome. Shame I’ll probably forget it when I try and tell someone else about it though.

In the last few years it’s been happening all the time. More and more, in fact. My memory has suddenly taken a vacation to Tahiti and is refusing to come home. As a result, I have words that I know are there and they are just through that thin veil, but I can’t see them, and for some reason I seem to be tied to this chair and I can’t pull the veil aside.

It is so annoying. I have to go to thesaurus.com and start hunting with words I do know (but aren’t right) to find the word I know is there, but I just can’t see it. It is more frustrating that a sticky valve on my trumpet. Or maybe as frustrating. Neck and neck, anyway.