Nostalgia: A Sweet-Bitter Bridge to the Self

By Marni Hill

Nostalgia is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘a feeling of pleasure and also a slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.’

This is a simple way of explaining the bittersweet nature of nostalgia: the cherishing of a memory you are fond of, whilst being aware of the very fact that it is a fragment of the past and not a part of the present moment. That it’s gone.

And so we are forced to accept the longing, sometimes even the yearning, that accompanies the comfort of nostalgia. Yet I think many of us can agree that we would never want to give up the ability to feel it, as the ‘sweet’ part seems to outweigh the ‘bitter.’

On the run-up to Christmas, I almost always feel overcome by a profound sense of nostalgia. Simple reminders like the smell of Christmas-spiced candles or fresh pine, hot chocolates, Christmas lights, and the crackle of a fire easily invoke a quiet softness in me. I can’t help but be transported back to the various Christmas seasons of my life.

One of my favourite times to reminisce goes all the way back to primary school: class Christmas parties, Secret Santa, the much-anticipated ‘Christmas Lunch’ and ‘Christmas Play.’ I even miss Christmas Jumper Day! These things seem silly when you’re young; then you get older and you realise just how sweet they were, not silly at all.

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It got me thinking: “What actually is nostalgia? How does it come about? What’s the psychological mechanism behind it?” So, I did some reading…

When we create a memory, the intensity of emotion we feel alongside that memory plays a part in the likelihood that we will be able to access that memory again. So when we experience something we feel very positively about, this increases the likelihood that we will be able to re-access that memory. Hence the memories in which nostalgia encompasses tend to be ones we once felt very fondly about.

We encode sensory information, too, which is why it’s possible to smell a familiar scent and be teleported back to a particular point in time, flooding us with that same warm feeling we once felt before.

Interestingly, nostalgia triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to improved mood and motivation. Dopamine increases our sense of positivity, maybe to a level even greater than you actually felt in the original memory.

Nostalgic feelings are often traced back to early childhood and adolescence, as these are intense and pivotal periods of development, filled with experiences linked to intense expressions of emotion. How I make sense of this is that when we are younger, we are experiencing a lot of things for the very first time, and so when we take ourselves back to that moment, it can feel very intense, as that’s likely exactly how our nervous system felt back then too: overloaded with the novelty.

Another interesting point is that people who are frequently in contact with, or exposed to, sources of their nostalgia, for example living in the same town they grew up in, have less intense bouts of nostalgia, as they are often exposed to its triggers. In the same way, people who are far removed from these triggers may feel it more intensely. Research has been able to study the co-ordinated neural processes that occur when we experience waves of nostalgia, providing the feeling with some sort of scientific validation and steering away from the idea that it’s just a sense of being wrapped up in meaningless, wistful thoughts.

I think a really interesting take is that nostalgia serves as a way to preserve and re-connect with our sense of self and identity. When we connect with the integral emotion of our past memories, we are creating this temporary interface between our present and past self. This creates a trace of continuity throughout our lives, reminding you that you are the same person who can feel the same things, no matter how much your life has changed or how much you have changed. This is quite a complex realisation because you may feel very different to who you were then, and maybe that engenders negative feelings, or maybe it enables you to reflect on your growth.

Either way, nostalgia connects you to your inherent sense of self, even if subconsciously… or unwillingly. We all know it can sweep you up and force you to face it when you least expect it, binding the fragments of who we’ve been to the shadows of who we might yet become.

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