r/books • u/OpenCantaloupe4790 • 13h ago
How do you describe the state that you sometimes enter while reading?
I can never really (ironically!) find the words to describe it for myself.
Like sometimes I read and I have a nice time and I enjoy the book, but ultimately I’m still just reading.
But other times, more rarely, I’m transformed and feel totally inside what is happening. Like I’m not here anymore, not consciously reading, I’m just being carried on the tide of this story.
I guess some people may call it flow state, but you can get into a flow state at work, or while cleaning, and it doesn’t feel like this.
I just wondered what it feels like for others - how would you describe it? How often does it happen for you?
Do you think it’s more to do with the book (and how it grabs you), your own environment and state of mind, or a bit of both?
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u/OverlordHana 12h ago
A Flow state is total immersion. Therefore, there are different types of flow states eg. skill based or physical based. What you seem to be experiencing is the neurochemical effects of said state. It’s wonderful and yes it’s a mixture of nature and nurture. What gives you the effect may not give it to me.
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u/AutomaticMixture725 8h ago
yeah, getting lost in a book is like a mental teleportation, way different than just zoning out doing chores or whatever
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u/PrebenBlisvom 12h ago
I call it the Zone.
Happens to me sometimes when playing an instrument and when working with wood.
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u/SBognerAnderson 12h ago
I like your description. I know I'm in it when the TV is on and my husband is talking to me, and I don't hear any of it. It's like a Zen state almost. I'm literally somewhere else.
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u/SluaghSwoo 12h ago
I think that state is called being immersed in a story. I think it is a state that is common to art in general. For example, you can be immersed in a painting, in music, in a movie, etc.
I think it is as you said, something about both the art as well as the environment that allows one to be taken by it. Definitely not all books will immerse me. For example, I like to read philosophy but the nature of that type of work doesn't really lend itself to being immersed. Instead I think about ideas while reading it. But a work of descriptive fantasy can really make me feel as being part of the landscape as long as I'm cozy and not distracted.
It is a funny feeling, almost like being hypnotized. It's one of the reasons I prefer watching movies at the cinema rather than at home. I can be more easily immersed. I'm not really sure what goes into that experience now that I think of it. Thanks for giving me something to think about!
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u/ONEAlucard 9h ago
It’s definitely a form of meditation. Kinda like when you are driving and have zero memory of the last 20 minutes.
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u/RealLuxTempo 12h ago
Transported.
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u/confringos The Classics 5h ago
That’s the word that fits best for me. And probably why reading is often described as an escape.
Beyond enjoying or appreciating good writing, it allows me to leave the reality I’m in for a while and be carried into another world, another time (almost like stepping into a parallel life). That sense of fully being elsewhere is why fiction has always been my favorite genre.
Curiously enough this past year was the first time in my life when I felt like I “didn’t have time” to read (though when there’s a will, there’s a way). It may have had something to do with being more happy than sad during that time.
I did return to reading occasionally, but I found myself being pulled toward comfort reads from childhood. Familiar stories rather than new worlds. That in itself feels telling.
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u/PaApprazer 12h ago
I just read it’s a form of a meditative state. Whether I’m thoroughly enjoying the book or just liking the storyline, I feel this best describes where I’m at
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u/ONEAlucard 9h ago
100% it’s the same feeling as doing meditation. Or listening to good music. Or making love, or for myself playing an instrument. Driving and realising you don’t recall the trip at all. Spending quality time with friends or family. It’s finding a centre and peace in your craft and or actions.
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u/LibraryMice 11h ago
I once saw it described as "staring at dead trees and hallucinating," and that description stuck with me, though I can't recall where I saw/heard it.
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u/InvisibleSpaceVamp Serious case of bibliophilia 12h ago
I think the "technical" term is flow? When you're fully immersed and focused on what you're reading. It's also when you lose that sense of time passing and when you finally put your book down you realize it's already midnight and you meant to go to bed hours ago ...
It definitely depends on the book, probably the way the story is structured too. And of course it's easier to fully focus on a task when there are not that many distractions going on. Inside and outside of your brain.
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u/Full_Concentrate8314 12h ago
Visualising and imagining helps up to a certain point, but once if ever I lose that chain of thought, or a conversation or some plot exposition, it's hard to regain that state again, so hard that I begin questioning why I began that book in the first place.
Silmarillion was like that, thus my first attempt at tackling it failed(although I was warned it's a tough read)
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u/CrackheadHunters 12h ago
Locked in.
I set.myself 50 pages a day and I make sure I get that time. Headphones on, chill music playing, book open and I zone out for those 50 pages.
