have a think about this at a 6

TheNotoriousFAP · 19 days

A few years ago I used to genuinely be concerned about what others thought of me, meaning everybody who I passed on the street. It took me 20 years to realize I know exactly what they think about me, nothing. Their thoughts and opinions of me are the same as mine about them. They're more concerned about their job, their school, some girl they want to fuck. I don't even cross their minds.

thebestwaytotravel · 19 days

This describes my thoughts the first time I did LSD

Pilgor_th_Mighty · 19 days

Probably my first 'revelation' after smoking trees. That each and every person has there own life and people in it. Made me really take a step back and realize how selfish I was. A huge stepping stone for growing up in my opinion.

Also side not this applies to everyone here expect we have this wonderful site to exchange things and we no longer have to be that extra. Its little things like /trees that'll bring the world closer ^^

knight4646 · 19 days

This definitely belongs here.

peachtree53 · 19 days

Just sat in the middle of campus... At a [6]... Whilest like 600 people just passed me by..... HOLY FUCK MY MIND just CASCADED down a flowing river of realization... THIS Was The perfect thing for me to find... Thank you fellow sir/ madam ent, thank you so much. -alex

Vargrimt · 19 days

Yeah man, shits been happening to me more and more lately. Thanks for teaching me the word for it. Now I wont sound retarded trying to explain myself =)

HouseAtreides27 · 19 days

This concept used to give me really bad agoraphobia years ago before I started smoking trees. All that possibility and potential kinda freaked me right the fuck out. Worst was over passes in the city; All the people walking around combined with the cars driving by would send me reeling.

Then me and MJ started spending some quality time together, she knocked that shit to the curb

HKProxyOne · 19 days

What worries me is how people don't seem to realise this naturally. I mean, are we all still 5 year olds who think the world centers around them?

HighlyAcidic · 19 days

It's kind of fucking beautiful. I love everyone.

Dreddex · 19 days

Shit happened to me just the other day at a [0]. Not as eloquent though.

astraltek · 19 days

Yup. Be nice and smile to everyone you see, because you have no idea what they might be dealing with! Sometimes a stranger smiling at you can feel better than your friends who know you trying to comfort you.

kkkilla · 19 days

how come i can't find this word on dictionary.com?

Dharmasabitch · 19 days

I think about this a lot, especially on the highway. Every single car carries at least one person, whose life is as large as one's own... their life is their everything, just like my life is my everything. We all experience a different universe, and for every car you pass on the highway, another universe goes by, as big and as real as your own...

akillertofu · 19 days

You've made me incredibly happy to know there's a word for this.

NO_TOUCHING__lol · 19 days

You'd probably end up like this guy.

Totally worth the read if you haven't read it before.

bl7ow5oml3 · 19 days

I like the thought, but im not sure that word is applicable that way unless we just decided words mean whatever we want them to mean.

EDIT: http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/

yes ok this guy/girl just makes up words for observations, some are pretty profound! Interesting stuff, VERY meta! I like this one in particular:

mal de coucou

n. a phenomenon in which you have an active social life but very few close friends—people who you can trust, who you can be yourself with, who can help flush out the weird psychological toxins that tend to accumulate over time—which is a form of acute social malnutrition in which even if you devour an entire buffet of chitchat, you’ll still feel pangs of hunger.

Brinner · 19 days

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Incredible website.

Kenopsia. The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.

angrier_than_thou · 19 days

Strictly speaking, the content of that definition might not be true...

hey_nonny_nonny · 19 days

I do this everyday, except I try to fill in the details with my imagination

automatton · 19 days

Did you make this word up?

frankenj · 19 days

i always get this looking at an apartment complex with people's junk on the balconies

Ganja_Girl32 · 19 days

The scary thing is, I do this all the time.

thiiiiisguy987 · 19 days

I love getting high and walking around my campus and just wondering what each person's story is. Glad there's a word for it.

culnaej · 19 days

This is why I hate being late for something or being a burden to other people, because then I'm just becoming a worse me in their story as well as wasting valuable content that could be developing

spooogey · 19 days

I do this all the time, at a 0 or a 6. I never knew there was a word for it.

crooney36 · 19 days

holy fuck dude.

