sonder

The realization that there aren't any main characters in the world and everyone has a complex life, thoughts, crushes, relatives, dreams and mind just as your own.

Essentially whilst you're the main character in your life, you're also a background character in someone else's.

The knowledge that both I and you reading this are actual people like the remaining 8 billion of us is making sonder hit me like a truck.

by B O I B O I March 6, 2022

sonder

Sonder is the realization that everybody around you, even strangers, are living a life just as complex as yours. Sometimes your hurting so bad and you feel your the only one. But after all your hardships you start to realize that everybody is so unique and you aren't the only one. Everybody lives are so indescribably different and there is no way you will ever understand their lives. To sum it up you are realizing that your not the only one living with such chaos and complexity. All people lives are unique, strange, chaotic, and complex, just like yours. Your not alone.

I lay in bed so deep in my thoughts, the darkness was all around me while, slowly, the sonder started to kick in. I then realized that not only me, but all seven point fifty three billion people in this world which they are constantly living despite my personal lack of awareness of it.

by _i_found_it_mom_ July 29, 2019

sonder

Briefly, "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." Originally from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which has a lot more beautiful neologism definitions like this you might enjoy.

I felt deep sonder thinking about the all the people who looked up this word along with me.

by rednos January 10, 2013

sonder

the realization that each passerby is living a life as complex as your own.

origin: unknown

"i often sonder about the strangers walking past the coffee shop"

by aImondmiIk June 20, 2019

sonderal

The most amazing person ever

Who is Sonderal? Best person I’ve ever met! (*＾წ＾*) He makes amazing videos and amazing art, Ilt ^^

by RainTRabbit June 15, 2021

Sonderous

A word used to describe the feeling of sonder or experiencing (a moment of) sonder

"He suddenly became aware of his ignorance, looking at the world in sonderous awe.

by T. Kong December 2, 2025

Contiguous Sonder

The realization that your environment beyond just people, animals, or objects affects you indirectly, and that everything around you possesses a form of independent existence or influence.

Walking through the forest, I was struck with a profound sense of contiguous sonder. I realized that not just people but the animals, even the trees live lives of their own that affect me on ways I don't understand

by DerSpinneman April 5, 2025