The benefits aren’t just insight. Hagioptasia can motivate & enrich our lives, but it also misleads through glamour, false ideals, & the disappointment & confusion when hagioptasic dreams fail to be realised. Understanding the mechanism helps us to use it wisely, rather than be steered by it.

I’m not claiming misjudgement or invalid experience. I’m pointing to a recurring perceptual tendency where a sense of specialness can emerge or intensify later - even for periods judged as ordinary at the time. That’s what I’m calling hagioptasia.

I’m not claiming objectivity. Hagioptasia is precisely about a 'subjective' perceptual quality - the felt specialness that can emerge or intensify later, even when we judged the experience as ordinary at the time.

The problem with the “it was genuinely special then” explanation is that the same 'specialness' often appears later in periods we explicitly judged as ordinary at the time.
That suggests a perceptual overlay, not a simple comparison.

Agreed. I hope you'll enjoy this:
Why Smart People Still Get Spooked by Nothing hagioptasia.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/w...

But would you agree that spookiness or eeriness is phenomenologically distinct from other types of fears?

Do you have a formal, psychology-based definition of 'spookiness' - perhaps one that distinguishes it from related concepts like 'terror' or 'fear' in a way that relates to social engagement?

What a horribly patronising thing to say!

Not a grudge, but genuine concern about her huge influence.

Are those the reasons why you wanted a new roof?

A wonderful snap!

Have you ever heard of hagioptasia?