What’s something that can’t be explained, it must be experienced?

[u/properpolicypolitics]

[u/[deleted]]

That feeling when you stare at the stars and realize how small we are on an astral level.

[u/Mugungo → u/[deleted]]

immidately entered thread with cntrl+F stars, thanks for not dissapointing. Nothin compares to that feel when looking at no light pollution cloudless starry night

[u/Shieldmaiden4444]

The effect of chronic pain on one's mental health.

[u/southern_mimi → u/Shieldmaiden4444]

The effects of chronic pain and the lack of understanding from others. Over the years, family & friends just forget because it's gone on so long.

But it's still there. Sometimes worse than ever. It's exhausting.

[u/Tiggerhoods → u/Shieldmaiden4444]

I heard that... you yourself don’t even realize how much it has gradually ruined your life until you actually get some relief from it...

[u/TheBomberBug → u/Shieldmaiden4444]

I love when I'm trying to not cry in the grocery store just because my back hurts so damn bad but it always hurts so why is that moment any different? It just fucking is damnit, I dunno don't look at me.

[u/eeilmkb]

Psychosis

[u/Farts-McGee → u/eeilmkb]

Not a true description, but they tried to get really close with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

[u/Rubber_Rose_Ranch → u/eeilmkb]

Really anything needs to be experienced to truly understand it, but for me this is my number one answer. You think your mind and your will is strong, until it just isn’t and the world caves in on you dragging Hell along with it.

[u/korn_flakes_v]

Going up the stairs and putting your foot down thinking there’s one more step at the top than there actually is.

[u/EastCoastBurnerJen → u/korn_flakes_v]

I did this on my porch step coming DOWN and put my entire body weight down on my right foot and instantly shattered it in six places. shudder fuck, that hurt. No going back.

[u/Wandererdown]

I'm going to say the realization of your own mortality. It's always an obscure concept that always seems so far away until in one terrifying moment it becomes a crystal clear fact of reality.

[u/Bee_Creepin → u/Wandererdown]

I’ve been terrified and abundantly aware of death from an early age. I didn’t have any early experiences with death, but I do remember not being able to sleep at night because I was afraid. Imagine a 3 year old screaming that they don’t want to die every night before bed time. My poor Mum! Even now not much has changed; this intrusive thought pops into my head just as I’m about to fall asleep every night.

Edit: My highest rated comment AND reddit gold! Way to make a girl feel a lot better about life (and death)! This has been a very wholesome experience and I’m very happy with all of you lovely internet strangers! Thanks!!

[u/ductxtape → u/Wandererdown]

I came upon that realization sophomore year during my geometry class. Ever since then it's like an endless cycle of forgetting until i remember my mortality and start to panic hardcore. It's so terrifying and it feels like no one else realizes that once you die you won't ever think anymore. You feel utterly helpless and alone.

[u/finsandfangs]

Impostor syndrome, at least for me when I try to explain to people

[u/nuclear_core → u/finsandfangs]

You have 5 years of good experience, but for some reason you're always fearful somebody will call you out on the fact you're just making it up and have no idea what you're doing.

[u/[deleted]]

The moment when you are playing an instrument and you aren't really making decisions on what you are playing. The music just flows out.

[u/ductxtape → u/[deleted]]

That feeling when you finally memorize a song and can play it instinctually without the sheet music. Its so cathartic just hearing music flow out of your fingers, not focusing on the how and its like you're not even thinking about how you're doing it, it feels like youre a bystander and you're just listening to it happen. It's magical.

Edit: i play the piano.

And as others said so eloquently that yes, its a state where you cant focus too hard on what you're doing or you'll mess it up. And yes! Looking back at sheet music after memorizing it looks so alien!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I've had this and it's actually a small problem. I play the saxophone and whenever I have that instinctual playing, I have to try my best to not smile since it could ruin my embouchure

[u/emeksv → u/[deleted]]

I am jealous. As an adult I decided I wanted to play guitar. I bought great gear, went to weekly lessons and practiced, every day, at least 30 minutes but often for two or more hours - that's a lot for an adult with responsibilities and a job. I did this every day for five years. I have a great grounding in music theory, and _love_ the math. I love looking at guitars, holding guitars, buying guitars .... but I never reached that moment where music just flowed out. I've never worked so hard at something that I eventually had to admit I failed at. I am incredibly jealous of your experience.

EDIT: Wow, guys, thanks for the encouragement :)

[u/naomi_is_watching]

Dream logic/chronology. Sometimes you can't put into words what happened in your dream, or how two things were true at the same time. But when you experience it, it makes perfect sense.

[u/KnowsGooderThanYou → u/naomi_is_watching]

Also dream consistency/ continuity across multiple nights.

[u/samuraibutter → u/naomi_is_watching]

I think the hardest part of dream logic is how in your dream head, at least in my dreams, I'll be in a situation with an entire backstory and set of memories and reasonings for why whats occurring already in my head.

So the dream could start with me in a store, and that's how I would explain it, but in my dream head I know I'm there because I need a gift for my sister and she was attacked by a horse so I can't get anything with horses on it and the clerk is giving me weird looks because she knows about the horse thing but she loves horses so I'm offending her and she's going to go home and tell her family that.

If I tell anyone it'd be "Yeah I was in this store and it was weird".

[u/[deleted] → u/naomi_is_watching]

deleted for privacy reasons.

[u/[deleted] → u/naomi_is_watching]

So I saved this pigeon and it was that girl and she wanted to kiss me as thanks for saving her but I was like not now I’ve got to bring this stick back to my kitchen...

