Phrase: something that should have remained hidden and has come into the open

One of the main definitions for “uncanny” is given as “something that should have remained hidden and has come into the open” (148). One of the definitions given in the beginning is “unhomely,” which is similar to “unfamiliar.” In the beginning, Freud states that things are frightening to us because they are unfamiliar. I found this phrase/definition interesting because he says that we as humans are always looking for patterns, and something is usually uncanny because it has been strangely repeated. However, the phrase says that some (most? all?) of these things are actually repressed experiences. So, something uncanny is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I’m not sure if Freud has any theories on déjà vu, but the two ideas seem almost identical. Déjà vu is in itself, of course, an uncanny experience, but he makes no mention of the actual words in this text. Is this the beginning of the idea of déjà vu, or is Freud just trying to go a different route?


Not used to write this entry, but interesting: Wikipedia article on déjà vu