36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood

Interview With Expert

You never really know what another person is going through. (Solipsists go as far as to say that you are the only conscious being in existence.)

Some might be able to articulate their experiences, but it can still be difficult to comprehend the depth of their words, even if you know their meaning.

So when one Reddit user asked everyone on the platform to share a feeling they believe is indescribable to someone who hasn't had it, people immediately started submitting their answers, highlighting the complexity of human interaction.

Continue scrolling to check out the entries, and don't miss the conversation we had with Barbara Jaffe, Ed.D. — you will find it in between the stories.

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood The loss of a pet.

Hard to explain that I've grieved harder for a dog somehow than I ever have for a human.

Scrappy_Larue , Helena Lopes / pexels Report

Final score:

373points

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Karl 7 months ago

When my gorgeous girl cat of 18 years died, I grieved more than for my father.

129points

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Depression, a feeling of true fear and emptiness at the same time. You don’t want to die, you don’t want to live. It’s weird

Furtip , Engin Akyurt / pexels Report

Final score:

359points

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Kariali 7 months ago

And still most people who have never experienced it think that it's just "being sad". Nope. I wish I would have felt anything like being sad when I was clinically depressed... at least it would have been something else than this emptiness... I was more brokkoli than human.

127points

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To get a better understanding of how people can relate to each other better, we contacted Barbara Jaffe, who is an emeritus English professor and a current fellow in UCLA's Department of Education.

"Empathy is one of the most important qualities a person can possess," Jaffe, author of 'When will I be good enough?', told Bored Panda. "Empathy allows us to understand others on a deeper level. It is also not necessary to have had the same experience as another person in order to feel empathy."

"For example, seeing an unhoused (homeless) person can immediately make us feel sad about that person's situation. If we feel sorry for that person, it sets up an uneven relationship whereby we are looking at the other person, grateful for not being in their position and in a sense, feeling better than that person on some level. However, feeling empathy allows us to understand at a basic emotional level that this other person is feeling pain and perhaps suffering, and we can understand both of those emotions no matter our circumstances, for all of us have had pain and suffering. Therefore, empathy enables us to understand each other and connect in a way that allows us to share our feelings with others."

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Period cramps. Half the population will never fully understand how most women carry on like nothing is wrong even though they are in serious physical pain.

Minimum-Inspector-38 , Sora Shimazaki / pexels Report

Final score:

328points

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Karl 7 months ago

When I first met my wife I was seriously alarmed at the pain she went through every month. Never realised it could be so crippling. I almost called an ambulance on one occasion.

120points

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Adhd - executive dysfunction

When you really want to do something but pathetically, literally, cannot.

Then suffer guilt from this.

Repeat_after_me__ , KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA / pexels Report

Final score:

267points

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CK 7 months ago

This is sometimes referred to as "ADHD paralysis" which may not be a perfect term but is easier for neurotypicals to understand.

94points

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood The absolute indifference towards everything in depression.

wantstolearnhowto , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

Final score:

242points

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Kariali 7 months ago

Yeah, one of the worst part of depression is that you don't even feel love for your most loved ones anymore. You know you love them, but you don't feel anything but emptiness.

93points

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However, this isn't always effortless for us. "A lack of effective communication can certainly limit our empathizing," Jaffe said. "When we aren't listening carefully to another (or tuning someone out), it is easy for us to also 'unplug' our emotions and not care very much about them. Listening allows us to hear what the person is experiencing and enables us to appreciate at least what that person is going through."

As she pointed out, the more self-absorbed we become and believe that what's happening to us is all that matters, the more we limit our ability to empathize with others. "When we realize that others are going through hard times and they might need someone to talk to, we can accept that we aren’t the only ones who have issues. This mutual understanding of each other’s hardships allows for empathy."

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Sneezing out a huge clot on your period.

V_is4vulva , Andrea Piacquadio / pexels Report

Final score:

231points

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Kombatbunni 7 months ago

Oh eww, I know that feeling. Or you stand up and it happens, it’s so ick 😣

149points

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Misophonia

SO much more than just "not liking loud noises." There are some noises that are legitimately rage-inducing and make me want to commit violence to make it stop. Other noises make me feel like I'm suddenly going to vomit.

But the really **loud** noises are the worst, because they are *physically painful*. It's really hard to explain to someone what it's like to have a sound hurt your brain, but it's brutal.

UnicornVoodooDoll , David Garrison / pexels Report

Final score:

215points

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Matthew Thompson 7 months ago

And it can be loud to you while no one else hears it. I don't want to be triggered by lip-smacking and it is certainly far beyond a little annoyance. Not something I can 'just ignore.'

78points

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36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood General anesthesia. You’re not asleep-it’s nothing like that, you’re not dreaming, you’re nothing… and there is no nothing and you aren’t aware that there’s no nothing.

SeriesBusiness9098 , Anna Shvets / pexels Report

Final score:

210points

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Green Tree 7 months ago

I've been under a couple times and it is not like sleeping at all. When sleeping you have a sense of time, with anesthesia you go out and then you come back in what feels like it could be a blink even though it was hours - absolutely no sense of time.

205points

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Research suggests that women could be better at empathizing with others than men. For example, when The Pew Research Center asked Americans about their thoughts and feelings regarding human suffering in light of the pandemic and other recent tragedies, two-thirds of women (66%) said that in the past year, they have personally thought "a lot" or "some" about big questions such as the meaning of life, whether there is any purpose to suffering and why terrible things happen to people, compared with 55% of men who reported the same.