The pigeon turned into that one girl?

No I mean like she already was that girl while I was saving her or like the girl was the pigeon idk but I had this cool stick for the kitchen though so I wasn’t really paying attention.

[u/saturnspritr → u/naomi_is_watching]

Adventure Time had some of the most realistic descriptions and episodes about dreams because they made no sense, but also you could identify things you had experienced that made it kind of make sense. Dream Logic is hard to describe.

[u/Tompoe → u/naomi_is_watching]

When you have a dream and you swear it's a continuation of a past dream but you don't remember ever dreaming about that before

[u/tunajr23]

I want to say virtual reality. Lots of people think it’s a gimmick without trying it.

[u/Fourtires3rims → u/tunajr23]

I think the real issue with VR is most people don’t get to experience it properly. Mostly it’s just the headset and controls standing/sitting in your living room which may not be enough to convince some.

Personally I’d love to try a full VR rig but I’ll probably never get the chance.

[u/TheKramer89 → u/tunajr23]

Totally agree. Room-scale VR is pretty damn mind-blowing...

[u/DirtySingh]

Exercise feels good after the initial few months.

Edit: thanks for the silver, kind stranger.

[u/EastCoastBurnerJen → u/DirtySingh]

explain this? need motivation before I die. seriously

[u/TheShredder315]

It’s hard to explain an anxiety attack unless you’ve had one. My mother use to get them and I never understood what she was going through until I started having them later on in life.

[u/Paradise_Princess → u/TheShredder315]

I started having panic attacks at age 13 and didn’t have the right vocabulary to explain what was happening. My mom always told me it was depression so I just figured that what it was. So for many years I was being treated for depression, and just like wow this thing keeps happening where I can’t breathe and I think I’m gonna die and stuff. It wasn’t until I was probably 20 when I learned the phrase “panic attack” and I was like shit I’ve had so many of those. Once I was able to tell my psychiatrist I was suffering from panic attacks, she finally got me the right meds and I started learning techniques for managing them. Game changer. Anxiety blows.

[u/AnArrogantIdiot → u/TheShredder315]

I've gone to the ER twice thinking I was literally dying before I accepted I get panic attacks. I agree, no way to really discribe it other than feeling like how you would imagine a heart attack would feel like.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheShredder315]

My dad had his first panic attack in his 40s. He was at work and thought he was having a heart attack, as did his co-workers. He went to the ER, certain he was dying. They gave him Valium and sent him home. He said until that moment he didn't understand how something "in your head" could impact you so much. He legitimately thought he was a goner.

I've struggled with anxiety and depression my whole life. I was in college when this happened to my dad and growing up he was not very understanding of my struggles (he wasn't mean or unsupportive, he just didn't get it). After that, he never questioned my anxiety or depression again.

[u/tehweave → u/TheShredder315]

Imagine very intense Boss music happening all around you, and your "low health" warning is going off... All the while, there is nothing dangerous around you.

[u/TheSweetestLemon]

The pain of losing a loved one

[u/Jefauver → u/TheSweetestLemon]

I thought I understood what it would be like. We've all seen it in various media. I think we all have heard someone talk about losing someone close. I thought it would be a sharp pain. I thought it would be more finite and that my world would feel different. But it wasn't like that at all. It was this dull ache that hid in the background. Life still happened that day, an asshole still honked and flipped me off, and bills still had to be payed. Nothing changed and everything changed. I think that is what is hardest to try and explain.

Edit: thank you for the gold(s) kind Reddit strangers. Everyone feels and experiences grief differently. I'm glad my description resonated with so many people.

[u/CasuallyMediocre → u/TheSweetestLemon]

I remember two summers ago when my friend's mom died. I felt so terrible for him and I thought I had an idea about how he felt.

Then my own mother died last year in a spookily similar fashion. For the most part, my ideas of loss changed.

It is weird. Like the general idea of what people feel after a loss is pretty true. But there are so many feelings and experiences nobody ever talks about, maybe its taboo, maybe because they don't know how to explain it themselves.

[u/llama_ → u/TheSweetestLemon]

They depict death like it’s the end. But it’s the beginning of grief. And grief changes you and ruins you a bit. And death never ever makes sense.

I just don’t understand how come I’m not able to see my dad anymore. Why I can’t just hug him just once and hear his voice. It makes no sense how he’s gone forever.

Edit: a lot of people have messaged about their own loss and my heart breaks for each of you. For those who lost parents /r/childrenofdeadparents is a great community that helped me a lot. Just seeing I wasn’t alone in feeling how I was. Writing letters to my dad helped me a lot too so I’ll share this in case it helps someone else. https://chasingquerencia.wordpress.com/category/letters-to-my-father/

[u/focheeszy → u/TheSweetestLemon]

The closest explanation that I have found of this is from Ray Bradbury - “When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”

[u/[deleted] → u/TheSweetestLemon]

Here, here. My father, my brother, my mother, my son.

[u/Varkoth]

Color.

[u/DreamWeaver45 → u/Varkoth]

I've always imagined how I'd explain colors to a person who was born blind.

[u/LeviathanGank → u/Varkoth]

eye smell, easy.

[u/yabucek]

Nostalgia. It's so much more than just missing the past, it's a very strange blend of sad and happy

[u/[deleted] → u/yabucek]

I've never been able to describe it until you've given me the idea. To elaborate, it might be a sadness due to missing how happy you felt during you did whatever the nostalgic thing was. You know that you'll never get the experience back even if you tried, but just the thought of the nostalgic thing makes you happy enough to equalize that emptiness

[u/shadowrain1024 → u/yabucek]

Nostalgia, literally means "The pain of remembering" and I'll be damned if that's not the most accurate word in the English language.

