10 Strange Emotions You Have Experienced But Can't Explain

While common emotions such as anger, sadness or joy are usually easy to pinpoint, there are others that we often feel and may not be able to recognize. If you’ve ever had a persistent emotional feeling that you didn’t fully understand and couldn’t quite place, it may have been one of the following:

1. Deja Vu

You’ve probably heard of Deja Vu. It’s the feeling that you’ve been someplace before, or that you are repeating an event. Memory psychologists believe it is caused by features from a past experience that are triggered by features of a new experience, when the two are similar in some way.

2. Ellipsism

This term describes a sense of sadness one experiences when they realize they won’t live to see the future. A person might experience ellipsism as they age, and realize they may not be able to watch a new grandchild or great-grandchild grow into adulthood.

3. Adronitis

Adronitis is a sense of frustration one experiences when meeting a new and interesting person, but they realize how long it will take to fully develop a relationship with that person. Adronitis occurs when someone wants a relationship to develop quickly, but they know it won’t.

4. Chrysalism

This term describes a sense of warmth, peace and tranquility while sitting inside during a rainstorm, which may be linked to a feeling of being in the womb, safe and sound.

5. Enouement

Enoument is the feeling of wishing you could go back in time and tell your past self about the future. When something turned out the way you wanted it to, you may wish you could go back in time and comfort your younger self who was worried to let your younger you know that everything will be OK.

6. Liberosis

Liberosis is the desire to care less about things. With age comes more responsibility. Liberosis is the feeling you get when you wish you could be a kid again, without a care in the world.

7. Jouska

This term is used to describe a hypothetical conversation you play out over and over again in your mind. For example, it may be an argument you had, but you envision yourself saying the right things and coming out ahead — or it may be a conversation you want to have, like envisioning asking your boss for a raise, and playing out the scene and conversation in your mind.

8. Opia

Opia is used to describe an intense feeling of arousal that someone gets when engaging in a mutual gaze. Many studies have been conducted regarding eye contact to establish that it can indeed be arousing. Opia occurs when two people who are attracted to each other are engaged in direct eye contact.

9. Fugue State

A Fugue State is a psychological condition in which an individual moves and speaks, but without conscious awareness. Fugue states can be alcohol-induced or drug-induced. They refer to a state where an individual has no memory of his or her actions.

10. Exulansis

Exulansis is a sense of frustration you experience when you are talking about something important, but other people are unable to understand its importance or relate to it, so you give up talking about it due to your frustration.