What are these fleeting moments of sublime happiness?
March 25, 2018 6:55 AM
I often experience moments of euphoric happiness that are so fleeting that they are gone immediately after I become consciously aware of them. What are they, what causes them and is there any way to "grab hold of them"?
In recent years I've become aware of a phenomenon in my life where I often (at the very least once or twice daily) experience very, very brief moments of sublime happiness. But almost as soon as I become aware of the feeling, it's gone, and I return to my normal emotional state (which is usually pretty contented, though by no means euphoric). It usually happens to me when I'm doing something on auto pilot, like driving, and my thoughts wander. This leads me to think that my thought process is triggering an old, happy memory, a dream I once had or some kind of association, but I can't get to the origin of the feeling because it dissipates as soon as I try. The whole thing is over in literally a split second, just enough for me to become aware of it, nothing more. I don't experience it as something spiritual, but then I am not a spiritual person. Does anyone recognize this? What causes it? Is there a name for it? and is there any way to train myself to actually track this fleeting feeling of sublime happiness to its origin? Why do I not experience the same with other emotions, like sadness or anger?
The reason I use the phrase sublime happiness, by the way, is that I get the sense that something in either the trigger, or the original memory, or perhaps both, has to do with the kind of happiness you experience when being out in nature, alone, surrounded by overwhelming natural beauty, and utterly at peace. So, sublime in the Romantic sense. But this may be personal to me because that is also exactly the kind of thing that causes me the most happiness in life. If other people do recognize this phenomenon, I suspect it won't necessarily have anything to do with the natural sublime at all.
I've Googled this, of course, but although there are many articles about fleeting happiness they talk about starting your day out feeling happy and ending it feeling sad. But this is not that. Again, it's too short for me to register the full experience, but I am certain there is a very strong element of being reminded of something, either a real memory or a dream. In that sense, it could be compared to a feeling of deja-vu.
I'm very grateful that I get to experience these moments, brief as they are, and that is why I am fascinated with whether this is a common human experience and if so, what it looks like in others. I'd ask the people around me, but as I'm sure this question shows, it's all so fleeting that it's hard to describe exactly what happens. So I thought I'd put it before the hivemind to see if anyone here can help me put it into words a bit better.
In recent years I've become aware of a phenomenon in my life where I often (at the very least once or twice daily) experience very, very brief moments of sublime happiness. But almost as soon as I become aware of the feeling, it's gone, and I return to my normal emotional state (which is usually pretty contented, though by no means euphoric). It usually happens to me when I'm doing something on auto pilot, like driving, and my thoughts wander. This leads me to think that my thought process is triggering an old, happy memory, a dream I once had or some kind of association, but I can't get to the origin of the feeling because it dissipates as soon as I try. The whole thing is over in literally a split second, just enough for me to become aware of it, nothing more. I don't experience it as something spiritual, but then I am not a spiritual person. Does anyone recognize this? What causes it? Is there a name for it? and is there any way to train myself to actually track this fleeting feeling of sublime happiness to its origin? Why do I not experience the same with other emotions, like sadness or anger?
The reason I use the phrase sublime happiness, by the way, is that I get the sense that something in either the trigger, or the original memory, or perhaps both, has to do with the kind of happiness you experience when being out in nature, alone, surrounded by overwhelming natural beauty, and utterly at peace. So, sublime in the Romantic sense. But this may be personal to me because that is also exactly the kind of thing that causes me the most happiness in life. If other people do recognize this phenomenon, I suspect it won't necessarily have anything to do with the natural sublime at all.
I've Googled this, of course, but although there are many articles about fleeting happiness they talk about starting your day out feeling happy and ending it feeling sad. But this is not that. Again, it's too short for me to register the full experience, but I am certain there is a very strong element of being reminded of something, either a real memory or a dream. In that sense, it could be compared to a feeling of deja-vu.
I'm very grateful that I get to experience these moments, brief as they are, and that is why I am fascinated with whether this is a common human experience and if so, what it looks like in others. I'd ask the people around me, but as I'm sure this question shows, it's all so fleeting that it's hard to describe exactly what happens. So I thought I'd put it before the hivemind to see if anyone here can help me put it into words a bit better.
This sounds like the state that C S Lewis called Joy. (If you know him only through the Lewis "industry" you may get a surprise on actually reading him--but again maybe not.) However: his take on it was that the state cannot be bidden and cannot be recaptured. Any attempt to do either will result in it ceasing. I don't have access to my collection of Lewisiana (I have most of it, and have actually read it, says this atheist, but it's in another country at the moment). Try Surprised by Joy, which is the nearest he got to an autobiography. If you're not religious try not to mind the overt Christian mind-set.
posted by Logophiliac at 8:34 AM on March 25, 2018
posted by Logophiliac at 8:34 AM on March 25, 2018
I used to get this when I was in school working on architectural drawings, especially while poche-ing with pen. I think it put me into a flow state. I felt completely at peace, but as you mentioned, once I became aware of what I was feeling, it would disappear (and if I attempted to replicate things to get that feeling, it wouldn't happen).
posted by marimeko at 8:38 AM on March 25, 2018
posted by marimeko at 8:38 AM on March 25, 2018
The fact that you associate this with an unplaceable memory and déjà vu suggests that you should compare it with the experience Proust describes at the beginning of In Search of Lost Time.