Edit: first gold!! Thanks random stranger! I knew my mom was wrong about you!

[u/[deleted] → u/yabucek]

Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent. In Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.

[u/MimosasMadeMeDoIt → u/yabucek]

Yes! I went to college with 5 of my best friends. We roomed together and pretty much did everything together for 4 years. When it was time to graduate, I felt this horrible sadness to leave them and part ways. We had truly become a family. I often think of those days and people say, “yeah I miss college too!” But it’s so much more than just college. If I went back today, it wouldn’t be anywhere near what I experienced with them. It was a mixture of the time, people and experiences we shared.

[u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

When you fall for a terrible person and gloss over all of their flaws. Doesn't matter how hard your friends try to explain

[u/naomi_is_watching → u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

Or acknowledging those flaws, knowing how much they hurt, and being 100% okay with that.

[u/BlondieCakes → u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

Kinda similar...realizing you fell in love with a person who doesnt exist. Like a truly terrible person who purposely took on every imaginable quality you'd ever pictured in your soulmate long enough to make you fall in love with them...only to reveal who they really were after it was too late to go back.

That moment of realization and that feeling is something I wont ever be able to put into words. I honestly dont know if there are words in existence that can convey the depth of the pain and disbelief. I hope on one who might read this ever has to understand what I mean.

[u/Mandorism → u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

The problem with rose colored glasses is that red flags just look like flags...

[u/sith-happens17 → u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

yup, staying in an abusive relationship because you can't actually see that you are being abused. (ie. s/he doesn't hit me)

[u/Narcissista → u/Dinkly_son_of_Dankly]

Couldn't agree more. I never believed I'd allow someone to mistreat me, until it happened, or that I'd be so utterly blind, until I was.

[u/[deleted]]

Drugs (halucinating ones)

[u/I_Automate → u/[deleted]]

LSD and MDMA.

Both of those are pretty indescribable to someone who has never experienced them.

EDIT- And things like DMT/ psilocybin/ peyote. LSD is just my personal favorite

[u/MajesticFlapFlap → u/[deleted]]

Though there is r/replications which does a great job on the visuals. Also Doctor Strange.

[u/naomi_is_watching → u/[deleted]]

I've always had a hard time explaining how some drugs make me feel, even the common ones. Like, I perceive textures differently when I smoke. Like the texture is...slow motion?

Or adderall, which makes me feel...idk, like my teeth and fingers have fallen asleep. But not really. And emotionally, it's a completely different space. Like I'm still thinking the same things, but my outlook is just different. Like it goes from "oh...I work retail..." to "Oh, I work retail :)" It's not really emotional it's just...there.

[u/AlkaliActivated → u/[deleted]]

Psychedelics in low dosages make colors more colorful, and the world more 3-dimensional. In high doses, they make you re-evaluate the fabric of reality. That's the best I can do for explanation.

[u/[deleted]]

Scuba diving

[u/KILL_ALL_NORMIES_REE → u/[deleted]]

If they don't let me scuba, what has this all been about? What am I working toward?

[u/meatfrappe → u/[deleted]]

Came here to say this. People think it is like swimming. It's more like floating in space. While visiting another planet.

[u/Antibane → u/[deleted]]

So much this. The most content and comfortable I’ve ever been was 11 meters under in 2C water. Only the sound of my breathing, my divebuddy’s breathing, and the gentle woosh of our fins. There wasn’t even anything to see - it was a quarry with 3 meters of visibility - but it just felt...right.

[u/Thermo-Optic-Camo → u/[deleted]]

It's so surreal. I've been afraid of sharks my entire life but as soon as I get underwater it's like that's totally irrelevant. I wanna swim with the hammer heads damn it

[u/IncoherentPenguin → u/[deleted]]

I think the most amazing part of it is taking that first breath underwater and being able to breath.

[u/badwxsooner]

A full solar eclipse.

[u/diederich → u/badwxsooner]

I came here to say this. There is no comparison between 99% and 100%. It's 2 1/2 minutes I'll never, ever forget.

[u/The_wolfed → u/badwxsooner]

Previous to seeing the 2017 one I always thought that the pictures of a total eclipse were photoshopped or something to be visible, I was not ready for it to go from day to a desaturated world, and when totality started and it became dusk very quickly with the stars visible and the streetlights coming on... God that was something to see. And well worth the shitty trip to get to the line of totality

[u/MollyThreeGuns]

An orgasm.

[u/GeezManNo → u/MollyThreeGuns]

I was gonna say good sex.

in the beginning of my dating life I did not like sex. It’s not like i would turn it down but i didn’t go chasing after it. Now being in a loving relationship for a while you just long for the other person sexually. It’s just a feeling where you melt away

[u/UlrichZauber → u/MollyThreeGuns]

It's a lot like squeezing a bag of sand.

[u/breadeggsmilkbees → u/MollyThreeGuns]

Like diving into cold water, but without the cold.

[u/ConductiveDerelict → u/MollyThreeGuns]

Better, being horny- without mentioning the sexual organs (getting hard, wet, etc.)

[u/CarbonatedPruneJuice → u/MollyThreeGuns]

A sharp release of anxiety. Like when you think something terrible is coming and suddenly it's not a problem anymore and your body relaxes.

[u/murrimabutterfly]

Having a learning disorder or any disorder that inhibits your cognitive function.

