kleptomnesia means the situation where a person comes up with an idea that they believe to be original, but which was in fact created by someone else and previously encountered by the person. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 82 out of 100.
Why “kleptomnesia” is a great word
The unconscious misappropriation of another's idea as one's own original thought. A blend of klepto- (from Greek kleptēs, "thief") and -mnesia (from Greek mnēsis, "memory"), hence "memory theft"; coined in or before 1999 by psychologist Dan Gilbert. Unlike plagiarism, a knowing sin of commission, or cryptomnesia, the mere unconscious trace that enables it, kleptomnesia is the unwitting crime itself. It is the melody composed in a dream, only to find it hummed on an old pop song; the perfect aphorism scrawled in a journal's margin, later discovered word-for-word in a long-forgotten book; the brilliant solution offered in a meeting, which was, in fact, your colleague's suggestion from last Tuesday—a quiet revelation that our most intimate mental property is never quite our own.
Etymology
Coined by Dan Gilbert in or before 1999.
noun
- The situation where a person comes up with an idea that they believe to be original, but which was in fact created by someone else and previously encountered by the person.“Kleptomnesia happens due to a pragmatic, but peculiar, feature of how human memory is wired. When we encode information, we tend to pay more attention to the content than the source. Once we accept a piece of information as true, we no longer need to worry about where we acquired it.”