The thing that people tend to remember about the madeleine scene is just: "Oh yeah, he tasted the same tea and cake combo and remembered his whole childhood."
But, if you read the scene, it's much more like you describe: a fleeting sense of joy and well-being that he chases but can't seem to track down. It is much more about the mystery of this feeling, and the difficulties of sustaining or naming it, than people remember.
"I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory–this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
..."And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind’s eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.
..."Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss."
posted by Beardman at 9:02 AM on March 25, 2018
The thing that people tend to remember about the madeleine scene is just: "Oh yeah, he tasted the same tea and cake combo and remembered his whole childhood."
But, if you read the scene, it's much more like you describe: a fleeting sense of joy and well-being that he chases but can't seem to track down. It is much more about the mystery of this feeling, and the difficulties of sustaining or naming it, than people remember.
"I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory–this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
..."And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind’s eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.
..."Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss."
posted by Beardman at 9:02 AM on March 25, 2018
In terms of grabbing hold of these moments, I think it's a matter of being mindful and open to them when they happen... and making a little ritual of fixing them in in your memory. I have a lot of favorite Kurt Vonnegut Jr. quotes, but my absolute all-time favorite is this one:
“My Uncle Alex … one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?"posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 9:55 AM on March 25, 2018
So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is?”
Sorry to have to go against the grain of the comments that have been made so far, but this could be indicative of a bad thing. My neuroscientist girlfriend just came to me kinda cringing about this post. She is concerned that this could be a form of epilepsy, or a brain tumor.
She highly recommends seeing a good neurologist or two.
I suggest documenting exactly when and how long these happen, perhaps using a simple app like TapLog.
posted by Sophont at 12:04 PM on March 25, 2018
She highly recommends seeing a good neurologist or two.
I suggest documenting exactly when and how long these happen, perhaps using a simple app like TapLog.
posted by Sophont at 12:04 PM on March 25, 2018
Tim Kreider captures this feeling perfectly in his essay Averted Vision.
posted by zem at 12:40 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by zem at 12:40 PM on March 25, 2018
2 things to read more about: flow states (to get a perspective on what might be causing it), and mindfulness meditation (for how to live in the feeling without grasping at what is impossible to hold down)..
posted by matildaben at 12:56 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by matildaben at 12:56 PM on March 25, 2018
Your account of these sensations as 'triggering an old, happy memory' is similar to what the neurologist John Hughlings-Jackson called the 'dreamy state'. He described the 'dreamy state' as characterised by a sense of reminiscence: 'The past is as if present, a blending of past ideas with present…a peculiar train of ideas of the reminiscence of a former life, or rather, perhaps, of a former psychologic state'. One of his patients described it thus:
posted by verstegan at 1:46 PM on March 25, 2018
I was carelessly looking round me, watching people passing, etc., when my attention was suddenly absorbed in my own mental state, of which I know no more than that it seemed to me to be a vivid and unexpected “recollection”;—of what I do not know.Oliver Sacks, in Hallucinations, discusses the related phenomenon of 'ecstatic seizures', which can be associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. If you're interested in following up the medical literature: Sacks cites an article by Hansen and Brodtkorb, 'Partial epilepsy with 'ecstatic' seizures', and there is also a fascinating recent article by Gschwind and Picard, 'Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures: A Glimpse into the Multiple Roles of the Insula' which tries to explain what might be going on in the brain.
posted by verstegan at 1:46 PM on March 25, 2018
To potentially gain a better understanding of the underlying sensation and how to access it, you may want to read up on jhana states in Buddhism: here, and here, with somewhat more explicit instructions for accessing the first jhana.
posted by un petit cadeau at 3:15 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by un petit cadeau at 3:15 PM on March 25, 2018
I have felt those before, though not for a long time (hello depression my old friend) and I also associate them with nature. For me it goes with a kind of wordless awareness of how everything has its place and is connected to everything else, and everything includes me - that I am not separate from the world around me, observing and interacting with it as an external agent - but that I am intrinsically part of it. And it is such a wonderful instant of comprehension and acceptance and understanding that I think it has to be fleeting, it has to vanish as soon as it happens, because if it lasted any longer it would require living a completely different way, or perhaps just going insane (since what is sanity but embracing the commonly-held reality, so that rejection of that must be insane?) Which is perhaps why there are mystics and hermits and other "spiritual" people who don't live as "normal" members of society, as well as madmen and poets and others who don't quite live by the same rules.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:58 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by Athanassiel at 3:58 PM on March 25, 2018
For language about these thin slices of joy, who better than poets?