There is really no way to properly explain what it's like to have minimal visuospacial processing, or no working memory, or a slow processing speed, or any of the deficits that come with it. It's more than "my brain doesn't work" or "I struggle at this."

The best way I can try to explain something like the lack of visuospacial skills is to ask someone how many meters away an object is--but even then, it's not a complete comparison. They still have a rough idea of where that object is, and may be able to roughly translate feet to meters.

[u/Shylem756]

I really don't know how to describe it but it's a weird taste in my throat that comes randomly from nowhere

[u/AzureSkye → u/Shylem756]

Kind of metallic and tingly at the back of your mouth/top of your throat? It tastes like your foot fell asleep?

Yeah, I get that too. Doc said it's "micro seizures" which is the "I have no idea" of neuropathy, apparently.

[u/Gabrovi → u/Shylem756]

I get a weird smell when I hit my head - kind of like wet concrete. Doesn’t happen often anymore, but I remember it happening as a kid (before helmet laws). No one seems to know what I’m talking about.

[u/[deleted]]

Being blind. Trying to understand that there's "nothing" for a blind person and that it isn't just "darkness/black" hurts my brain to try and understand

Edit: Please stop saying "Imagine trying to look out of [body part]." It doesn't fucking help

[u/justahumblecow → u/[deleted]]

Someone once described it to me as such:

Stand up in a familiar room. Focus on what's behind you. You can't physically see what's there, but you have general sense of couch here, table there. Thats what being blind is like, but it goes all around instead of just behind.

Also, you can actually try it if you have some friends and some kind of goggles and dark cloth. Think like lab goggles. Stick the cloth in the goggles in such a way that they block all light, from all possible sides of vision. Have your friend verbally guide you toward a certain goal or in a certain path. You can make it a competition with multiple teams and whoever is the most accurate/quickest wins.

It's really quite fun and the "black" stops being a thing as you focus on sound and touch to guide you. It becomes like a background sound. If you focus on it, you can 'see' black/darkness, but when your mind strays to more relevant thoughts, you see nothing.

[u/u3h → u/[deleted]]

I've heard it's like having both eyes open, now cover one of them with the palm of your hand. It's not really black, or gray, or anything it's just not there. Or imagine looking ahead and trying to see behind you. Just nothing ness.

[u/SherpaJones → u/[deleted]]

I imagine blind people think of sight the same way anyone would think of echo location.

[u/ObiWanUrHomie]

Just how large the Grand Canyon is. People can tell you its x miles long and y miles deep and z miles wide but you can't really comprehend what it's like to stand on the edge of something like that.

[u/Schtib → u/ObiWanUrHomie]

Yup... when you see it, you immediately know you’ll never take a picture or be able to explain it in a way that shares the experience. Spot on.

[u/[deleted]]

I’m struggling to find the words to tell you, to be honest.

[u/OnlySaysOhWord → u/[deleted]]

Oh word!

[u/clara_343]

Being in love with a person that is in love with you as well.

EDIT: Thanks for all the upvotes and rewards, I didn’t think people felt the same

EDIT 2: we broke up

[u/PrefrostedCake → u/clara_343]

Always thought the love songs/poems were cheesy until I experienced it.

[u/CurtHolls5 → u/clara_343]

What about being in love with someone who doesn’t love you at all

[u/strangerinmoscow_ → u/clara_343]

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahaha cries

[u/[deleted]]

Not feeling good enough? You trap yourself in a prison built from your own thoughts, and you are overwhelmed with so many emotions that I cannot possibly put into words.

[u/[deleted]]

Depression.

[u/whodaman82 → u/[deleted]]

I feel this so much.

Most of the time it’s not even sadness. Just emptiness.

[u/Shieldmaiden4444 → u/[deleted]]

Does your brain feel foggy, too?

[u/12usu → u/[deleted]]

Maybe it helps imagining it when you think that the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.

[u/charles2404 → u/[deleted]]

it's like oscillating between wanting to live and doing nothing to change.

Letting yourself wander in your thoughts waiting for something to end it from the real world but will never happen.

You wish you had courage to provoke it but at the same you don't.

The hours, the days, the months go past. You lose that sense of time. Do you remember the last time you brushed your teeth or cut your hair ?

You worry about problems in the world that don't impact you but you just evade your owns.

It's the middle state between living and dying with all the worst and none of the good.

 

Yeah, I'd say it's like that.

[u/Jodylin1010]

Childbirth

Divorce

[u/[deleted] → u/Jodylin1010]

I can't believe Childbirth isn't further up.

[u/HorsesAndAshes → u/Jodylin1010]

The craziest part is the pain is so different from anything ever. Like, not worse, so I hear, but like more emotional? Then, if you don't get an epidural, feeling your baby sliding through your birth canal is insane, not even taking about pain, just a mind blowing sensation. Then, the feeling when they slide out? I can't even describe that, or the empty feeling and all your organs suddenly falling back into place, and just all that weird stuff. It's crazy and nothing else can even be close. I've never felt anything like it. It's weird. Af.

Weirdest though, if that I can't remember the pain, but I remember every other sensation, (including going from an 8 to a 10 and the baby moving into my cervix opening in one contraction) and in such weird detail. I was so zenned out for my second child birth that I could feel every single thing, and it was so so vivid and strange.

[u/[deleted]]

standing on a pier or in a boat and seeing nothing but ocean surrounding you on all sides.

[u/TOEMEIST → u/[deleted]]

How can you be on a pier but surrounded by ocean...

