> Anemoia: feeling nostalgic for a time you’ve never known
> LINK · Anemoia: the psychology behind feeling nostalgic for a time you’ve never known
This came up recently in Jonathan Coe's novel The Proof Of My Innocence, noting how twentysomethings obsessively watch 'Friends' for some pre-smartphone, low-risk nostalgia for a time they never experienced.
From the definition on the link:
Traditionally, psychologists thought of nostalgia as being based on a person’s recollections of their own experiences, which makes it difficult to fit what you’ve described into their account. More recently, however, the philosopher Prof Felipe De Brigard at Duke University has proposed that nostalgia is broader, and includes your yearnings.
De Brigard was inspired by research on memory that’s shown it’s a creative process. When you recollect memories, it’s not like you’re looking up a recording of what happened, it’s more like your brain creates a simulation of those past events.
In this way, De Brigard argues that nostalgia can be based on memories – simulations of pleasant past experiences – but doesn’t have to be. Given the role of imagination in memory, he says it’s not a huge leap to propose that nostalgia can also be based on imagined positive past experiences.