View source for Cryptomnesia

'''Cryptomnesia''' occurs when a forgotten [[Memory|memory]] returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a tune, a name, or a joke;<ref>Taylor, F..K. (1965).Cryptomnesia and plagiarism. British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 1111–1118.</ref> they are not deliberately engaging in [[Social:Plagiarism|plagiarism]], but are experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

Cryptomnesia was first documented in 1874. The earliest case involved [[Unsolved:Mediumship|medium]] Stainton Moses, who thought he was communicating with spirits but unknowingly repeated details he had previously read in a newspaper. The term was coined by psychiatrist [[Biography:Théodore Flournoy|Théodore Flournoy]] while studying medium Hélène Smith, highlighting how forgotten memories can resurface distorted by imagination. Psychologists like [[Biography:Carl Jung|Carl Jung]], [[Biography:Sigmund Freud|Sigmund Freud]], and [[Biography:Jacques Lacan|Jacques Lacan]] further explored the concept, linking it to subconscious [[Biology:Recall (memory)|memory retrieval]], creativity, and self-misrecognition. Jung analyzed [[Biography:Friedrich Nietzsche|Friedrich Nietzsche]]’s writings, suggesting his use of previously encountered material was likely unintentional.

Experimental research has demonstrated cryptomnesia’s prevalence. In one of the first studies, participants took turns generating examples within categories and were later asked to produce new, unique ones. Between 3% and 9% inadvertently repeated others’ ideas or misattributed them to themselves, a finding replicated in word puzzles, [[Social:Brainstorming|brainstorming]] sessions, and similar tasks. Cryptomnesia is more likely when [[Philosophy:Cognitive load|cognitive load]] impairs source monitoring — people are less able to recall where an idea originated and may unconsciously claim it as their own. Jung noted that this process often drives creativity: authors may write something they believe to be original, only to later discover its similarity to previously encountered works.

Numerous famous cases illustrate cryptomnesia’s impact. Nietzsche unknowingly reproduced passages from a book he had read in his youth, while Lord Byron’s Manfred showed striking parallels to [[Biography:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]’s [[Unsolved:Faust|Faust]], which Byron claimed never to have read. Helen Keller inadvertently borrowed from a story read to her years earlier, leading to accusations of plagiarism that deeply affected her. Musicians like George Harrison faced legal consequences for subconscious copying, as seen in the “My Sweet Lord” copyright case, while Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler once failed to recognize his own band’s song on the radio. Authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Colleen McCullough, and [[Biography:Umberto Eco|Umberto Eco]] have all reported similar experiences.

==Early use==

Cryptomnesia was first documented in 1874, involving the medium Stainton Moses, who during a [[Unsolved:Séance|séance]] believed himself to be in spiritual contact with two brothers from India who had recently been killed. Despite the apparent communication, he was unable to ascertain any details which had not already been given in newspaper coverage of the story the week before. Researchers concluded that Moses had read the story but forgotten that he had read it, instead mistaking the partial memory for a message from the spirit world.<ref>{{cite book |author=Brian Righi |date=2008 |chapter=Chapter 4: Talking Boards and Ghostly Goo |title=Ghosts, Apparitions and Poltergeists |publisher=Llewellyn Publications |isbn=978-0738713632 |quote=An early example of this occurred in 1874 with he medium William Stanton Moses, who communicated with the spirits of two brothers who had recently died in India. Upon investigation, it was discovered that one week prior to the séance, their obituary had appeared in the newspaper. This was of some importance because Moses's communications with the two spirits contained nothing that wasn't already printed in the newspaper. When the spirits were pressed for further information, they were unable to provide any. Researchers concluded that Moses had seen the obituary, forgotten it, and then resurfaced the memory during the séance.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Robert Todd Carroll |year=2014 |url=http://skepdic.com/cryptomn.html |title=Cryptomnesia |website=[[Philosophy:The Skeptic's Dictionary|The Skeptic's Dictionary]]}}</ref>

The word was first used by the psychiatrist [[Biography:Théodore Flournoy|Théodore Flournoy]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Théodore Flournoy |title=From India to the Planet Mars: A Case of Multiple Personality with Imaginary Languages |year=1901 |via=answers.com/topic/cryptomnesia-psychoanalysis}}</ref> in reference to the case of medium Hélène Smith (Catherine-Élise Müller) to suggest the high incidence in psychism of "latent memories on the part of the medium that come out, sometimes greatly disfigured by a subliminal work of imagination or reasoning, as so often happens in our ordinary dreams."

