paramnesia

Paramnesia is a term introduced by psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in 1886 to describe memory errors. It encompasses several types of memory deceptions. One form is when imagined or hallucinated events are remembered as real. Another is associative memory deception, now called reduplicative paramnesia, where someone believes they have met a new person before.1

Reduplicative paramnesia is often seen in confused or amnesic individuals who might believe they are in multiple similar hospitals with the same name. This can also occur when people fail to recognize an object they have seen before, thinking it's similar but not the same. This phenomenon is typically linked with confabulation, speech disorders, disorientation, and denial of illness.1