Unlike many other World of Warcraft players, I put off buying Wrath of The Lich King. The expansion launched around this time last year, and it wasn’t until I had leveled a completely different character and practically slammed her face into the level cap that I finally gave in to temptation/peer pressure. I had always worried that I wouldn’t get to explore the areas of the game as thoroughly as I wanted to, and that the addition of a continent of content would actually be game-breaking for me. I was right — I quit shortly after my purchase, but to this day, the reason behind it still surprises me.

When most of the other players I knew dove straight into Northrend as soon as possible, I spent the bulk of my time in Outland and Azeroth-Prime, not wanting to miss out on any questlines or rewards there. I was never too concerned with pushing toward the next level, more content with working the Auction House and organizing the guild bank than getting into instances and finding the right gear. By the time I hit 78, I realized that there were entire areas of WotLK that I’d yet to see, so I bought my flight upgrades and went exploring.

One morning, I found myself alone in the middle of the Dragonblight wastes. After I pulled up my map, I decided to make a run for Grizzly Hills since it was closer than the other zones. As I headed east, I could see green in the distance, and the snow on the ground began to thaw. As soon as I entered the area, a gull flew over my head. Something stirred within me… I remembered…

… but what was I remembering? Was it stumbling through Capitol Forest in the middle of the night to watch the fireworks, or hiking around Packwood Lake with friends? Was it something that wasn’t even mine, from TV or a movie? Running throughout the zone, I couldn’t shake that feeling that I’d been here, that I’d seen all these places before, knew their scents and sounds and everything, fully aware that it was impossible since what I was experiencing wasn’t real to begin with.

Paramnesia, more commonly known as déjà vu, is a memory hallucination. Specifically, it’s that feeling as if you have experienced something before, down to the most minute detail. You may realize that it’s impossible due to your never having been there or done that before, but that unnerving sense of familiarity clings to you.

Not only are there other vus — presque vu and jamais vu come to mind — but different subsets of déjà vu. While what most people refer to as déjà vu is also known as déjà vecu, there are two other forms to consider: déjà senti (the recollection of a memory not sought after) and déjà visité (an uncanny familiarity of a new place).

It’s one thing to experience some sort of déjà vecu/visité in real life — it’s a completely different beast when you put it in the context of a video game. One could go on vacation to a new place and be innately familiar with it, possibly from watching a film or reading a book that was set there. How does someone rationalize this feeling “knowing” a place that doesn’t exist?

You could say I’ve had feelings like this before, although in those situations, the fictional area had a distinct real-life counterpart (specifically, the Grand Theft Auto reboots). What made this particular moment so jarring wasn’t that these areas could be inspired by somewhere, but that the inspiration was so close to home. Grizzly Hills was right outside my front door.

One of the reasons people turn to video games is to escape, plain and simple. In a game such as World of Warcraft where you are given an open realm to explore, your avatar a surrogate for your own flesh and blood, the immersion factor is on a completely different level. From the start, you create your character and choose what to do in this world and who to share it with. Being able to talk to other players and have your character reflect your feelings via emotes and actions encourages a level of transference that I’ve yet to see in any other genre. In many ways, that little chat box in the corner is more significant than any actual gameplay — it drives home the fact that your character is you. Due to this, WoW and its MMO counterparts have more in common with social experiments like Second Life (I’m reluctant to call that a game) and networking sites like Facebook than your average game. Sure, there’s still a certain level of transference when playing as a set protagonist, it’s still easy to detach yourself from it because of the limitations of the game, be it a linear story or the lack of real-time communication. MMOs provide a constant acknowledgement from friends and strangers alike, and that makes it easier to get lost in their worlds.

I’d always loved being outside. I never was the sporting type, but I would always look forward to taking walks in the woods with just a pen and a notebook and the sounds around me. Laying out on the grass, staring at that solid layer of clouds until my eyes burned… that was a day well-spent.

Somewhere along the line, though, everything changed.

I withdrew, reluctant to leave my house, my safe haven. After taking a break from school, I started playing WoW in order to pass the time. I didn’t want to think about writing, about finishing my degree or transferring to a four-year college or being too old to even consider all of it. When I did leave the house, I would pack anything and everything I could to distract me from my surroundings. The sad thing is that entering a virtual version of those places I loved made me start thinking about it all in a critical manner.

I began to feel guilty. I began questioning my life: When was the last time I went to the wildlife preserve? We should really drive to the beach, or at least to the harbor. Nick hasn’t been to Mt. Rainier yet — why haven’t we gone? It was right there, it was all right there and yet there I was, sitting in front of a computer screen, my character standing in the shadow of a digital peak.

I never logged on after that day, canceled my account a week later. It was the easiest addiction in my life to give up. However, I still haven’t been out to the beach, and Rainier still looms outside my window, guilting me. Baby steps, I tell myself, baby steps.
There is a part of me that worries, more so than usual. I can’t help but wonder if any of those places I used to know so well will feel as real as the roads of Grizzly Hills did that mid-May morning.

• Three Types of Déjà vu, by Arthur Funkhouser, PhD
• Déjà vu and the Brain, Consciousness and Self, by Julia Johnson
• Déjà vu Neologisms, by Vernon M Neppe, MD/PhD
• Wikipedia, but you knew that already