Carl Gustav Jung treated the subject in his thesis "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena" (1902),<ref>{{cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl Gustav |year=1902 |chapter=On the psychology and pathology of so-called occult phenomena |title=Coll. works |volume=1 |location=London |publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul}}</ref> and in an article, "Cryptomnesia" (1905),<ref>{{cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl Gustav |year=1902 |chapter=Cryptomnesia |title=Coll. works |volume=1 |location=London |publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul |via=United States Bollingen Foundation}}</ref> suggested the [[Philosophy:Phenomenon|phenomenon]] in Friedrich Nietzsche's ''[[Philosophy:Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]''. The idea was studied or mentioned by Géza Dukes, Sándor Ferenczi and Wilhelm Stekel as well as by Sigmund Freud in speaking of the originality of his inventions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Freud |first=Sigmund |year=1920 |title=A note on the prehistory of the technique of analysis |volume=SE 18 |pages=263–265}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Freud |first=Sigmund |year=1923 |title=Josef Popper-Lynkeus and the theory of dreams |volume=SE 19|pages=259–263}}</ref> Jacques Lacan illustrated the adaptability of the concept in his formulation of the ego ideal (the "ego" as Other<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lacan |first1=Jacques |title=The Seminar of Jacques Lacan |date=1988 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co |location=New York |isbn=0-393-30709-3 |page=7}}</ref>)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lacan: The Mirror Stage |url=https://www.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/lacan/terms/other.html |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=www.english.hawaii.edu}}</ref> in refashioning the "case" of Marguerite Pantaine (Case of Aimée). Her experiences of self-"misrecognition" provided a structure for Lacan's key subsequent theories of [[Philosophy:The Symbolic|The Symbolic]] and the [[Philosophy:Mirror stage|mirror stage]].<ref>"[Pantaine] remembered with horror the time she had spent in hospital and blamed Lacan for never having done anything to get her out of the asylum, for never having helped her or listened to her properly. In her opinion, he had stolen her life story and turned it into a thesis. When he became famous she resented it, and feelings of persecution again rose up strongly ίη her. She never forgave Lacan for not having given her back her manuscripts. After Lacan's death Ι asked Jacques-Alain Miller [Lacan's protégé and son-in-law] to look for them. Ι knew how much Marguerite's son wanted to have them back, though he didn't want to ask for them himself. But Ι never received any answer." {{cite book |last1=Roudinesco |first1=Elizabeth |title=Jacques Lacan |date=1997 |publisher=Columbia Univ. Press |location=New York |isbn=0-231-10146-5}} (Cryptomnesia occurs when a forgotten memory returns without its being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original - see {{cite web |title=Lamella |url=https://nosubject.com/Lamella |website=No Subject|date=26 May 2019 }})</ref>

==Experimental research==
In the first empirical study of cryptomnesia, people in a group took turns generating category examples (e.g., kinds of birds: parrot, canary, etc.). They were later asked to create new exemplars in the same categories that were not previously produced, and also to recall which words they had personally generated. People inadvertently plagiarized about 3–9% of the time either by regenerating another person's thought or falsely recalling someone's thought as their own.<ref>Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia: Delineating inadvertent plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 432–442.</ref> Similar effects have been replicated using other tasks such as word search puzzles<ref>Marsh, R. L., & Bower, G. H. (1993). Eliciting cryptomnesia: Unconscious plagiarism in a puzzle task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 673–688.</ref><ref>Marsh, R. L. & Landau, J. D. (1995). Item availability in cryptomnesia: Assessing its role in two paradigms of unconscious plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1568–1582.</ref> and in brainstorming sessions.<ref>Marsh, R. L. Landau, J. D. Hicks, J. L. (1997). Contributions of inadequate source monitoring to unconscious plagiarism during idea generation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 886–897.</ref>

==Causes==
Cryptomnesia is more likely to occur when the ability to properly monitor sources is impaired. For example, people are more likely to falsely claim ideas as their own when they were under high cognitive load at the time they first considered the idea.<ref>Macrae, C.N., Bodenhasen, G. V. & Calvini, G. (1999). Contexts of cryptomnesia: May the source be with you. Social Cognition, 17, 273–297.</ref>

