Why do I get a strange, yet comforting feeling when I stop in quiet places

submitted 3 months ago by [deleted]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18697261

I find it extremely difficult to articulate what I mean. I've gotten this feeling throughout my entire life, even when I was a child, and I'm sure there must be many others who've experienced it; I just can't find any mention of it online.

I'll give you an example. Sometimes you might be going from place to place, doing your own thing. When you're done with whatever you were doing, you just... stop ... and take in your surroundings. Suddenly the quietness around you seems to give you a tingling, comforting feeling that's quite honestly a beautiful feeling.

I'm 22, and I've been getting this throughout my entire life; and heck, I even get it when playing videogames (particularly open-world games), if they're immersive enough. The most common place I get this feeling in the real world is when I've been travelling in a car for a while (I don't drive currently, usually it's my mother driving me), and we reach our destination: The car stops; the engine turns off; the music on the radio goes silent, and I'm in no rush to hop out. For some reason this feeling rushes over me; it feels similar to butterflies and goes through my upper legs and stomach; even in my upper arms for some reason, but is all very comforting.

My earliest memory with it (although I know I had it years prior to this), was one day when I was 7-9 yrs old. I remember it quite vividly, actually. I don't remember where I had come from (probably school or something), but my Mum had been driving me for what felt like quite a while. She pulled into our front driveway and stopped. The engine shut off; the radio went silent. It felt calming, and I didn't get out of the car because I was just appreciating and enjoying the feeling of sitting in the quietness, with the subtle ticking sound coming from the cars engine you tend to hear when turning it off, just outside. My Mum said to me, something along the lines of "Why aren't you hopping out, Liam?". I don't remember what I said in response, but I definitely had no idea how to explain the reason to her; I find it difficult to even explain now as a young adult.

Now, I've managed to learn where and when to just "stop", and have this feeling come over me, like second-nature, but I still find that I can't well explain when or how it happens with words; that's why this post is so long.

As I said earlier, I also sometimes get this feeling when playing videogames. One of my favourite games of all time is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (The sequel, too). It's an open-world game where you can travel to almost every single nook and cranny of the land of Hyrule, on foot or by horse. One of the things I absolutely love the most, is just walking around the world, exploring, and taking it all in. I don't care about defeating every single monster in every single enemy campsite across the world, or getting from place to place in the shortest time possible, or finding the most powerful loot or weapons; I just like to immerse myself in the world, like I'm actually there. And that feeling I described: I get it around *almost every single corner*, especially in out-of-the-way places like the top-edges of cliff-faces, where people in Hyrule never visit. In fact, I can give you an example: I was watching IGN's video of the game from 2016 when it was still in development (video link is timestamped to where I want to show you), and because I had been watching this gameplay video for the past 20 minutes, I was very immersed and relaxed in the game world. As soon as the player climbed up to this rock that was protruding out of the cliff-face, he immediately turned around to stop and take a look at the view in the distance, due to being so high up. I immediately, immersed, had that feeling come over me again, and it felt so nice; as it always does.

Is there name for this? If so, what is this called? There has to be some kind of psychology behind all of this.

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Not a name for the feeling, but you might enjoy these: !liminalspace@lemmy.world

Thanks. You're right that it's not the same feeling. Quite a few people in the comments in my original post suggested this might be it.

There's a book called The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron. There's a part in it where she talks about being at a conference and giving a lecture about being an "HSP" and in the middle of it she takes a break, darkens the room an asks everyone to be silent for five minutes. Since the people there were mostly Highly Sensitive People it seemed completely natural and welcome to them.

HSPs and people with synesthesia can sometimes feel sound in their bodies in ways that other people do not, it can be overwhelming to be in a very stimulating environment. When it suddenly stops, the relief is a visceral experience.

https://hsperson.com/

I know that feeling. It probably has a proper name. I call it Walden

I'm the one who wrote the original post: Thanks, it sound like a good read, I'll give it a look on the Open Library.

Can't help you with the name of the phenomenon, but I CAN point you in the direction of some content you will likely enjoy!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs1_AOpP2yz59Qpv7wmK8LQmWn2hkAiks

Thanks for recommending the playlist to me. I watched the first segment of the Tears of the Kingdom video and I can relate so much to the feelings he was referring to. I can relate further, because when I played Tears of the Kingdom last year, I actually found myself feeling those things in that exact part of the Temple of Time that he found so interesting. He's right when he says that there's an audience of players who love these random out of the way places. He even had the same experience as me in that he explored this area of the Temple of Time prior to getting the Ascend ability (which makes climbing that building so much easier). The only difference is that I didn't build a bridge to initially get up there; I found a diagonally-growing tree at the back of the whole temple to climb up (I only know the detail about the tree because I checked my own gameplay video, lol)

I'm gonna go check out more of the video's in that playlist now 😄

Hey you're certainly welcome! I definitely appreciate these sorts of vibes 🥰

No way, you did not just link that channel! You have no idea how insanely massive of a coincidence that is! I'm the one who made the original post on asklemmy. I had no idea the guy in this channel made a series like this, and something he said randomly in a video is the very reason I wrote this post.

I'd never heard of this guy until I was watching his video a couple days ago, where he was trying to figure out where all the rivers in Breath of the Wild come from. While I was watching it, I was semi-consciously thinking to myself how much I love just chilling next to certain parts of the rivers in Breath of the Wild, because of the very feeling it gives me. At [some random point in the video](https://youtu.be/gcS1HIci4hQ?si=hDh9WwBnhoTNcooy&t=1382 (timestamped), he suddenly said something that felt out of nowhere to me. He suddenly said about these two small caves, "Telta Lake and Lake Siela in Breath of the Wild, where just two, unremarkable and odd little spots, where you could go stand to *feel* strange feelings for no reason.". As soon as he said that, I was absolutely *ecstatic* that it appeared that he was referring to the feeling that I've been wondering to myself about for my whole life. If he said it about any other location in the game, I may not have clicked and written my post at all.

The reason Telta Lake (the one of the two with the tree) was important, is because of another coincidence. This location is the exact location as where I have another fond memory, watching Nintendo Treehouse Live during E3 2016. I was 14, watching them showcase the gameplay of the game on YouTube. This was the first time I saw them show gameplay outside of the starting area of the game, the Great Plateau. For context, everyone in 2016 hyped for the release of the game were highly anticipating and excited to see what the world and gameplay would look like *outside* of the Great Plateau, including myself. I can't find the exact Nintendo video, but whoever was playing the game, stood behind the large tree, and it made me feel that super nice feeling and seriously inspired me ever more to get the game and just "live in it". From that moment forward, I've loved that little spot in the game ever since. Turns out I subscribed to him a few days ago when I was watching the video about the rivers. Sorry for the long comment.

I was just about to recommend this channel!

That's crazy! Thanks for nearly showing him to me. You'll understand why it's so crazy if you read my reply to algorithmae which explains how it's such a coincidence they even recommended that channel to begin with.

You might appreciate meditation. Give it a try.

[deleted] [OP] 3 months ago

Jo Momma diagnozis

I mean, my brother has ADHD, so...

But honestly though, I don't see why this would be it. I really don't think I have ADHD.

I'm the one who made the post btw.

Thanks for cross-posting it. I didn't realise so many would find my post to be wholesome.