What makes your heart skip a beat with wonder? When was the last time you felt truly amazed by something magnificent?
Psychology researcher and professor Dacher Keltner contends that experiencing awe can benefit your life in remarkable ways. From music and art to nature and spirituality, countless opportunities exist to feel wonder and connection to something greater than ourselves.
Read more to get Keltner’s advice on how to experience awe from his book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.
How to Experience Awe
If awe is so beneficial, how can we feel it during the daily humdrum of work and sleep? Keltner argues that it isn’t hard at all. Opportunities for awe are everywhere, and you don’t have to book a vacation to experience this most uplifting of emotions. Keltner explains how to experience awe through art and music, natural wonders, spirituality, and the wondrous things we see everyday people doing when we slow down enough to notice.
(Shortform note: In addition to the uplifting, transcendental benefits of awe, experiencing wonder on a regular basis may cultivate a more focused and rational outlook on the world. In The Daily Laws, Robert Greene explains that because of the modern world’s constant distractions, it’s easy to worry about things that don’t really matter. Greene says that if you reconnect with your childhood sense of wonder and reopen your eyes to the grand scale of life, you can focus on what’s most important to you and feel more motivated to achieve your life’s purpose. To do this, Greene recommends becoming an explorer by visiting important places from your childhood, traveling to natural areas without technology, and studying different cultures.)
Music and Art
Keltner argues that music has a unique ability to inspire awe, connect us to our emotions and cultural identities, and create a sense of unity among listeners. Music transcends cultural boundaries and speaks to the common themes of human life. Music, unlike spoken language, isn’t bound to literal meaning and can therefore represent emotions in unique ways. Keltner’s research shows that people can reliably identify the emotional content in music from different cultures. One hypothesis that explains this is that musicians express emotions by mimicking the natural vocalizations humans make when feeling emotion, such as the universal “wow” of awe mentioned before.
Visual arts arguably encompass a wider spectrum than music, including architecture, paintings, sculptures, and even the design of intricate machines. The skill, creativity, and complexity of their creation often leaves viewers in a state of wonder. More than that, art expresses feelings and ideas that might be hard to convey through other means. Keltner suggests that art reveals underlying patterns in nature and human experience that evoke a transcendent sense of connection to the world beyond our personal lives. Though art is embedded in culture, its visual elements reach across cultural boundaries, from modern architectural marvels to cave paintings dating back thousands of years, uniting us all in shared visual awe.
The Natural World
In addition to man-made awe-inspiring sights and sounds, natural phenomena frequently elicit awe, from storms and earthquakes to landscapes and night skies. Keltner writes that when exposed to the power of nature, people often feel a sense of their own smallness. Nevertheless, Keltner emphasizes that reconnecting with nature and the awe it evokes can salve many modern ills, both physical and emotional. Studies show that our bodies and brains are wired to respond positively to nature. Similar research shows that even a brief exposure to the outdoors can increase altruism, improve reasoning skills, and nurture more inclusive views toward other people.
Keltner says that in addition to wonder, nature can evoke sudden insights or realizations that transform your way of thinking. Whether these insights are personal, spiritual, or scientific, Keltner suggests that the common thread among them is realizing that we’re all part of a larger, world-defining network, from the miniscule to the universal. Such “revelatory awe” lets us see the world in terms of relationships, patterns, and processes rather than as separate, static objects and people. When confronted by nature, scientists, philosophers, theologians, and everyday people can suddenly view themselves and everything around them as part of a unified, universal order.
Spirituality
While some experiences of awe are sparked from without, there is another whose source is largely internal: Keltner describes spiritual awe as arising from religious and mystical experiences. Like the feelings evoked by nature, spiritual awe leads to both a diminution of the self and a feeling of connection to something greater. Keltner explains that spiritual awe leads to changes in brain activity, particularly in the regions that govern self-awareness. Though spiritual awe is felt by people of all religions, when we feel it, we usually interpret it through our own faith traditions, or lack thereof.
However, religion isn’t the only path to experiencing spiritual awe. Keltner suggests that you can achieve states of mystical wonder using psychedelic substances like psilocybin, peyote, or LSD. Research has shown that the mystical experiences produced by these substances can lead to increased openness, reduced anxiety and depression, and other positive psychological changes, similar to those measured in people who’ve had profound religious experiences. Keltner reports that a majority of these studies’ participants describe their psychedelic experiences as one of the most important events of their lives.
In whatever way spiritual awe is achieved, Keltner notes its potential benefits, including improved well-being and positive social behavior. However, he acknowledges that faith communities sometimes use spiritual awe to justify harmful behaviors, such as increased tribalism or abusive power structures. He suggests that contemporary spiritual leaders should work to lessen these negative aspects while cultivating the beneficial elements of spiritual awe. Overall, Keltner presents mystical experiences, however they’re achieved, as potentially transformative events that can lead to significant positive psychological changes.
The Circle of Life
In all of Keltner’s research, he found that one source of awe was by far more common than any of the others—awe brought about by the lives of other people. Keltner records that, across cultural boundaries, most of our realizations of awe and wonder are tied to the cycle of human life itself, from birth to death and the astounding things we do between.
Keltner argues that human childbirth and development are unique in the animal kingdom. Since human infants are especially vulnerable, raising children brings with it many awe-inspiring moments, such as when a child takes her first steps. Even more than these, people often feel awe during childbirth, which can trigger profound shifts of perspective regarding life, responsibility, and interpersonal connection. In childhood, the sense of wonder goes both ways—children feel awe as they first explore their world, and adults get to see the world through their eyes. Therefore, Keltner argues the importance of providing children with many chances to experience awe for themselves.
The story of human awe doesn’t end there. Keltner recounts that we experience awe when other people are brave, are uncommonly kind, or fight to overcome a challenge. These moments aren’t limited to grand gestures or extraordinary circumstances, such as when firemen run into a burning building. Instead, Keltner says these can be found in everyday acts of kindness, courage, and perseverance, such as when a teacher comforts a crying child or when a group of neighbors band together to preserve a historic community landmark. Such uplifting acts can inspire and transform us, even during difficult circumstances.
Finally, Keltner writes that facing death can evoke awe and cause us to reflect on the mysteries of existence. While awe might not be the first emotion you think of when contemplating your own mortality, Keltner asserts that when we face our life’s end, we can still experience awe by embracing the unknown with openness rather than fear. Even for those observing a loved one’s passing, there can be moments of wonder and insight into the cycle of life. Keltner concludes that simply by being present as our loved ones pass away, we can find unexpected beauty and meaning in life’s final moments.