==Value==
As explained by [[Biography:Carl Jung|Carl Jung]],<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/480/1111
|title=Cryptomnesia and Plagiarism — TAYLOR 111 (480): 1111 – The British Journal of Psychiatry
|publisher=bjp.rcpsych.org
|access-date=2008-03-11
}}</ref>
in ''Man and His Symbols,'' "An author may be writing steadily to a preconceived plan, working out an argument or developing the line of a story, when he suddenly runs off at a tangent. Perhaps a fresh idea has occurred to him, or a different image, or a whole new sub-plot. If you ask him what prompted the digression, he will not be able to tell you. He may not even have noticed the change, though he has now produced material that is entirely fresh and apparently unknown to him before. Yet it can sometimes be shown convincingly that what he has written bears a striking similarity to the work of another author&nbsp;— a work that he believes he has never seen."

==Cases==

===Nietzsche===
Jung gives the following example in ''Man and His Symbols''.<ref name="jung_nietzsche">{{cite web|url=http://shellofman.com/post/8962298822/cryptomnesia-occurs-when-a-forgotten-memory|title=Cryptomnesia|publisher=Shell of Man|access-date=15 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203020741/http://shellofman.com/post/8962298822/cryptomnesia-occurs-when-a-forgotten-memory|archive-date=3 December 2013}}</ref> [[Biography:Friedrich Nietzsche|Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s book ''[[Philosophy:Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'' includes an almost word for word account of an incident also included in a book published about 1835, half a century before Nietzsche wrote. This is considered to be neither purposeful plagiarism nor pure coincidence: Nietzsche's sister confirmed that he had indeed read the original account when he was younger, likely sometime between ages 12 and 15; Nietzsche's youthful intellectual capabilities, his later cognitive degeneration, and his accompanying psychological deterioration (specifically, his increasing [[Philosophy:Grandiosity|grandiosity]] as manifested in his later behavior and writings) together strengthen the likelihood that he happened to commit the passage to memory upon initially reading it and later, after having lost his memory of encountering it, assumed that his own mind had created it.<ref name="nietzsche_on_gender">{{cite book |last=Oppel|first=Frances|date=2005|title=Nietzsche On Gender|publisher=University of Virginia Press|isbn=0-8139-2320-4|page=204|quote=The book of adventure stories as "source" was discovered by Carl Jung, who describes his find, and his subsequent belief that Nietzsche had "crpytomnesia,"<!--sic?--> the concealed recollection of a textual memory, to his seminar of fellow depth psychologists who gathered once a week between 1934 and 1939 to analyze ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra''. The piece of text "secretly crept up and reproduced itself" in "Of Great Events" (Z 2). Jung recognized the story about seamen stopping on an island to hunt rabbits, having read it in his grandfather's library. He wrote Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, who confirmed that she and Nietzsche had read the same book in their grandfather's library, when Nietzsche was eleven. This, Jung informed his Zarathustra seminar, "shows how the unconscious layers of the mind work." He added, "the absolute parallel is of course formed by the rabbits" (1218).}}<!--|access-date=15 November 2013--></ref>

===Byron===
In some cases, the line between cryptomnesia and [[Philosophy:Zeitgeist|zeitgeist]] (compare the concept of [[History:Multiple discovery|multiple discovery]] in science) may be somewhat hazy. Readers of Lord Byron's closet drama ''Manfred'' noted a strong resemblance to Goethe's ''Faust''. In a review published in 1820, Goethe wrote, "Byron's tragedy ''Manfred'' was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strangest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius."<ref>Reprinted in ''Lord Byron: The Critical Heritage'' by Andrew Rutherford [https://books.google.com/books?id=Q2xuKwGa1jYC&dq=goethe+manfred&pg=PA109]</ref> Byron was apparently thankful for the compliment; however, he claimed that he had
never read ''Faustus''.

===J.M. Barrie===

J. M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was aware of the occurrence of cryptomnesia. In ''Peter and Wendy''<ref>{{Cite book|title=Peter and Wendy|last=Barrie|first=J. M.|publisher=Hodder and Stoughton|year=1911}}</ref> Wendy sews Peter's shadow back on and this makes him very happy but he immediately thinks he has attached the shadow himself:

"How clever I am," he crowed rapturously, "oh, the cleverness of me!"