Parker2010 · 19 days

here's something fun to ponder:

From the Wiki entry

Solipsism (Listeni/ˈsɒlɨpsɪzəm/) is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from the Latin solus (alone) and ipse (self). Solipsism as an epistemological position holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist. As such it is the only epistemological position that, by its own postulate, is both irrefutable and yet indefensible in the same manner. Although the number of individuals sincerely espousing solipsism has been small, it is not uncommon for one philosopher to accuse another's arguments of entailing solipsism as an unwanted consequence, in a kind of reductio ad absurdum. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a skeptical hypothesis.

One way of looking at it is that you are the only consciousness that exists, and everything you experience just winks out of existence until called forth from your consciousness again.

Then again, maybe I'm the only one who exists, and you're all fabrications of my imagination :)

StatutoryGrape95 · 19 days

Whoa man^whoaaaaaaa

RandomJPEG · 19 days

here is where that's from. Tons of other really interesting words on that website.

Phallic · 19 days

I was tripping dicks on acid at a Shpongle concert when I suddenly saw "myself" represented as a little "male" figure like you'd see on the door of a men's toilet.

The hallucinated image suddenly zoomed out at incredible speed and I was in a grid of millions and millions of the same figures. An incomprehensible number of little human figures and I was just one of them.

If I'd been at home lying on the couch I would have gone into full ego death, but as I was at a concert I didn't really want to space out that hard so I snapped myself out of it.

Still, pretty mind-boggling experience.

derp_08 · 19 days

I think of this ALL the time. I thought I was the only one.

DumDumDog · 19 days

i think this way at 0

thelogicofpi · 19 days

can you grok it?

OldJeb · 19 days

I think about this all the time. Keeps me from taking everything too seriously.

OmarLittleLives · 19 days

That is a fantastic word. Thank you for showing me this because I think about this concept alot.

MrZootyMan · 19 days

I literally think about this almost every day.

Dr_Dick_Fingers · 19 days

I fuckin' love you guys!

sadcat1 · 19 days

This is my absolute favorite feeling.

TyrannosaurusReddit · 19 days

This picture is not true.

Look here..

Sonder (Definition)

Verb.

(transitive) to probe (test with a probe)

(transitive) to probe (test the depth of something)

to sound (use sound waves to establish the depth)

(transitive) to probe (look carefully around)

(transitive) to probe (ask someone many questions, in order to find something out)

(meteorology) to survey and take measurements using a [weather balloon]

to survey (carry out a survey or poll)

(intransitive) to dive down

SokkasInstincts · 19 days

I've thought about this ever since I was little, fascinates me to no end.

TheLastCzar · 19 days

This is exactly what I thought the first time I dropped acid, now I think about it constantly.

flooberses · 19 days

This happens to me every time I'm high in a major city.

I'm literally overwhelmed with the thought that every single person that passes me has their own trials and tribulations, their own passions, ambitions, relationships.

I want to learn everything about them all...

Mortt · 19 days

This. Mushrooms. Fucking. Intense.

ohjamesk · 19 days

think about this all the time, didn't know it had an actual word. sweet!

thunnus · 19 days

I think about this all the time. Smoked up or not.

Nafarious · 19 days

Thought about it sober before seeing this and it blew my mind.

Shadowolf1992 · 19 days

This crosses my mind more times than I can count

TSTC · 19 days

Or none of it is real. There's that possibility too.

zMPB · 19 days

thought about this already. its mind blowing

Tree_Beards · 19 days

This makes me realize how insignificant all supposed "problems" are. [0]

Slammed_Droid · 19 days

I actually think about this all the time. I travel internationally a lot and it's really mind blowing

IamTypingWithOneHand · 19 days

I think about this all the time, sometimes I look at people passing and start to imagine what they do with theirs lives, why are they in such hurry, do they have kids ? what their jobs are, etc...

