Standing on a Vermont hillside watching the total solar eclipse was the purest experience of awe that I can recall having. As the moon slid slowly in front of the sun, it made concrete the fact that earth is not some solid, sedentary rock, but a ball flying through a huge universe in a dance with our sun, moon, and other planets. I also felt the temperature drop noticeably during the few minutes of the eclipse. I thought of how incredibly powerful the sun’s light and heat are and that just a brief darkening caused such a big change. The energy being consumed and emanated by our star is mind-boggling. Without it all life on earth would be dead within weeks. I came to understand why some people travel around the world to witness eclipses; the experience of awe was transformative.
Awe is an emotion not often discussed in psychology or elsewhere, yet as Dacher Keltner describes in his book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life” (Penguin Press, 2023), it is powerful and important for our ability to find meaning and joy in life. His premise is that awe transforms our sense of self and relationship to the world.
He describes awe as an emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand. It can be the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.
He asks: What is an experience of awe that you have had, when you encountered a vast mystery that transcends your understanding of the world?
To quibble, I would argue that awe doesn’t transcends my understanding, but expands it. Lao Tzu wrote: “From wonder into wonder, existence opens.”
I have for years tried to find awe in small things, everyday experiences. I enjoy noticing and perhaps taking a photograph of miniature natural scenes — the single red leaf perched on a deep green mossy log, the gnarly log wedged in a sandy beach, or a closeup of contrasting shades of peeling eucalyptus bark.
I enjoyed Keltner’s focus on the moral aspect of awe, which was a new concept for me. He writes that awe quiets the ego. He reports studies that show awe impacts regions of the brain associated with excesses of ego, including self-criticism, anxiety, and depression. Awe led to increased connections between the Default Mode Network (our automatic responding) and a region of brain (cingulate cortex) involved in our sense of reward.
Mystical awe, induced by experiences such as meditation, prayer, and psilocybin use, reduced activation in the DMN. It decreased competitive thinking, comparative thinking, while increasing collaborative and interdependent thinking.
“How does awe transform us? By quieting the nagging, self-critical, overbearing, status-conscious voice of our self, or ego, and empowering us to collaborate, to open our minds to wonders, and to see the deep patterns of life.” (p. xix)
I appreciated this idea that experiences of awe dissolve boundaries between our individual selves and others, so that perhaps the true nature of collective is revealed.
Keltner noted awe can be felt when we witness other people’s courage, kindness, strength or ability to overcome difficulty. So we can be moved to feel awe by moral beauty, exceptional virtue, character, ability, or purity of goodness in action and intention.
Intriguingly, he notes studies that show awe can even make us healthier. “Awe may reduce the inflammation produced by our immune system, in particular that which arises in response to chronic threat, rejection, and loneliness. How? Why might the wonders of life shift this problematic inflammation? Because in many ways, awe is the antithesis to the social threats that cause the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines.” (p. 117)
“Pro-inflammatory cytokines are released in immune cells throughout your body to kill invading bacteria and viruses. In the short run, cytokines heat up your body to kill the pathogen, leaving you feeling sluggish, vague, achy, and disoriented as the body marshals resources to fend off the attack and recuperate. The trouble, though, is that the human mind treats social threats like an invading pathogen: Studies find that social rejection, shame, being the target of prejudice, chronic stress, loneliness, and threats to loved ones elevate cytokine levels in your body.
Awe, by contrast heightens our awareness of being part of a community, of feeling embraced and supported by others. Feeling awe, we place the stresses of life within larger contexts.” (p. 117)
Keltner and others then tested this hypothesis in a study that showed that awe can help avoid chronic inflammation and diseases of inflammation such as depression, chronic anxiety heart disease, autoimmune problems, and despair.
He also found that being in nature, what he called “wild awe,” was healthy. “The sights, sounds, scents, and tastes of nature lead to awe-related vagus nerve activation and reduce fight-or-flight cardiovascular response, blood pressure, cortisol, and inflammation” (p. 127)
Another study found that children diagnosed with ADHD had improved concentration after only one walk in a park.
“Wild awe returns us to the idea that we are part of something much larger than the self, one member of many species in an interdependent, collaborating natural world.” (p. 138)
He also examines awe through music, visual art, and mystical and sacred experiences.
“Awe begins with our miraculous ears, ears, nose, tongue, and skin responding to the images, sounds, scents, tastes, and touches of the eight wonders of life. Our sensory systems represent these encounters in neurochemical patterns that make their way to the prefrontal cortex, where we interpret the wonders of life with the symbolic systems that are language and culture. Being moved by awe triggers the release of oxytocin and dopamine, a calming of stress-related physiology, and vagus nerve response, systems of millions of cells working to enable us to connect, be open and explore. (p. 248)
What is the unifying purpose of awe? He says: “Awe integrates us into the systems of life — communities, collectives, the natural environment, and forms of culture, such as music, art, religion, and our mind’s efforts to make sense of all its webs of ideas. The epiphany of awe is that its experience connects our individual selves with the vast forces of life. In awe we understand we are part of many things that are much larger than the self.” (p. 249)
Awe also encourages us to wonder about the great questions of live: What is live? Why am I alive? Why do we all die? What is the purpose of it all?
I would advocate that we take time to practice awe. We can increase wonder, openness, and curiosity by embracing mystery, astonishment, devotion, and sacred, whether that is in the Grand Canyon or in your child’s paint-smudged handprint artwork.