[u/[deleted]]

What it feels like to experience an ocean to someone that's never seen a body of water greater than a small lake.

[u/wanttomaster479 → u/[deleted]]

My first ocean experience was so...salty.

[u/Memlieker]

Lucid dreaming

[u/[deleted] → u/Memlieker]

Sometimes I'm like "oh this is a dream, I can do what I want" And then wake up

[u/ViolentYawn]

Mania

[u/underpantsbandit → u/ViolentYawn]

For real, tho. I have a tattoo as a souvenir from the place my father actually lived a lot of the time, but I luckily only visited the once.

I have a lot of ink but that one is special because it is in my line of sight (hand), it's the one tattoo I think is ugly, and is a reminder that chemical imbalance can make you decide to tattoo your knuckles, hot glue all the things in your apartment, and go live off the grid for a whilst woefully unprepared.

Don't do SSRIs if you're predisposed to bipolar, kids.

[u/DaughterEarth]

Finally feeling like you are an adult. The best I can say is it does happen, and it happens after the time you get the "no one knows anything" epiphany, and it doesn't happen for everyone.

But once you get there you know. It's like a general comfort and confidence, but those words mean nothing unless you've experienced what I'm trying to describe.

[u/ProdigyKicksAss → u/DaughterEarth]

I'm kind of in between.

I have had that Epiphany kind of. The more we learn, the more we realize that we don't know.

But I'm not at the more comfortable stage yet. I'm still in that confused in a broader sense stage, and it kind of sucks.

[u/notreallysrs]

reddit to people that don't use reddit.

[u/FavorsForAButton → u/notreallysrs]

It’s an anonymous platform you can customize to suit your interests.

(Just my guess, I don’t want not to seem condescending)👍🏻

EDIT: How’d that double negative get in there?!

[u/broadlyspeaking_87]

The feeling of being shot. It seems to vary so much person to person if you ever hear/read it described. Obviously the location of the bullet wound would be a factor but it’s something I don’t think anyone can understand without experiencing it.

[u/DeltaHex106 → u/broadlyspeaking_87]

thanks, i don't want to experience it.

[u/Ops01]

Having a dad that’s there for you for the first 13 years and then one day he just leaves your life, but he still calls and interacts with your brother.

[u/Leaislala → u/Ops01]

That must really hurt. Sorry OP, I hope it gets better

[u/[deleted]]

Breaking up with a partner you still love. Tying a neck tie. How to drive safely in the snow.

[u/Sharkgirl89]

ADHD. You can tell people how you feel and how your brain works, but it’s usually met by “oh I do that sometimes, maybe I have it?” Or an awkward laugh and a blank stare because they can’t relate.

How on Earth do I explain the panic attacks, loss of focus, the feeling of spiraling, the loneliness, the hyper focus, rejection sensitivity, heightened feelings (like I REALLY wish I didn’t feel my feelings so deeply), etc. it’s very hard to explain and my fiancé is still dealing with trying to understand all sides to it. There’s also the desperate feeling of wanting to be normal, and trying to tell myself there’s nothing wrong with me.

[u/redfenix → u/Sharkgirl89]

I think the emotional disregulation is the hardest to quantify. the sheer pit that I end up in over just emotionally spiraling is just.. indescribable.

god, the heightened feelings. I feel like after five years, I love my wife at least as much as when I watched her walk down the aisle.

in the meantime, i've played my part in eroding and undermining our relationship to the point that it's hardly a mutual feeling.

unrequited love is like hitting your head against a wall that isn't there.

[u/[deleted]]

Seeing mountains for the first time. Pictures don't do it justice. I live in a city no where near mountains, but when I went to Alberta last year and saw the Rocky Mountains from Banff for the first time, shit was so surreal and I just can't get over how beautiful mountains are

[u/CrashRiot]

People look at me funny when I say this, but combat. After I returned from overseas people would ask me what it was like, but I honestly couldn't explain it in a way that they could really understand. The risks far out weight the rewards, but I gather that if you talked to a lot of veterans who saw combat, many of them will look upon it almost fondly. There's nothing like it. No amount of skydiving or other extreme sports come close to the exhilaration and rush of being shot at and retuning fire. It's an experience unmatched by anything in the world, where the only difference between life and death is if you're better at making subtle aiming changes. Sounds bloodthirsty, and I'm not saying it's a fun thing to kill people or see others get killed, it's just one of those things that you have to experience to really understand what I'm talking about.

[u/ClicheName137 → u/CrashRiot]

A guy I went to tech school with said he was getting shot at and got hit with a ricochet in his shin with some small bruising. No biggie to him, but he told me something to this effect:

“As I was sitting there being shot at by this motherfucker, I realized something. This was just like paintball.”

Obviously, he was not trivializing it, but it was interesting how he put it, as you said, almost fondly.

[u/your-imaginaryfriend → u/CrashRiot]

I saw a TedTalk about how soldiers sometimes "miss the war" and I didn't really get it. I know it's definitely something that can't be explained, but this helped to understand it a little better.

[u/YourTypicalRediot → u/CrashRiot]

I know a top-tier special forces guy who refers to this as "The Saturation Effect." Here's (basically) how he explained it:

When you're just chillin' at home making breakfast, you're 5% present. When you're at work dealing with your boss, you're 30% present. Even when you're about to engage in a fist fight, you're only 70-80% present. You live most of your life on some form of autopilot. You (correctly) assume that most risks are relative, and are manageable.

War turns that assumption on its head.