FUTJRN · 19 days

i had this thought and brought it up to my friends around 9th grade. they're all like...dude...thats life.

selftitleddebutalbum · 19 days

I did think of this at 6 years of age. Why I've found the existence of God to be so hard since I was a child. I can't even keep up with the lives of everyone I know. How could someone keep up with billions more? Not trying to start an argument, just explaining the fucked up theological issues I had in kindergarten.

atrophiedcthulu · 19 days

this is the best part about people watching. even when driving down the road, i am amazed that every car passing by has a person driving it, and that person driving the car has a destination. trippymane.jpg

CudiDudi · 19 days

I think about this everyday.

Awesome-O415 · 19 days

I think about this all the time at a 0...it does really put all my bullshit into perspective sometimes. Also it's fun to imagine what everyone else could be getting into

kohlio · 19 days

like.. woah man.

jakemg · 19 days

I actually think about this all the time at a [0]. It's fascinating.

plasticTron · 19 days

Can someone use this word in a sentence?

KangarooLemonade · 19 days

I get this sober, it's an amazing experience. In an instant I suddenly realize the infinite amount of complexity in a finite amount of space and my mind reels back in its inability to take it all in.

What makes it even crazier is the history behind it all. These lands have known things that happened long before your existence was even considered, and the men and women walking on them have seen years and years of the same thing you're experiencing now (with, of course, a perceptual twist on things).

Everything has a story.

toxsully93 · 19 days

I think about this all the time, it's crazy thinking we're all a tiny little spec in this world we live in

Epershand · 19 days

Being someone who writes fiction/stories etc. I think about this alot. It's really helped me in dealing with other people when in conflict. It's also, I think, a form of empathy.

kush_domain · 19 days

Read at an [8]

Nosebleed.

I shit you not.

htpasswd · 19 days

I always think about this. Trees had nothing to do with it.

tullvika · 19 days

I accidentaly went to a job interview stoned(got stoned and they called out of nowhere wanting me to come in asap). Got a job the next day, no problem.

Iprocrastinatedeath · 19 days

Woah

masturbassist · 19 days

I get this all the time!

Every1sFriENT · 19 days

I do this all the time sober XD From a small town where I knew everybody, moved to the city...and yoy realize its crazy how no body knows anything about eachother and doesn't give a fuck

joss33 · 19 days

I have a problem in which I think about this with every person I see so people-heavy locations such as the mall are difficult for me to enter because it's really painful emotionally . Because I know some day those lives will end. That makes me very sad

sevets · 19 days

I think about this every time I am on a plane or when I see a plane. It's just incredible the amount of people you can see and out of all of them, so few probably are thinking the same thing.

dancefuckerdance · 19 days

this is one of my favorite things to do while people watching. had no idea it was a word.

Echidnae · 19 days

I was wondering if there was a contrary of solypsism. Thanks for the word!

Uluvmylean · 19 days

This was my first 'real' epiphany when I started smoking trees. I was just another selfish teenager with an antiquated view of the world and one day I was thinking about how everyone else is just like me. With their very own dreams, passions, regrets, good times, bad times, personal demons, and course of life. How we are all just 'someone else' to someone else. How really we are all just equal to one another regardless of age, sex, skin color, sexual orientation, or economic status. We are all God's children. [5]

PS I gave this post it's 420th uptoke. Cheers.

brahno_722 · 19 days

I wish I had this unspoken ability with words that so easily paints a picture. This concept isn't an original thought obviously, but to be able to convey it that well made my hairs stand on end. Awesome post!

Remember_Prometheus · 19 days

I think about this way too often...

1985BMWE30M3 · 19 days

posts like these make me wish I could still get that high

Namaha · 19 days

I've had that thought before. Where you realize that everyone is the main character of their own story. Good stuff, very weird to think about though.

hoopdelolly · 19 days

I have this feeling every day.