"There are those who are naturally born with empathy, an innate understanding and feeling for what others are experiencing," Jaffe added. "Some people are empathic souls, yet all of us can learn how to appreciate the emotions of others even if we have never had the same experiences. It is a process that begins internally when we can learn to accept ourselves, one day at a time."

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Extreme back pain where you can't move and even struggle to breathe.

randypriest , Karolina Grabowska / pexels Report

Final score:

208points

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Brocken Blue 7 months ago (edited)

Oh hello other me! I think the weirdest part of this type of pain is how insidious it can be. When the back pain and breathing problems are chronic like mine, you start to acclimate to the pain. But there really is no acclimating to not breathing enough. It just steals your brain from you.

46points

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#10

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Hearing your baby giggle uncontrollably for the first time. Truly unreal. You do everything you can to get them to laugh like that again.

If you don’t want to have children that’s fine and I support your choice!

Accomplished_Eye_824 , William Fortunato / pexels Report

Final score:

207points

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Penguin Panda Pop 7 months ago

I don't have or want children, but the pure joy in a young child's laughter is something else.

124points

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#11

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood That actual physical pain because of a heartbreak.

topshot14 , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report

Final score:

199points

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Multa Nocte 7 months ago

Horrible, traumatic losses are like this. There are times I wish there was some sort of physical sign you would get so that others could understand how bad things are, but I guess that is evolution keeping our enemies from knowing how vulnerable we are at the moment.

35points

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For those who want to get better at empathizing with others, Barbara Jaffe recommends three things:

Be kind to yourself. "We must learn to be gentle and patient with ourselves. We must first learn to be empathic with ourselves, to give ourselves a break, to be understanding about our own lives before we can begin to have empathy for others," she said.

Learn to listen — really listen — to others when they are sharing their thoughts and feelings. According to Jaffe, it isn't easy to listen, and our ‘me-centric’ culture isn't helping us develop the habit. But, if we actively try to make eye contact and hear what the other person is sharing, we will get closer to their true emotions.

Share our thoughts with those we trust. "Even if we are a little hesitant to do so, we will experience empathy not only for others but for ourselves. Take a ‘safe risk’ with someone who will listen to us and understand."

#12

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood The moment your stomach drops after finding out you’ve been cheated on.

NoParty1969 , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report

Final score:

197points

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nomnomborkbork 7 months ago

The amalgamation of hurt, rage, and betrayal is overwhelming.

71points

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#13

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood I'm gonna get hella esoteric here, but when I retired from programming to be a full-time singer and musician in 2018, I decided if I really wanted to be good at my job, I should start training to sing opera.

It turns out that building a professional operatic sound is bizarre and involves a lot of very fine motor control and the relaxing/engaging of muscles I didn't even know I had. When everything lines up, though, it's insane.

I've just recently started to make some good, professional quality sounds, and the sensation is like nothing in this world. A rumbling in the chest on low notes, a tingling in the "mask" on high notes, and when things are working *really* well, the bizarre sensation like the voice isn't even coming from you. Your body is a perfectly coordinated bellows and the sound just enters the world and carries, like a portal to another dimension of pure sound opened up a couple of inches in front of your face. This is the sound that allows normal people to project unamplified to a house of 2000 people and still be heard over an orchestra.

So yeah, I'm going to say "good operatic singing."

MarvinLazer , Thirdman / pexels Report

Final score:

196points

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Auntriarch 7 months ago

I'm just a bathroom and car singer, but I do love the feeling of it

61points

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#14

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Losing a child. I'm not a parent but I can see for myself how painful it is to lose a child. When my childhood friend died when she was 17, that was the only time I've ever seen a man cry so hard.

rxssri , Pavel Danilyuk / pexels Report

Final score:

195points

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Nitka Tsar 7 months ago

Oh heavens at 17? That must have been extremely devastating! I‘ve lost my first child shortly before her due date and I think I will forever be gratefull, that she died like that and has not lived to be any age within her childhood or teen years. That would have broken me.

71points

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#15

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood The loss of a parent. It's like you're part of a really s****y club that you have to be in to fully understand.

Hellisdigital- , Pavel Danilyuk / pexels Report

Final score:

179points

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Lydsylou (she/her) 7 months ago

And the other way round with loss of a child. No parent should outlive their child

62points

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#16

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Panic attack

Sleep paralysis

Kvothetheraven603 , MART PRODUCTION / pexels Report

Final score:

179points

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Auntriarch 7 months ago

I had sleep paralysis and it truly terrified me. Not long after I watched a programme about it, now I just think oh it's that again.

38points

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#17

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Fear for your child.

doomblackdeath , Sarah Chai / pexels Report

Final score:

170points

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similarly 7 months ago

And it doesn't go away just because they grow up either.

75points

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#18

36 Sensations That Must Be Experienced To Be Fully Understood Latching on that monster booger that's been haunting your nasal cavity for the past 24 hours and slowly getting it out, then being able to breathe through that nostril.

homme_chauve_souris , Polina Tankilevitch / pexels Report

Final score:

165points

POST

BluKatTheBlueCat (BluKat) 7 months ago

eughhh *shudders* that feeling when it's coming out though it feels like getting that one spaghetti in the back of your throat when you ate too much 🤢

39points

Bloobee bloobee bloo bloo bloo 7 months ago

Omg I love that feeling

4points

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