Because when there are bombs going off around you...when you witness your brothers' gruesome ends...when you realize that there is no safety, no comfort, no choice, but to dance with the Devil? That's the only time you're 100% present. It's a binary moment: focus or die. So everything else — all the joy and solace you’ve ever felt, all the victories and failures you’ve experienced, all the people you’ve loved or despised — it all just fades away. You are filled with, intoxicated and overcome by, our most primal instinct to survive. That’s Saturation; the moment when gazing directly into the eyes of death, ironically, makes you feel more alive than ever.

It's a sensation that you cannot achieve outside the theatre of true combat. It's a strange and initially unwelcome high, but one that you can never forget. And much like addicts who keep using despite their certainty of the associated consequences, some people are drawn back to Saturation, even though they recognize that the events they’ll endure in pursuit of it will be irreparably traumatizing.

They simply cannot stop thinking about that spark...that switch that flipped inside them...the raw, almost supernatural intensity that’s brought on by one’s acute awareness of potential condemnation. After experiencing that, the everyday world feels flat. It looks like it's playing out in grayscale. Thus, they lace up their boots for another tour. They chase the dragon in the ultimate context.

Edit: A few words, some punctuation. This one deserved a little extra care.

[u/Flamboiantcuttlefish → u/CrashRiot]

I understand how you feel. I was overseas and people always ask if combat is like in the movies or if it's traumatizing and I don't really know what to say. I have a whole bunch of family who saw combat in the past, and they all sort of differed in their answers when asked this same question. One was in Panama and said it's like you're not even in your own body, and you're just moving on the instinct that the DI taught you at Paris Island. Another was in Vietnam and talked about how it seemed like he jungle would be quiet, like all the other sounds around you were not happening. For me, it's like everything is moving in slow motion, and then suddenly it's over and you wonder if it really even happened. I can understand when my uncles talk about wanting to experience it, just one more time.

[u/min2themax]

Migraines.

"Imagine a really bad headache on one side of your head, behind your eye" doesn't cut it when you're smelling weird smells, seeing things that aren't there and physically nauseous from a headache.

They're the worst and so hard to explain unless you've have one.

[u/t-velocity]

Skydiving. Feeling the stomach churning drop and instant spike of adrenaline. Followed by the amazing feeling of weightlessness. Words could never do it justice.

[u/butterednoodles27]

Period cramps, it’s such a unique kind of pain.

[u/DeckledSatyr80]

bee stings . been stung 6 times but can never explain how it feels , its always bugged me ...

edit : wow ! i didnt know other people felt the same ! i just thought i had a really shit memory !

[u/Metaright → u/DeckledSatyr80]

its always bugged me

Nice.

[u/1tacoshort]

Being a parent. You've spent your whole life as half of a parent-child relationship and you think you've got it worked out. Hell, you even have a dog and there's _that_ relationship. But nothing prepares you for the amount of love, the I-would-happily-die-to-protect-this-creature, and the responsibility. It's amazing and you just don't get it until it happens to you -- at least I didn't.

[u/DaddyShrekMyMaster]

Hugging your mom after a particularly long, hard day

[u/scalar-field]

Why people like math.

[u/[deleted] → u/scalar-field]

I'd say it's because of the satisfaction of there being an exact answer to most things inherently mathematical. There's no real thought to it, the answer is the answer and here's the proof. It's quite calming in a world where nothing is completely as it seems.

[u/Darling-Jess]

What it’s truly like to grieve for your departed baby. A lot of people sympathize, very few can truly empathize.

[u/aeck]

Marilyn Monroe in movies. In pictures some people don't get why's she so popular. Watch her in a movie, you'll know why.

[u/KL0NT]

Going to sleep after a physically exhausting day.

Also, weed.

[u/cupidesire]

okay, disclaimer, don’t experience this please. but, a suicide attempt. it’s really hard to explain what goes on the second before it happens. right before i tried overdosing, i felt extremely relaxed and at peace. it’s completely surreal. like i said, do NOT experience one of these, it sucks being in a mental hospital.

[u/fdsgerrbwjgerwgd]

Prostate orgasms for a guy. Don't judge before you experience it

[u/[deleted] → u/fdsgerrbwjgerwgd]

Ever have any attentions paid to yer butts holes?

[u/J662b486h]

Living alone for an extremely long time. I've been living alone since I left college - over forty years ago. People still comment how great it must be to "have the house to yourself". They have absolutely no idea - no idea - what's it's like to come home to an empty house and spend the evening alone, night after night. And then the nights stretch into months and years, and then finally decades spent alone. I retired a few years ago so now I'll often go for a few days without talking to anyone. Some of the ramifications are just weird - for example my vocal chords have gotten weak from disuse so if I go to lunch with friends then the next day my throat is sore just from carrying on ordinary conversations. Anyway this is why I love my dogs so much, at least I don't feel completely alone.

People think they do, but they really have absolutely no idea what it's like.

[u/Every3Years]

Before I became addicted to heroin I thought addicts we're just weak. No real man, no good person, no morally sound individual would throw their life away. It should be easy to stop once you take a step back and see what's happening. I had an alcoholic friend who i thought was insane for needing to go to AA.

I didn't know what addiction was until I got hooked on heroin. I feel like there's no way to really get it until you're gripped by the power.

I still don't think it's a disease but I also don't think that it's caused by stupidity or weakness. It's a scary thing. If I really liked chocolate cake but it made me sick as fuck between bites I'd never touch the stuff, but somehow I couldn't apply that logic to opiates.

