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Often I find I have a sense of nostalgia for things I've never actually experienced, in a way that rivals the same sort of feelings I have for things I have experienced.

For example when listening to music that was big before one's own generation or seeing old black and white photos of how people lived their lives generations before you were born.

It's an odd feeling I've heard many people talk about, but I've never quite had a word for explaining it.

Is there a term that describes this? Or is it still nostalgia?

Hugo
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Jane Panda
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    I've often felt the same lack. – Charles Nov 30 '11 at 19:05
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    I'm not sure that would count as real nostalgia. It sounds more like a desire to connect with the past, particularly a past that you never could have experienced. – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Nov 30 '11 at 19:08
  • @FrustratedWithFormsDesigner: ...thus the question. – Charles Dec 01 '11 at 02:24
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    One thing's for sure: nostalgia ain't what it used to be. – Hugo Dec 06 '11 at 22:18
  • related topic Déjà vu – ajax333221 Apr 20 '12 at 00:38
  • In Brazil, some people that like old things are called "brega" people as that things are also called "brega" things. "Brega" is a word to qualify something that is from old generations and that nowadays appears to be in some way ridiculous, funny or just too old or to qualify a person that likes that. It does not requires that person lived on that old ages, so we can use on that context. – kokbira May 20 '13 at 13:09
  • Is there a reason it couldn't be called nostalgia? – Julia Nov 30 '11 at 22:24
  • I don't know if there is a word at the moment in English, but the phenomena you may be experiencing could be a nostalgia for a past life? I feel a kind of nostalgia, or deep connection to and for places I have never visited before, older music, paintings, classic novels and lots of other things. Like a deja vu but alot deeper. I believe it may stem from one or many of my past lives. –  Oct 09 '13 at 21:07
  • I feel like I have nostalgia for the 80s, even though I wasn't really aware of them at the time. Being an 87 baby, obviously I never really experienced any of it first hand. Maybe it's because I saw some 80s shows and movies still pretty popular in the early 90s, and heard quite a bit of 80s music in the car rides. When I hear 80s music especially, that's when I feel a sort of longing; as if I actually was aware of that time. So to answer your question I would say the answer is yes. If the experience is at least as strong enough that it might as well be nostalgia, then just call the feeling wh –  May 04 '13 at 21:27
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    Saudade: “The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.” – tchrist Dec 08 '13 at 20:35
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    I believe Carly Rae Jepsen describes this in her pop hit "Call Me Maybe" when she sings: "Before you came into my life I missed you so bad, I missed you so, so bad." – iglvzx Dec 25 '13 at 17:58
  • I rather like "Future Nostalgia", as in this pop hit. – John Lawler Dec 25 '13 at 19:57
  • Hiraeth is a Celtic word defined as homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, and the earnest desire for the Wales of the past. – George Rappel Jun 02 '16 at 23:32
  • "Anemoia" is a recently (2014) coined word by John Koenig of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows that describes this perfectly. Defined as "nostalgia for a time you’ve never known". Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH6ZCIRjI14 – David Calhoun Apr 14 '20 at 15:19

11 Answers11

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I think the word wistful captures that sense of wishing for something, tinged with regret. I'm not sure that nostalgia requires you to have experienced the thing you're missing, but it does require it to be in the past. Wistfulness doesn't - I can feel wistful thinking of something I could be doing, or had once thought I would be doing by now, and neither of those fits nostalgia.

Kate Gregory
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    +1 because I was thinking of wistfulness before I scrolled down to see your answer. I'm not sure you'd normally be wistful about something in the future that was never in the past though - unless it's a future which the past/present has already ruled out for some reason. On the other hand, nostalgia ain't what it used to be, and probably never could be again. But if you act on your wistfulness you might well (re-)live the actual experience. – FumbleFingers Nov 30 '11 at 19:25
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    I suppose that is about right; I mean it doesn't exactly capture the meaning, but with supporting statements that would be a good word to finish the thought with. – Jane Panda Dec 01 '11 at 00:21
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There is a term advocated by C.S. Lewis and others that fits the bill: sehnsucht.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sehnsucht

I've been known to use this term for its direct meaning as a "longing and nostalgia for a far-off home one has never visited," but it can be inflected or further defined to describe what you mean. So far, it's the most satisfactory English (technically, German) noun I've found to describe this phenomena.

MrGomez
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I think "yearning" captures a fair portion of that feeling.

References:

"A persistent, often wistful or melancholy desire; a longing."

"a strong feeling of wishing for something, especially something that you cannot have or get easily"

Mr.Wizard
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I would call it longing for a bygone era, but I can't think of a more concise term.

The English Chicken
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No one seems quite sure if nostalgia can be correctly used regarding something you have not personally experienced. I'm going to say that it can, because I have found more than one seemingly respectable source with a definition that does not include that personal experience as a necessary condition for nostalgia.

Cambridge Dictionaries Online: a feeling of pleasure and sometimes slight sadness at the same time as you think about things that happened in the past

Merriam-Webster: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia

Hugo
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sarah
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    I suppose it would make decent sense to just explicitly state nostalgia being without experience, this I think would be more widely digestible for readers than any lesser known term. – Jane Panda Dec 01 '11 at 14:51
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    @Bob I see your point. I'm resistant, however, to complicate it unnecessarily. Are you saying that, despite these definitions from respected sources, most people expect that nostalgia can only be about something personally experienced? I'm not saying they don't. I just don't know. How do we find that out? – sarah Dec 08 '11 at 06:46
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How about vicarious nostalgia.

That would be nostalgia experienced through the accounts of others.

Ste
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Anemoia

Looking at old photos, it's hard not to feel a kind of wanderlust, a pang of nostalgia for times you've never experienced.

-John Koenig, "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows"

Chris Keefe
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The question reminds me of a theme that Woody Allen explores in his recent film Midnight in Paris. He uses the term "Golden Age Thinking" to describe this kind of nostalgia for a time period that you only know through literature, art & music. As defined in the film, "Golden Age Thinking" is:

"the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in."

and further:

"it is a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present" and that "nostalgia is denial, denial of the painful present."

(quote source: Huffington Post)

gbutters
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What's wrong with simply saying "unexperienced nostalgia" or nostalgia you've never experienced?

RegDwigнt
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Yoichi Oishi
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  • This implies that the nostalgia(-like feeling) is not experienced. The question, however, concerns such feelings that are actually experienced; it's just that (unlike in the standard cases of nostalgia) what the feelings are about has never been experienced by the person who has the feeling. – jsw29 Nov 11 '23 at 22:45
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For some crazy reason - I've always wished it was 1938 again. That blip in time when the Depression was over, we still struggled - but we all did. War wasn't on our horizon yet, and we were all, well... safe. I wouldn't call it an MGM moment, but I wonder if it's close. I yearn for that simpler America -

FumbleFingers
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SECoop
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deja vu is my first thought that came to mind here. dé·jà vu ˌdāZHä ˈvo͞o/ noun 1. a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.

Diana Meyers
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