GetStudyScoreHigh · 19 days

I had no clue there was a word for this concept. Cool!

burn_all_the_things · 19 days

I don't even have to be on trees to think this, sometimes I just randomly lose an hour to thoughts like this. I'll be driving down the interstate, and realize that everyone passing me or going the opposite direction is going somewhere to do something, and it all happens simultaneously. Crazy stuff

SkeeverTail · 19 days

I've been aware of this since I was about 12, but never knew there was a word for it. Cool.

el_fakir · 19 days

I had this at [0] years ago while walking with my friend I pointed at a specific house, and started talking about how those people have their own elaborate life, probably just as complex as ours.

A couple of years later I started going out with a girl. A couple of dates in it turns out that she is the girl from that house. It's always nervous to meet the parents, but this was kinda spooky in addition to that. [5 or 6]

SirTojo · 19 days

This gave me a huge depression as a child, realising that every person I see has their own life, with own homes. Familiar places, favorite stuff, things at home, family, work, toughts, habbits, goals and everything else.

Made me feel like the smallest thing alive and that life was hopeless as I was just another one with his things, so many people with their things.

Smoking fixed all that, learned to love life and everyone in it. Now I get sad thinking about or seeing someone who don't seem to have that much in their life, be it homeless, druggies or anyone just seeming really alone and sad makes me sad. Especially world news about wars and killings.

I know it's not my problems to care about, but how can you not when innocent people no different from me or anyone else is getting killed.

checksum420 · 19 days

I think about this all the time. Sober, mind you.

Beerman3000 · 19 days

Mindfuck!!!

cpellegrino · 19 days

Is that a real word? Merriam-webster didn't have it, neither did dictionary.com, or my dictionary app.

awrobot · 19 days

I never knew there was a name for it. To me, it seems much like a basic building block of humanity -- it's something that everyone should consider on a regular basis. It keeps us humble, it keeps us sensitive and aware. It's a first step on a path to enlightenment. I like to imagine the fables of others' lives. I like knowing I'm an extra in their cinematic.

johnjeff311 · 19 days

mother of god... i just gained a new appreciation for every person i ever see.

arborcide · 19 days

Why does reddit have a crush on this word? This is the third post I've seen about 'sonder' this month.

murraygf35 · 19 days

Kind of weird to think, no one knows what were all doing here, yet here we are, doing whatever it is.

TerdSandwich · 19 days

I hate to be a kill joy, but "sonder" is not in the English dictionary, nor does it have the definition attributed above. In French, sonder means probe, in German it means special. A comparable word might be empathy, or a cognitive shift. Although I absolutely agree that the complexity of the summation of human life is quite remarkable and captivating.

Source of OP

Si_four · 19 days

At a [9] and I'm sad that this is so great, because I won't remember it later.

gglinnith · 19 days

There's a word for that? Mind = blown

oakshades · 19 days

and now i'm having a panic attack.

LoneStar92 · 19 days

Stoned + Ponder = Sonder?

Jarlock · 19 days

Isn't this like babby's first realization?

Chondriac · 19 days

that an awesome passage but that's not what that word means

TheWeirdestThing · 19 days

Anyone remember that subreddit where people would write their life stories in a pretty short format? I can't remember what the name was and it's driving me crazy after seeing this post.

Tyaedalis · 19 days

No, other people don't exist; they are but a figment of my imagination. Nothing exists but that which I can directly experience. Anything that appears to be unrelated is just my own mind keeping my experience immersive.

nicolewashere · 19 days

This happens to me all the time.