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise
--William Blake, Eternity
THE SOUL should always stand ajar.
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.
Depart, before the host has slid
The bolt upon the door,
To seek for the accomplished guest—
Her visitor no more.
--Emily Dickinson
posted by athirstforsalt at 7:51 PM on March 25, 2018
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise
--William Blake, Eternity
THE SOUL should always stand ajar.
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.
Depart, before the host has slid
The bolt upon the door,
To seek for the accomplished guest—
Her visitor no more.
--Emily Dickinson
posted by athirstforsalt at 7:51 PM on March 25, 2018
“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
posted by delight at 10:44 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by delight at 10:44 PM on March 25, 2018
I just wanted to step in to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond so far. I have enjoyed every one of your insights and the poetry, literature, scientific research and personal experiences to which you have referred! I get the feeling the experience is not as common as I had expected it to be, but it's clearly also not unique. The TED-talk linked to by hortense reminded me that perhaps it might have been relevant to mention that I have been diagnosed with ASS and I suspect that I also have ADD. Perhaps the phenomenon could be attributed to the fact that my brain processes (some) information in a non-neurotypical manner.
Sophont, I appreciate your and your girlfriend's concern. I am a healthy person, with no other symptoms that might indicate epilepsy or a brain tumor, and there is never any detachment from reality, no blacking out, nothing like that. Just a feeling in the background of my consciousness that dissipates as soon as I look directly at it. But I will mention it to my GP the next time I go in, just to have it on record in case any other symptoms arise.
Zem, you are right, the essay you linked to captured it perfectly. The final paragraph really resonated with me:
"In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it’s also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the “real” stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past."
Thank you for sharing!
posted by piranna at 1:37 AM on March 26, 2018
Sophont, I appreciate your and your girlfriend's concern. I am a healthy person, with no other symptoms that might indicate epilepsy or a brain tumor, and there is never any detachment from reality, no blacking out, nothing like that. Just a feeling in the background of my consciousness that dissipates as soon as I look directly at it. But I will mention it to my GP the next time I go in, just to have it on record in case any other symptoms arise.
Zem, you are right, the essay you linked to captured it perfectly. The final paragraph really resonated with me:
"In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it’s also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the “real” stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past."
Thank you for sharing!
posted by piranna at 1:37 AM on March 26, 2018
I've experienced this a bunch. I think it has to do with being fully present in the moment.
posted by bearette at 2:08 AM on March 26, 2018
posted by bearette at 2:08 AM on March 26, 2018
I've experienced two versions of this:
(1) This is the less complicated version. Sometimes I'll just be pottering around doing nothing of significance and the feeling will dawn on me that everything is fine. It's more than that, though, it's like getting a hug from some disembodied power in the world or the universe, like, 'you're ok, it's all good'. These I think come from being fully present, as stated upthread by bearette.
(2) The other version is strangely when something bad happens. I think it might be a correlate of shock, actually. But often I've been in a truly bad situation (bereavement, etc) and again, I'll suddenly feel my spirit lift, again like the universe is hugging me, and all my problems, for a second, feel insignificant, and I'll just feel... fine.
I am a little religious because of experiences like this. I know that there is absolutely no point trying to chase them, though. For me, the wonder of such moments comes from the fact that there is no telling when or how they will suddenly descend.
posted by Ziggy500 at 2:14 AM on March 26, 2018
(1) This is the less complicated version. Sometimes I'll just be pottering around doing nothing of significance and the feeling will dawn on me that everything is fine. It's more than that, though, it's like getting a hug from some disembodied power in the world or the universe, like, 'you're ok, it's all good'. These I think come from being fully present, as stated upthread by bearette.
(2) The other version is strangely when something bad happens. I think it might be a correlate of shock, actually. But often I've been in a truly bad situation (bereavement, etc) and again, I'll suddenly feel my spirit lift, again like the universe is hugging me, and all my problems, for a second, feel insignificant, and I'll just feel... fine.
I am a little religious because of experiences like this. I know that there is absolutely no point trying to chase them, though. For me, the wonder of such moments comes from the fact that there is no telling when or how they will suddenly descend.
posted by Ziggy500 at 2:14 AM on March 26, 2018
I am a little religious because of experiences like this. I know that there is absolutely no point trying to chase them, though. For me, the wonder of such moments comes from the fact that there is no telling when or how they will suddenly descend.
I've had similar experiences while meditating. I've occasionally "chased" them with additional meditation, and had what I would characterize as a few small successes. The only truly reliable outcome of meditation (of the style I use) is that, when I'm done and I get up and walk around, I seem to weigh less.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:30 AM on March 26, 2018
I've had similar experiences while meditating. I've occasionally "chased" them with additional meditation, and had what I would characterize as a few small successes. The only truly reliable outcome of meditation (of the style I use) is that, when I'm done and I get up and walk around, I seem to weigh less.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:30 AM on March 26, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by like_neon at 7:16 AM on March 25, 2018