cryptamnesia

crypt·a·mnes·ia
C3R1Y4P3T1A1M3N1E1S1I1A1
UK/ˌkɹɪp.təmˈniː.zi.ə/UK/ˌkɹɪp.təmˈniː.ʒə/US/ˌkɹɪp.təmˈni.ʒi.ə/US/-ʒə/

A form of cryptomnesia — The phenomenon of the reappearance of a long-forgotten memory as if it were a new experience; (countable) an instance of this. Contrast cryptaesthesia.

Scrabble 21

Meanings

nouncryptamnesia (countable and uncountable, plural cryptamnesias)

plural cryptamnesias

  1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of cryptomnesia.

    How much is cryptamnesia-confabulation, how much frontal-lobe indifference-equalisation, how much some strange schizophrenic disintegration and shattering-flattening?

    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
    2 more examples

    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.

    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

    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.

    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

Origin

From crypt- (prefix meaning ‘hidden’) + amnesia; see further at cryptomnesia.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with cryptamnesia

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Cite this entry
APA

cryptamnesia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cryptamnesia

MLA

“cryptamnesia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cryptamnesia. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cryptamnesia,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cryptamnesia.

Source: cryptamnesia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.