King420fly · 19 days

*[6]

ChocoSapien · 19 days

Mind=Blown

SoulTea · 19 days

Definitely happens to me every time I smoke. I'm an occasional toker, like literally twice a month maybe so this realization kicks my ass all of the time.

likerockets1 · 19 days

Wow I thought of this exactly when I was in a Tokyo train station. Soooooooo many people.

pwnyoface · 19 days

holy shit thats what I was thinking a few days ago, didn't know there was a word for it.

haha, but I was actually at a [0]

PhoenixIgnition · 19 days

I was listening to this as i was reading what sonder meant -- deadmau5 - telemiscommunications Ft. imogen Heap

LlodSuaNav · 19 days

Holy shit! I think about this all the time! Good to see it defined because I tend to trip over my words when I go on and on about this with friends.

GopherPorn · 19 days

Well TIL that's what it's called

ahhvince · 19 days

I'm sober and this is still a fuckin trip to think about haha

omgbackoff · 19 days

Not trying to sound haughty or arrogant, (in fact, if I do, it's just a sad result of social stigmas making you think that I think I'm better than you, even though the whole point of this is that I could never rightly claim to be better than anyone) BUT this is something I loved to think about ever since I could remember trying to describe it to my childhood friend when I was like 10. I called it my "Theory of Multiple Existences" in that, I have to ASSUME you experience everything that I experience, that while I'm sitting here talking to you (imagine having a face to face conversation) you experience being talked at, while I experience talking to you, and vice-versa while the idea is being discussed between us. I have no proof! I can't possible be 100% sure that you're actually there, experiencing what I'm experiencing. That would be a guess, an induction that since I feel this, and there's tons of things that look like me, they all experience the same.

While actually, you could all be like NPC's in a computer game that only exist while I'm in the vicinity and you don't have real lives muahahaha!

Seriously though, this is why I'm a philosophy major and have no idea what I want to do with it; there's just so much shit that's unbelievably fascinating to learn, and yet the majority of people take so much about life for granted.

Taterhater540 · 19 days

I have thoughts like that all the time, high or not. Haha. It's really mindblowing when you think about it: When you're sitting in traffic and you realize there's an infinite number of possibilities for each car's origin and destination.

snoogins1 · 19 days

I'm so glad there is a word for this

strateniga · 19 days

Strangers on this road we are on, but we are not two we are one.

freebs · 19 days

I'm sipping coffee right now. Am I just an extra?

apikoros18 · 19 days

Monkey Sphere is what it made me think of.

jphobbit · 19 days

But my mom always told me that I'm special.

IcyRice · 19 days

This comes at me naturally when stoned

thatnamesalreadytken · 19 days

I've done this before in public. It was an accident but I was staring at a girl, average to better looks wise. Anyway, I'm still staring and I'm building what I thought was like; past, present and future. Now keep in mind I'm still staring at her during this and my facial expressions are matching the visuals I'm having of this girls life so I'm frowning, I'm smiling, etc. I realize it's been a good 2-3 minutes I've been staring at her and she looks up. Apparently, she liked what she saw cuz she smiled at me and held a gaze longer than normal when you catch someone staring at you. TLDR : Pot puts me on a different planet; girl liked me there

frenchypadenchy · 19 days

I have thought this since I was a child.. I'm so stoked to know that there is actually a word for it.

octacok · 19 days

I feel like everyone kinda comes to this realization at some point in their lives. For me it was just after I started smoking weed and started actually thinking about things beyond my immediate life.

ItscalledCannabis · 19 days

There is not a day that I do not actively think this...

fynthase · 19 days

synecdoche, ny

unanything · 19 days

I'm at a solid [0] at the moment and this still blew my mind

VibrationMan · 19 days

I only tried to save it D: http://i.imgur.com/kw7Q9.png?1

SomethingClepher · 19 days

Acid really makes you step into someone else's shoes

goducks206 · 19 days

always reminded of this whenever I see a plane cruising way up there

jetsintl420 · 19 days

I think about this every time I'm high and see people.

