Reexperiencing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The experience of mentally reliving a past event as if it is happening again
2. A psychological state where one vividly recalls and feels a previous occurrence anew
3. The process of recalling a former event with intense sensory or emotional clarity

Etymology: "Reexperiencing" is the present participle and gerund of the verb "reexperience," formed by attaching the prefix "re-," meaning "again," to "experience." The base word traces back through Old French "esperience" to Latin "experientia," a trial or proof, from "experiri," to try, and it is that older sense of testing and trying that the prefix now repeats: to reexperience something is to go through a trial of it once more. The added "re-" carries the meaning of a second passage through the same event. Because "experience" already covers both the event itself and the feeling it leaves behind, "reexperiencing" in its psychological sense describes the mind replaying an earlier occurrence so vividly that the original feeling returns, as if the moment were happening again. The prefix does the work of distinguishing a remembered event from a lived one, while the root keeps the sense of having tried or undergone something directly.

Synonyms: reliving, revisiting