The Science of Nostalgia: Why We Long for Summers That Never Really Existed
Somewhere in your mind, a summer lives, rent free.
It’s not one you can actually name, and not quite a specific year or moment.
But it’s there…half memory, half myth. Ice pops melting down your wrist while the sound of cicadas as the sky went orange, maybe a sense that time used to move slower, that joy was easier to find, that something was more real than it is now.
Interestingly enough though, that summer probably never existed…not like you remember it.
Come with me as I explore the science of nostalgia, and learn that it’s as complicated, beautiful, and bittersweet as the feeling itself.
What Is Nostalgia, Really?
Nostalgia isn’t just remembering, it’s a longing for the past, usually for a time or place we believe was happier, simpler, or more meaningful. The word itself comes from Greek: Nostos = return home and Algos = pain.
It literally means “the ache for home.” Sort of beautiful in a way I adore, pretty in ways that only words can be.
It’s not just poetic, studies show that nostalgia activates multiple areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex (emotion regulation), the hippocampus (memory), and even the dopamine system, which is the overlord for pleasure and motivation.
So, nostalgia is both emotional and chemical, it’s memory laced with meaning, and it’s one of the only emotions that makes us cry and smile at the same time.
Of all the seasons, summer haunts us the most. For many of us out there, summer symbolized freedom…the break from school, the bike rides until dark, the sense that life had space to breathe after grinding away the rest of the year at school. There were long days without plans and sunscreen-slicked skin. Lawn chairs and lightning bugs while you planned games of laser tag with your sisters and cousins (maybe that’s just me). In those moments, we were often more present than we realized.
Even if your actual summers were chaotic or boring or hard, your brain most likely reconstructs the best moments, editing out the mundane and preserving the golden. This phenomenon is called the “positivity bias” of memory, and it's stronger with childhood recollections. So when we think about “the good old summers,” we’re not always remembering reality. We’re remembering how we wanted life to feel.
When you summon a memory steeped in warmth (a backyard laugh, the hum of cicadas, the scent of Coppertone on your skin) your brain doesn’t just replay it, it relives it. As it does, it lights up like a firework show beneath your skull. Dopamine floods in, which is the reward chemical that says, oh yeah, this was good, let’s remember more. Oxytocin wraps around it, which is the hormone of bonding, touch, home, and my personal favorite hormone. Serotonin rises to the surface as well, calming the waves, making sure you feel safe here. Endorphins flood the brain beneath it all, softening the sting of time with a glowy haze.
These are the same chemicals released when you fall in love or when someone you love laughs. It’s why the world feels soft for no reason sometimes. So yes…nostalgia is a kind of high. It soothes the loneliness and buffers the burnout while it steadies you in grief. It's not just emotional, it’s chemical comfort.
But here’s the secret most people don’t say out loud…
What You Remember Was Never That Perfect
Your brain doesn’t store memories in jars. It tells stories and rebuilds them sometimes from the ground up.
Which means the memory of that July evening on your best friend’s porch, it might not have ever really happened.
Yeah, the sky was pink and you both were barefoot, time slowed down as you giggled together, but also maybe it rained.
It’s possible your dad yelled that night and you felt hollow and didn’t know why.
But your brain remembered the music, the possibility, the feeling and turned it into something golden. That doesn’t make it totally untrue, it makes it meaningful.
We reach backward not because we’re broken and sad stiffs who like to live in the past, but because we’re built that way. Researchers at the University of Southampton found that nostalgia boosts self-esteem, makes us feel less alone, and calms the fear that life might not make sense anymore. In times of uncertainty (wars, illness, heartbreak, transition, you name it) your brain dips into the past like warm water. I don’t mean to escape, that’s not fully possible, I mean to anchor. It’s more like your brains way of trying to say to you that you’ve known joy before…you’ll find it again.
That’s why nostalgia blooms during political chaos, economic stress (I always think about vacations when my bank account is looking particularly sad), global loss, or quiet personal unravelings.
You’re not stuck, you’re just remembering how to feel whole.
Nostalgia Can Become a Trap
Not all looking back leads to healing, and sometimes it keeps you from walking forward.
When nostalgia turns into constant comparison, bitterness toward the now, longing that never engages, or grief disguised as golden days…it becomes a loop. A story where nothing can live up to “then”, and you start believing that your best moments already happened. That’s not memory though, that’s mourning a version of yourself you forgot you still are.
If you let it, nostalgia will guide you; not to the past, but to what still matters.
Create rituals, not replicas, you really don’t need to relive 1999, ask instead: what made it feel sacred?
Was it stillness or the spontaneity, light on water? Recreate the essence, not the frame.
You can also miss what was…without rejecting what actually is at the same time. You’re allowed to grieve the simplicity of being a kid before the crushing weight of being an adult came to call. You can still find beauty here too though. The past was magical and messy, so is now.
Try to capture moments now like future nostalgia. Pick up an instant camera or start a tiny journal.
Don’t wait to long for new memories, make this summer worthy of remembering now.
Why Summers That Never Existed Still Belong to You
So, you didn’t get the barefoot, perfect, magical childhood summer, and the one you dream about is patchworked from movies, dreams, and fragments of days that never really happened. That doesn’t really matter though, what nostalgia shows you (beautifully and sometimes painfully) is what you’re still longing for right now, today.
It reveals the shape of your soul’s hunger for connection, freedom, softness, something that lingers. You don’t need to go back in time, you need to bring that feeling forward.
Not as a copy because you’ll never be 12 again, I’m sorry to tell you, but as an echo, a hint of what still lives in you.
Related Reads You Might Enjoy:
Living Batteries: How Bio-Energy is Powering the Next Generation
The Science of Awe: What Happens When Wonder Floods the Brain
Feeling Worthless? Here’s Why the Odds of You Existing Are the Most Beautiful Miracle
If You’re Longing for a Summer That Never Was…
You're not alone. I do it too, your neighbors do it, your friends and family do it, we get it. Your memories…half-true, half-painted…are invitations to rest and reimagine. I’d like to think our brains are trying their best to rebuild the magic.
This summer might not be perfect, but it can still be yours.