Poiar · 19 days

I just realized I've been stoned constantly all my life, I've experienced this feeling without even smoking. :I

IceBlue · 19 days

I realized this once while riding in a car thinking about all the houses you see on the side with people I'll never meet with lives I'll never overlap with. It's crazy how people can be so close but still be worlds away.

md314 · 19 days

:00 This is exactly how I've been feeling lately and at first I couldn't even comprehend it! This summer I started working full time for the first time, had alot more freedom and responsibility, I went on a mission trip to Joplin Mo and Costa Rica, and began smoking as a daily routine. From all the experiences and new people I'm meeting I feel like I'm understand and experiencing the world so much more! Everything even when I'm not high is so much more intresting and beautiful! It's amazing! Sadly I've had to quit smoking for a while due to my disapproving parents but my mindset has stayed the same and its awesome! Life is truly wonderful. At comfortable [0] (for now) I love you guys toke one up for me :')

fineherbs · 19 days

I've thought about this since I was a kid... Even more crazy is that it's possible that some of the people you know and have actual relationships now were one of the "extras sipping coffee" or one of the "blurs of traffic passing on the highway" but you just never knew because your brain doesn't remember every random passerby.

cogito_ergo_bacon · 19 days

portmanteau of 'somber' and 'ponder'?

L0ading_ · 19 days

dam you, i read this at a 7. spent an hour thinking about this

MrCavallis · 19 days

I have this every day? is this normal?

LrgShake · 19 days

When driving around with my ex-father-in-law I used to get so mad at people (Houston driving at the time), and he'd remind me "Everyone is at the center of their own world." For me, it just helped me put myself in their shoes for a while. Has helped a ton and now that I'm teaching my daughter to drive, I try to say similar things.

injaninja · 19 days

Man! I get this all the time. Even before I smoked trees, but more so now. Feels good that there's a word for it and it's not just me :P

sublimelovin · 19 days

I realized this when i was a kid in my moms car... i was looking around at all the different cars and realized that even though our physical realities were touching at that moment, we werent even aware of each other. Yet we all had our own complex, complete circles of life that intersected and overlapped other people's circles throughout life.

Then i found the seed of life and had to get that tattooed on me bc i felt like it was a diagram to this realization.

cogito_ergo_bacon · 19 days

Sometimes when I'm at a 5+, a related notion of this I like to entertain is the universal sum of sonders - that is, some MASSIVE book (or database, what-have-you), that catalogs every single encounter of every single person ever, completely cross-indexed (think 'mutual friends' on fb on steroids)

If that isn't enough to blow your anthropocentric mind, consider adding to that massive work the sum total of animal/plant sonders (thank Ishmael for that mindblower), and hell, why stop there? Add in the sum total of molecular/atomic sonders, and- welp. I think we've just [re]created the universe.

TL;DR: Consider an entire catalog of the sum total of every sonder ever, attain enlightment/mindfudgery

J_berrykins · 19 days

I think about this at a [0]

Zuol · 19 days

I use to think about how you would go on vacation and take pictures and there are usually people standing in the background. Then you go home and put that picture on the fridge or something. Can you imagine how many pictures of you there are on someone elses fridge?

PalGuy · 19 days

I have always thought like this. Even as a child I didn't think I was the only person in this world.

Butterbawlz · 19 days

I think about this all the time

sgthavoc32 · 19 days

This is truly crazy. But I think i realized this when I was little but just have been reminded of even the thought of how sad it is that you kinda wanna know or live everyone's lives. And I've been thinking about it the past few days with a rather melancholy feeling behind it. But then i log on to reddit for the first time in a long ass time and there's a defenition of what i'm feeling? That's some crazy shit.

Mcott · 19 days

Riding the RIPTA at a four right now and this is insane. I usually sonder whilst sober also, but right now... Woah

AlexthePwner · 19 days

I don't even smoke weed and this blew my goddamn mind.

muelboy · 19 days

You are on a rock floating through space!

elskitcho · 19 days

And now I have a word for it. Awesome

DrLulzworthy · 19 days

I experience this all the time, visualizing and contemplating random people's consciousness, seeing things from their point of view.

It's probably the drugs.

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