Until recently scholars have placed the emergence of perezhivaniya in the later stages of childhood or in adolescence. This article clarifies the meaning of the term perezhivanie by describing perezhivaniya across the life span. We also delineate stages of perezhivaniya. We take into account the work of a range of scholars and artists whose studies of the properties of perezhivaniya have converged, often without their using, or possibly even being aware of, the term perezhivanie. We derive our claims from empirical material from a Swedish preschool and a playworld that took place in an elementary school in the United States.