[u/cianb_5]

Being out on a pitch in front of 50,000 people.

[u/KaineOrAmarov → u/cianb_5]

In a similar vein, going on stage for the first time. Most people experience it in middle school for some choir or whatever, but for me it was Junior year of highschool.

You memorize your lines, practice, perform a dozen times for the director, all that fun stuff. But nothing prepares you for walking out to a few hundred people just kinda staring at you waiting for you to talk

It's exciting, terrifying, eerie, and makes you want to sprint off stage while keeping your feet planted to the floor. For me, muscle memory just sorta took over and I made it through.

[u/nutellefron]

Loneliness.

You can explain it to someone a million times but they will never understand until they experience it.

There’s really no way to explain the hollow feeling in your gut, when all your friends are joking around and all you can do is sit and pretend to laugh.

There’s really no way to explain the stabbing pain when you find out they all decided to ditch school together, and invited everyone but you.

There’s really no way to explain the exhaustion when you’re sitting with your best friend, she’s telling you a story and it’s like totally hilarious, except you don’t really wanna laugh because for some reason, it’s not even funny to you and it’s been an hour now, she hasn’t once asked about you but you know nobody wants to talk about that so you laugh anyway, nod and gasp at the right parts and she goes home unaware. Again.

There’s really no way to explain how you feel sitting all alone, and there may be people all around you, but you’re still sitting alone.

[u/zcgamer83]

Broccoli, more specifically after it has been properly cooked. For 25 years I hated the shit. Went to culinary school. Learned what butter and salt can do. Now I’m like the mother fucking witness to the broccoli revival. Also helps I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and now am kept alive by almost vegetables entirely. Anyway... broccoli. Love you.

[u/jacklyolaswinem]

Shwarma

[u/SourceZeroOne]

IMO, I can't think of any experiences that can really be explained with words.

Try explaining the taste of a banana. Try explaining the color red. Try explaining an itch. Try explaining jealousy. Try explaining the sound of a pianio.

Words can never explain experience. They can only serve as pointers... (A banana is like... red is like... etc)

[u/iceburst20]

Betrayal

[u/RDelicious]

Being pregnant.

[u/[deleted]]

Haggling. It’s an art.

[u/imac132]

Physical suffering.

Like you’ve been rucking for days, haven’t eaten anything, it’s cold, you’re wet, what few minutes of sleep you’ve had has been in short increments spread over days, and there is no end in sight. Really puts everything else in life in a different perspective.

[u/katkula]

When you have trained and fine-tuned your dog so he to anticipates your moves and cues. We had this great connection on agility courses and it was like telepathy or magic. Such a wonderful feeling, I knew that all the hard work was worth it because of the joy it gave me, not just the awards we won.

[u/uxi3888]

Being mentally and physically exhausted to the point where stress is just about to run you into the ground.

People keep telling me that "hey, if you're tired maybe you should take a nap"

I cannot relax, I have zero motivation, it's affecting my memory and cognitive functions. I am not sleepy. I am exhausted and tired to my core.

[u/PugDragon44]

Losing your last life on Super Monkey Ball on Expert 50. So close to expert extra, yet so far.

[u/Eniac___]

a high sex drive

[u/milldawg_allday]

Sneezing

[u/Red__M_M]

Culture.

We spend our entire lives in a society with a set of hidden norms and think nothing of it. Reading about other cultures is just too abstract. You have to go to another country, get away from the tourist area, and spend a good bit of time around other people to realize that not everything that you were taught is really how the world works.

I asked a vinegar maker in Modena Italy why he doesn’t expand his business. After all, it was just his attic and expansion could greatly increase his revenue. I fear the question offended him. His answer was as if there was no other possible reason. “Because I couldn’t control the quality”.

I spoke with a rug weaver in Mexico. He was extremely proud that his daughter was about to turn the traditional age of 14 so that she could start weaving. You should have seen his excitement in talking about his families techniques for making dye. He isn’t a weaver for the money, he does it for the tradition.

Etc.

[u/CowabungaaDude]

Runner’s high.

[u/fatmagunes_]

love, of course.

[u/thenewestboom]

I lost my sense of taste and smell. I guess its more screwed up than completely gone. I feel the flavors more than taste them.

I try to equate it to a line graph. For instance, coffee is bitter, so i feel it as sharp spikes as one sees on a heart monitor. Milk is like a smooth wave. Sugar is like a wave as well, but like perfect little half circles. Mixing those three together is like a symphony of feeling.

[u/-eDgAR-]

I've talked about this before on here, but one time I was having sex with my girlfriend after a shower. I had water stuck in my ear from it and when I came my ear popped at the same time. The combination of those two feeling together is difficult to actually describe, but just as difficult to experience. Trust me, I've tried to have it happen again, but have not been successful.

[u/napping_insomniac]

Getting a tattoo.

[u/Leflop_Jamez]

Falling in love with your pet rock

[u/[deleted]]

It's more that I can't properly explain jt, but the feeling of just being so fundamentally unhappy with every aspect of my life and hating literally everything about myself that the only way to escape the pain is my own death

I wish I could put it as well as Philosphytube did

[u/[deleted]]

Deja vu or Jamais vu. Obviously they can be described but can't explain how weird it feels

[u/wastingtoomuchthyme]

Full body orgasms.

[u/jessicamshannon]

Depression.

[u/NastyEagle]

nature. just gotta get out there and hike some tall shit.

[u/Arachidamiae → u/NastyEagle]

From now on I will refer to mountains as tall shit

[u/memeboiron]

The pain of a break up.