Peter exhibits a number of other clinically accurate peculiarities of memory suggesting that Barrie regarded Peter's behavior as a memory disorder rather than self-centredness.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Peter Pan and the Mind of J. M. Barrie|last=Ridley|first=Rosalind|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2016|isbn=978-1-4438-9107-3}}</ref>

===Helen Keller===
Helen Keller compromised her own and her teacher's credibility with an incident of cryptomnesia which was misinterpreted as [[Social:Plagiarism|plagiarism]].<ref>Jonathan Bailey. "[https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/02/10/5-great-people-who-plagiarized/ 5 Great People Who Plagiarized]". ''Plagiarism Today'', February 10, 2015.</ref> ''The Frost King'', which Keller wrote out of buried memories of the fairy tale ''The Frost Fairies'' by Margaret Canby, read to her four years previously, left Keller a nervous wreck, and unable to write fiction for the rest of her life.<ref>{{cite web|last=Foer|first=Joshua|title=No one has a photographic memory|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2006/04/kaavya_syndrome.single.html|work=Slate|date=27 April 2006|access-date=11 March 2014}}</ref>

===Robert Louis Stevenson===
Robert Louis Stevenson refers to an incident of cryptomnesia that took place during the writing of ''Treasure Island'', and that he discovered to his embarrassment several years afterward:

{{blockquote|... I am now upon a painful chapter. No doubt the parrot once belonged to Robinson Crusoe. No doubt the skeleton is conveyed from [[Biography:Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]]. I think little of these, they are trifles and details; and no man can hope to have a monopoly of skeletons or make a corner in talking birds. The stockade, I am told, is from ''Masterman Ready''. It may be, I care not a jot. These useful writers had fulfilled the poet's saying: departing, they had left behind them Footprints on the sands of time, Footprints which perhaps another—and I was the other! It is my debt to Washington Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe plagiarism was rarely carried farther. I chanced to pick up the ''Tales of a Traveller'' some years ago with a view to an anthology of prose narrative, and the book flew up and struck me: Billy Bones, his chest, the company in the parlour, the whole inner spirit, and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters—all were there, all were the property of Washington Irving. But I had no guess of it then as I sat writing by the fireside, in what seemed the spring-tides of a somewhat pedestrian inspiration; nor yet day by day, after lunch, as I read aloud my morning's work to the family. It seemed to me original [[Religion:Original sin|as sin]]; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye&nbsp;...<ref>{{cite book |author=Stevenson, Robert Louis |date=1919 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.215613/page/n129/mode/2up |chapter=My First Book: "Treasure Island" |title=Essays In The Art Of Writing |pages=120, 121 |location=London |publisher=Chatto & Windus}}</ref>}}

===Jerusalem of Gold===
''Jerusalem of Gold'' ({{lang|he|ירושלים של זהב}}) is a 1967 song by Naomi Shemer.
Some of the song's melody is based on a Basque lullaby, ''Pello Joxepe'',<ref>Paco Ibáñez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttuRcl1dK1M</ref> composed by Juan Francisco Petriarena 'Xenpelar' (1835–1869). Shemer heard a rendition by Spanish singer/songwriter Paco Ibáñez, who visited Israel in 1962 and performed the song to a group that included her and Nehama Hendel. She later acknowledged hearing Hendel perform Pello Joxepe in the mid-1960s, and that she had unconsciously based some of the melody on the lullaby. Shemer felt very bad when she found that it was similar to ''Pello Joxepe'', but when Ibáñez was asked how he felt about the issue, he replied he was "glad it helped in some way", and that he was not angry, nor did he perceive it as plagiarism.<ref>{{cite news |author=Idit Avrahami |author2=Nurit Wurgaft |url=https://www.haaretz.com/news/naomi-shemer-had-no-reason-to-feel-bad-says-basque-singer-1.157926 |title=Naomi Shemer had no reason to feel bad, says Basque singer |newspaper=Haaretz |date=6 May 2005 |access-date=11 April 2014}}</ref>

===Steven Tyler===
In 1984, when Aerosmith were recording ''Done With Mirrors'', lead singer Steven Tyler heard the group's "You See Me Crying" on the radio and, not remembering that it was their own song, suggested that the group record a cover version, to which guitarist Joe Perry replied, "That's us, fuckhead!".<ref name="AUI">{{cite book |last=Bienstock |first=Richard |date=2011 |title=Aerosmith: The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Boston Bad Boys |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2Opr3N1X4YC&pg=PA119 |publisher=Voyageur Press |page=119 |isbn=978-0-7603-4106-3}}</ref>

