How does reading make you feel?

I have been asked many times why I read a lot and why it feels too much like an addiction and lately, I feel like it is. But despite this feeling, I will not give it up for anything because it feels too good to give up and how does it feel you ask?

I joined a book addicts group a couple of months ago and I asked my friends in the group how it feels like for them and here is what they have to say about it so you don’t think I’m the only crazy person in the world.

Step into another person’s world

Books are windows into other worlds, lives, environments and much more and they don’t end at the edge of reality, they take you farther than any man can and bring you into situations you would never have found yourself in to begin with.

It’s like I get to literally walk in someone else’s shoes. Live someone else’s life for a change – Chibuzo

 

Reading a good book is similar to living and experiencing another life. It’s why I read mostly epic fantasy. There’s something about the genre that ignites my imagination, sweeping me off to strange lands, to experience the violence of battle, swords clashing, the noise of screaming horses and dying men, to meet strange people, beautiful princesses, valiant heroes and evil warlocks, and even stranger creatures like elves, dwarves and goblins. The entire experience is the only real magic in the world- the ability to transport one to another dimension – Ojo

 

A good book is a chance to be someone else entirely, a hero, a villain, have super powers, travel the world. In essence it’s an escape from our own reality…- Nomcy

Let your imagination run wild

This is an understatement especially for people like me who visualize rather than just breeze through things. I imagine on a level so real that I can sometimes smell the seas of those worlds, revel in the bazaars, visit taverns, move through the crowds like a local without living the comfort of my bed.

A good book ignites my imagination making me want for more even when it’s done. It gives me a chance to see through someone else’s eyes…a different point of view – Peace

Feel intense emotions

Oh, this part of reading is probably the most captivating of them all. I feel with them, laugh with them, cry with them, fight alongside them, fight with them and hate them. It is fascinating how much you delve into these fictional characters that they become part of your life.

When I’m so enraptured with a story, that all I’m focusing on is what is going to happen next, reading each page back to back non-stop and when I’m done I feel happiness floating all around me both in and out, yet sad I have discovered all the secrets the stories hold. – Lara  (https://jukejam.wordpress.com/)

 

There are no fitting words to describe a good book, because the feelings evoked are often intense. Conversely, a good book must have made me think and rendered me still transitorily. Transporting me from the comfort of my reading position right into the story; either seeing the story as a raconteur or as one of the characters, knowing the exact state(s) of their minds/circumstance at certain points in the book. – Biola

Escape

I began reading and watching movies because I needed to escape the realities of life and here I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to become someone other than myself or several someones sometimes and I have not looked back ever since.

I started reading as a means of escape before I actually started enjoying it.- Ezekiel

P.S: If you have never picked up a book before today, you are terribly missing an experience that could change you forever.