that feeling

Not sure where to post this but here seems fitting. Is there a word for that feeling when the world, and reality feels auspicious? When the air itself feels special, and nothing feels quite real. That feeling of happiness, also mixed with a bittersweet longing and loss. It seems to be most present at night, when looking out from a balcony, especially at some kind of event. Other times when I feel this is when looking at slumbering city scapes, real or artistic. The strongest time is when high on weed, especially at the peak, when the world is surreal, calm and most of all dreamlike. Is there a word for this feeling? Pic related feels like a decent emulation, just watching the incomprehensibly large city scape move.

melancholy

It is the feeling of the aristocrat overlooking his dominion, feeling the spirits of his ancestors enact their will through him and guiding the directionless commoners towards a shared purpose. Everytime this feeling comes, if the world is less an expression of the divine spark within you than the machinations of the others, then it will fade. Until you only see the material reality and no more, and think "there is nothing but the me, and my world lives and dies with me".

You are looking for a single word to sum up a whole complex of thoughts and feelings. There may or may not be one, I don't know, but this is why poetry and music exist, to express these things. A house I lived in once had a large covered porch. People would sit there to smoke, to watch the rain, to drink beer at night. There were no sillyphones then, and the people I lived with did not have the need to fill every silence with small talk. When there was a lull in conversation we would sit facing the street for a while and there was for me at least, some electricity in the air around us and over the whole city. I'd just watch the clouds and the passing cars and cyclists, listen to the neighbourhood chatter and sirens. I would call the thing that I sensed "potential", though I don't know the word for the emotion itself. If there is an inverse to "apprehension" maybe; not an opposite nor wholly positive but mostly so. Like that?

>>34196 >nothing feels quite real derealization funny enough, I miss experiencing that now that I never get out.

>>34196 It's called "the zone" and it happens when you're at a certain brain wave state. >weed Yep, it's the zone. This feeling is what also made our ancestors take part into cults with their recreational witchcraft concoctions and shrooms which also led into a bunch of inventions and insight.

>>34196 >when high on weed Yeah, it's called being high.

>>34196 I think I relate, but does it has to be a live city? I get the same strong melancholic feeling at night, but mostly from lonely places. Not abandoned, just desolated

>>34196 I wish I had a view like that. Instead, if I look at the window, I must watch my neighbors from the building in front naked. Impossible to have interesting feels with that view.

>>34245 Depends on what you find "interesting".

>>34199 Somewhat similar, minus the sadness. More wistful, but not even that. >>34204 Interesting interpretation >>34204 You've described it almost perfectly. I really appreciate this post, it gives me a slight taste of that feeling, and it feels really nice.

>>34227 De-realization seems like a funny word. We already, even the most normal among us live in such a fake world. Most social customs aren't real expressions of any feeling or emotion, but rather an elaborate pseudo-language acting as a password to social acceptance. Media also propagates this, overt positivity expressed in advertisement, being a psychological, forced association of positivity paired with imaging of the given product. I think it's strange how we as humans living in this world of customs and protocols don't feel surreal all the time. Could be that the truest expression of communicated reality is not positivity, but negativity. Though that comes off too much as a faux deep idea propagated by an early 2000s emo. >>34231 Being high only seems to strengthen the feeling, not the direct cause. >>34245 Sometimes I wish I had a view like that too. I live in a very small backwater, and the tallest building is the Church. Places like mine have their comforts though, everything is close, and traditional architecture is really beautiful. Sometimes though, I wonder what it would be like to see the city-scape unfold in person. Soon I'll get the chance though, as I'm moving to the capital of my country, and that will be the true test if I even like that.

>>34299 Yeah I mean I was getting that feeling which I call derealization/dissociation (because my experience with dissociative drugs shares the same feeling) all the time in high school. I'd just have a sudden realization that I'm living, I guess. I don't know if it's just like a sudden mode change from being in my head narrating all day long or what. Going off that idea of negativity, I think a part of it is sort of thinking of your life as a story. Negativity, stress, troughs, etc. make it interesting. And I often had cliche sitcom (negative, but funny) moments that made things interesting. But more interesting is I guess when you suddenly in a moment reflect on just how much you've been through. Idk, I always think about life like a writer. A whole load of mine is something that would never make it into any writing. But there's always special moments, and summations of trends and emotional situations ("he spent weeks brooding" or something) But I think in general you have to be in the middle of things. You have to have humanity buzzing all around you like in OP pic, or at least seeing that humanity through a video or some medium, and then you have to examine it from a detached perspective. Or, just like, look at it all and just be. I don't know which one it is. But that feeling is my favorite thing in art. That feeling keeps me wanting to dip back into the dissos, keeps me searching out novel ideas and content on the web and elsewhere, etc. I've lost my thread of thought anyhow. But yeah. I like this thread.

>>34302 I've never done dissociative drugs before. That must be a really strange way of living life, as a constant narrated story. I agree, watching the world buzz about, knowing you're not a part of it gives a real taste of that feeling for me. One of the strongest times I've had that feeling was when I was in a hospital in Spain, my girlfriend was being treated, she had what looked like a stroke on the highway. And I was given permission to wait with her. We spent almost 2 weeks there, I wasn't given a bed, or anything, so I had to sleep on a chair. Though, for most of that week I didn't sleep, instead relying on energy drinks. It was in those moments of distress, and also the effects of sleep deprivation, that I could watch the city of Barcelona move, like a living creature. It felt like an escape, to watch from above as the cars moved, and pedestrians milled about. Gave me a lot of comfort. If you liked my original pic, you may enjoy pic related. It's my current wallpaper and works great.

There's a Japanese word for that specific feeling of isolation and interconnectedness you get when looking over a vast city at night from a great height. Buggered if I can remember it, though.

>>34312 i wanna know this word

I am wondering if this feeling could be emulated through camera feeds. I found a couple of websites like https://www.cametan.com/ which index open camera feeds of cityscapes.

>>34196 I think I get what you're referring to, but I'm more in with >>34236. I get it a lot when I'm driving my car around dusk with the windows down and a nice breeze is flowing in. Just yesterday morning I was driving to meet some friends for brunch listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDY12PeqtU and that strong feeling washed over me, almost like blissful nostalgia. Something with the contrast between the color of the music and the gray overcast skies brought it out somehow. I live on the coast and smelling the salty marsh air seems to help as well.