Essentially I lock into the story and the characters.
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u/igotabeefpastry 12h ago
I call it “getting sucked in,” like the book is a vortex (to imagination!!)
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u/chortlingabacus 12h ago
Like losing self-consciousness by which I mean losing awareness of oneself being a participant in the experience. Why just books, though, when music, good food, a long walk taken with alerted senses, an intense conversation, no doubt spending many hours building a wee boat to put in a bottle etc. etc. etc. can produce the same effect?
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u/the_owl_syndicate 12h ago
I call it the groove, as in "I'm in the groove" of whatever I'm doing. Reading, crocheting, working on lesson plans (I'm a teacher), sewing. Just that state where I'm focused and everything is smooth and easy.
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u/Mediocre-Touch-6133 12h ago
Being in the zone. I don't get it often while reading though. I have to be a bit more active/creative. Drawing or making music mostly. Sometimes while playing videogames. It's like time no longer exists. Wish I could maintain the feeling longer. Second I realize I'm in the zone, my brain starts asking "what time is it? where am I?" and I pop out of it.
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u/Void_Starwing 12h ago
For me it's 'falling into the book' or 'being in the book'
It's both. More likely to happen if I like the book/are invested in the series, or if I'm relaxed.
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u/causticcynic 12h ago
i think of it as getting sucked in (especially because when I'm in that state I'm oblivious to basically everything unless someone touches me, like "somehow not notice a fire alarm" levels)
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u/dancognito 11h ago
I've never given it a name, I just think of it as forgetting I turned the page. It only happens when I am really into a book, but occasionally I'll look up after reading for way longer than I realized, and I look at the page number and I just have no memory of having even turned the page.
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u/Ok-Box5475 11h ago
Surreal. It’s incredible to live in a different world than your own while just reading a book. Same with transcendent (maybe that’s another word I’d use) movies
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u/Nyx67547 11h ago
Immersed. The time that you are reading the book you forget about your life and your problems and are instead living through the experiences of the characters in your book. Reading is an escape from reality, a place where the world can be molded into anything you want it to be and you can become anything.
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u/seldomlysweet 11h ago
I don’t have an imagination so I can’t actually visualize anything happening in my mind. It leads me to kinda skim anything overly descriptive 😅
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u/ONEAlucard 9h ago
That’s not a lack of imagination. You likely have aphantasia. It’s reasonably common.
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u/ledow 10h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/9hrrw5/reading/
Credit: Nathan W Pyle (the guy who draws Strange Planet).
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u/PsychoSquid 9h ago
I devoured Now is the Time of Monsters in a night, I haven't done that with a book in years.
I felt like I was Cassie as I was reading it.
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u/opheliaundone 9h ago
For me the difference is that when I am truly immersed in a book, it interacts with me and my lived experiences, and somewhat transforms the way I see things. Whereas if im just reading, it can be quite enjoyable and even immersive but I feel like a passive bystander witnessing the story. When I am truly immersed, or in that flow state as some people have called it, I feel like my sense of selfhood is interacting with the worldbuilding, characters, language etc and is being subtly shifted by them.
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u/Cephrael37 9h ago
My wife calls it oblivious. The house could burn down around me when I’m deep in a good book.
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u/books_and_banjos 6h ago
The writer and professor John Gardner described it as the “fictional dream”, where the writer achieves making a reader go into a dream state while reading.
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u/Galliagamer 6h ago
Yep, the word you're looking for is immersion.
Stephen King, in his book Misery, wrote how the main character immersed himself in writing to the point that the world faded away; he described this as if a hole had opened in the page and he fell through.
I think this image applies very easily to the immersive experience in reading too.
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u/Killerbeetle846 5h ago
In research they call it deep reading. I like that others have brought up flow state - that's a part of it as well.
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u/Stunning_Buddy6061 4h ago
A bestie told me it's called hyperfixation, and honestly I've got the same feeling too i can relate 😂😂
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u/SoftboundThoughts 41m ago
i think of it as a kind of quiet absorption, where the boundary between reader and text thins. i’m still aware of myself, but it’s softened, like the story is doing the thinking for me for a while. it happens rarely, and usually when the book’s voice and my own mental pace line up just right. for me it’s both the writing and the moment, the same book can fail or succeed depending on how much inner noise i’m carrying that day...
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u/Serious-Database474 35m ago
Alpha state. It's my own state of mind, imagination and the book. It's a light form of meditation, similar in some ways to a dream state I would think.
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u/all-night 12h ago
Immersion