The Recognition — 'I've been here before'

✦Description

Arrival lands not as discovery but as return: the place is impossibly familiar, sometimes felt as 'home.' Lawrence 2022 found a sense of familiarity in 12.8% of reports, with 1.5% explicitly reporting 'home' or belonging; Cott & Rock's early thematic analysis surfaced 'familiarity' as one of nine core themes. Distinct from the theme 'Remember — you already knew this': that is recognition of KNOWLEDGE; this is recognition of PLACE — the déjà vu of the doorstep.

✦Interpretations

Experiencers read it as evidence of prior visits — in dreams, before birth, at death; researchers read it as the familiarity signal (the déjà vu mechanism) firing at full amplitude in a novel scene. Both agree the feeling itself is data.

✦What the sources say

Sense of familiarity in 482 reports (12.8%); 'home' or belonging in 55 (1.5%).

'Familiarity' was one of nine constituent themes in the first qualitative thematic analysis of DMT use.

Described arrival as recognition — a place known but not rememberable from outside.