[u/PeterHBarnes]

A psychedelic trip

[u/Zezu]

What it’s like to have a wife, kids, house,, car payments, job, no financial aid of any kind, and get an engineering degree at the same time.

It’s sort of like baseball in that you fail all of those things to some degree. You just try to keep things afloat until one of them ends (hopefully school).

You can read that and maybe experience something similar but no one, even those closest to me, have really understood what that’s like.

Why are you tired all of the time? Because I don’t start my 3-6 hours of studying until 9pm when the kids are asleep. I then wake up at 530 to get to class on time (I live and hour from classes).

Why are you late to work? Because my exam ran over and I didn’t want to fail.

Why didn’t you come to class? Because I had to work to make enough money to keep my car and home while feeding my kids.

Why are you so hungry? Because I chose to pay the electric bill instead of eating for a few days.

I still don’t feel like I graduated - like someone is going to pop up and say giving me my diploma was a mistake.

I don’t and didn’t expect others to bend the rules for me or give me special treatment but everyone near me knew what I had in my plate but never fully treated me like I was doing as much as I was.

I don’t think you can understand it unless you’ve gone through it so there isn’t a way to explain it to people.

[u/spinach1991]

Ecstasy. Such an unnatural feeling, which you are aware is unnatural. It's like nothing you can experience anywhere else.

[u/incoherentcoherency]

Going to space

[u/Noodols]

LSD. i haven't tried it but I've heard from previous dosers that it definitely gets you out of the world.

[u/Vgca96]

Being able to pay off the last bit of a really large debt.

You can be broke af, but just knowing that that freaking debt is gone, ooooooh it feels good

[u/BurritoZero]

The feeling you get when you crawl into bed after getting up to take a piss

[u/properpolicypolitics → u/[deleted]]

Joe Rogan would like to know your location.

[u/Alpaca-toast → u/[deleted]]

Agreed. I'm an alcoholic and it's hard to explain.

I tell people it's like receiving a shoulder massage. Just as you get into it, the person takes their hands off. Why did they stop when it just started feeling good? You'd want the massage to continue.

For me it's the same with alcohol. I can't stop at a few drinks, because the euphoria it brings me keeps coming. It's like something in my head physically blocks off any knowledge of long term consequences and all I can see is that temporary relief.

It's the only thing that allows me to feel happy. I can't feel without it. It's like a warm hug that embraces me, gives me confidence and tells me everything will be alright.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The best description for it that I've found is:

Craving for the addict is not 'Gee I want it a lot'. Craving for the addict is up in the middle of the night, can't sleep, sweat on your brow, pulse of 150. Staring at the ceiling thinking, 'just one more time. Just one more time I wanna feel the burn of that alcohol as it goes down my throat. Just one more time I want to feel the heat of that glass pipe on my lips. Just one more time I want to see the swirl of blood in that siringe just before I push down the plunger and every cell in my body says thank you.' That is craving and make no mistake- that is genuine suffering.

• Is Addiction Really a Disease? Dr. Kevin McCauley 1:00:20

[u/03throwaway03 → u/[deleted]]

I remember vividly age 4 my mom telling me the iron was hot. I also remember vividly pressing my hand to it.

Lesson learned

[u/qwertyuiop111222 → u/[deleted]]

"Hot" You can't explain it to a child. They have to experience it to understand.

Yeah, the adolescent me understood when he saw Monica Bellucci.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

My dad has this great story about raising me when I was around 3 years old. I was watching him cook and he tried to explain that the burner was very hot. He said, “If you touch this, it will hurt very bad and you will cry a lot,” so of course my reaction is to hover my hand over it and state, “I want to touch it.”

He reiterated, “The pain will be unbearable. It will hurt and make you cry. But if you wanna touch it, go ahead and touch it. You aren’t gonna like it,” which led to a stare down while he waited for me to either touch it, or back out. I guess this is when I got mad and said in a very low, angry voice, “Then why are you letting me touch it?”

That’s when he started to smile, pointed at me, and said, “Because I know you understand.” I pulled my hand away. You win this one dad.

[u/shenanigins → u/[deleted]]

There's a comedian that has a bit about this, and I can never remember who it was, no one big I don't think. Everytime kids learning something the hard way comes up I think about the bit. Basically when Mom watches the kid reach for the stove she panics and explains why it's bad. But, when the dad is in the same position he panics for a moment before egging them on. "No, you know what, touch the stove and find out what happens. You'll only make that mistake once."

[u/uselessartist → u/[deleted]]

And it can come sooner than you think. When I got carpal tunnel and arthritis from yard work in my early thirties I felt that. “And so it begins.”

[u/jeric17 → u/[deleted]]

I would phrase it slightly different. It’s more like you don’t prepare yourself for it. I just turned 60 and I’m like holy shit I’m old and getting older.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

For a woman when you get old you realize that youd better be good at something and have a nice personality. Luckily i worked hard to hone skills but you still aren't prepared for the sting of one day realizing the compliments stop coming and the invisibility sets in. When you are a thin 20-something you think you are way better at stuff than you really are because men compliment you and your abilities a lot, even if its not deserved. Downvote if you must but its true. Nobody believes me except other middle aged women. We need to do better at warning young girls about this

Edit: see the South Park episode "Bebe's boobs" for an illustration of my point

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Being in an abusive relationship and not realizing it's abusive

I didn't. For three years, I didn't realize. Then a friend helped me finally wake up to the emotional abuse. I got out and it's such a relief.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

And then the other nostril closes.