Why “photolepsy” is a great word
Photolepsy is a sudden, vivid memory or profound emotion triggered by a specific quality of light. From the Greek phōs, phōt- ("light") + lēpsis ("a seizing, taking hold"), it is the involuntary, sensory arrest by a luminous particular. Unlike "photography" (the art of recording with light) or "flashback" (any jarring memory), photolepsy is the moment light itself becomes an agent of recollection. It is the slant of late-afternoon sun through a dusty window that returns you, whole, to a childhood attic; the exact cool blue of a streetlamp on wet asphalt that brings a forgotten lover's farewell into sharp focus; or the particular gleam on a porcelain sink that carries the entire weight of a departed presence—the past, not as a story recalled, but as a world instantly and silently inhabited.
Etymology
From Greek 'phōs, phōt-' (light) + 'lēpsis' (a seizing, taking hold); an obscure but attested term in psychological literature.
⚠ A proposed word — surfaced by Lexicurio, not yet established English.
Discovered by Lexicurio, from Greek.