===George Harrison===
The precedent in United States [[Copyright|copyright]] law, since 1976, has been to treat alleged cryptomnesia no differently from deliberate plagiarism. The seminal case is ''Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music,''<ref>420 F. Supp. 177 (S.D.N.Y. 1976), ''available at'' {{cite web |url=http://cip.law.ucla.edu/cases/case_brightharrisongs.html |title=Referenced Case |access-date=2009-03-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326082447/http://cip.law.ucla.edu/cases/case_brightharrisongs.html |archive-date=2009-03-26 }}</ref> where the publisher of "He's So Fine," written and composed by Ronald Mack, demonstrated to the court that George Harrison borrowed substantial portions of his song "My Sweet Lord" from "He's So Fine." The Court imposed damages despite a claim that the copying was subconscious. The ruling was upheld by the Second Circuit in ''ABKCO Music v. Harrisongs Music,''<ref>722 F.2d 988, 221 U.S.P.Q. 490, ''available at'' http://digital-law-online.info/cases/221PQ490.htm</ref> and the case ''Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton,''<ref>{{cite web|title=Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton 212 F.3d 477 (9th Cir.2000)|url=http://mcir.usc.edu/cases/2000-2009/Pages/threeboysbolton.html|website=Music Copyright Infringement Source|publisher=USC Gould School of Law|access-date=17 May 2017|language=en|archive-date=24 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181124174522/http://mcir.usc.edu/cases/2000-2009/Pages/threeboysbolton.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> upheld by the Ninth Circuit, affirmed the principle.

===Colleen McCullough===

In 1987, Australian author Colleen McCullough published a novella, ''The Ladies of Missalonghi''. Critics alleged that she had plagiarised ''The Blue Castle'', a 1926 novel by L. M. Montgomery. McCullough acknowledged having read Montgomery's works in her youth, but attributed the similarities to subconscious recollection.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Maunder|first1=Patricia|title=Outspoken writer Colleen McCullough praised by all except literary establishment|url=http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/outspoken-writer-colleen-mccullough-praised-by-all-except-literary-establishment-20150130-131wf9.html|access-date=12 September 2016|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=30 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819182640/http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/outspoken-writer-colleen-mccullough-praised-by-all-except-literary-establishment-20150130-131wf9.html|archive-date=19 August 2016}}</ref>

===Umberto Eco===
In ''Interpretation and Overinterpretation'', [[Biography:Umberto Eco|Umberto Eco]] describes the rediscovery of an antique book among his large collection, which was eerily similar to the pivotal object in his novel ''[[Philosophy:The Name of the Rose|The Name of the Rose]]''.

{{blockquote|I had bought that book in my youth, skimmed through it, realized that it was exceptionally soiled, and put it somewhere and forgot it. But by a sort of internal camera I had photographed those pages, and for decades the image of those poisonous leaves lay in the most remote part of my soul, as in a grave, until the moment it emerged again (I do not know for what reason) and I believed I had invented it.<ref name="EcoCollini1992">{{cite book|author1=Umberto Eco|author2=Stefan Collini |author3=Richard Rorty |author4=Jonathan Culler |author5=Christine Brooke-Rose|title=Interpretation and overinterpretation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbhROmD3guQC|access-date=24 August 2011|year=1992|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-42554-4|page=88}}</ref>}}

==See also==
* {{annotated link|Unsolved:Age regression in therapy}}
* {{annotated link|Unsolved:Automatic writing}}
* {{annotated link|Unsolved:Bridey Murphy}}
* {{annotated link|Confabulation}}
* {{annotated link|Déjà vu|''Déjà vu''}}
* {{annotated link|False memory}}
* {{annotated link|Hindsight bias}}
* {{annotated link|Philosophy:Jamais vu|''Jamais vu''}}
* {{annotated link|Social:Minority influence}}
* {{annotated link|Misattribution of memory}}
* {{annotated link|Misinformation effect}}
* {{annotated link|Unsolved:Past life regression}}
* {{annotated link|Unsolved:Revelation}}
* {{annotated link|Sleeper effect}}
* {{annotated link|Philosophy:Source amnesia}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==

*[http://skepdic.com/cryptomn.html Cryptomnesia] - [[Philosophy:The Skeptic's Dictionary|The Skeptic's Dictionary]]

{{Memory}}

[[Category:Error]]
[[Category:Memory biases]]

{{Sourceattribution|Cryptomnesia}}