Size does matter! Awe - the magic of witnessing the vast

"Possessing the sense of self inevitably makes us bear its weight and go through every pain inflicted upon it. Perhaps every once in a while, we all need a temporary journey beyond the self - feeling our physical and psychological existence dissolving and merging with our surroundings, vanishing into nothingness, and letting a greater force carry our sufferings".

I recently found these notes on my phone that I recorded back in 2022. I wrote them down as a spontaneous, philosophical explanation of why people enjoy going to raves and music festivals, and why using recreational drugs such as MDMA and LSD is a thing on those occasions. Having spent almost five years in California, it's no surprise that I've attended many of those events. As someone who adores observing people, one thing that has always caught my attention is how the crowd behave on a collective level when an epic hit is dropped. It's a form of synchrony on a magnificent scale - thousands of people singing together, holding their hands high, and swaying together side to side like an entire population of sea anemones. That somehow always reminds me of the consciousness transfer ritual depicted in James Cameron's Avatar, where the entire tribe of the Na'vis connects their neural whips to the roots of the Tree of Souls, while enchanting and moving together. Witnessing that collective rhythm at music festivals always gives me chills and a complex feeling - a combination of being moved, mesmerized, and overwhelmed (sometimes it's so moving that I feel a sob tries to force its way out). At that time, I couldn't comprehend what I was experiencing and why it occurred. Now, having explored ample topics in positive psychology, I realize that my experience was closely tied to an emotion called awe.

What is Awe?

Awe occurs when we experience something so vast that it challenges or revolutionizes our existing understanding of the world. This experience of vastness can be material or abstract - witnessing the Nicaragua Falls or the skeleton of a T-rex, being immersed in a collective activity that involves a large group of people (like how I was at the music festivals), hearing a magnificent soundtrack by Hans Zimmers, being hit by a sudden epiphany, or feeling orgasm for the first time. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell - awe appeals to us through all these channels. Dr.Dacher Keltner from UC Berkeley, one of the most prominent researchers on awe, has identified "8 Wonders of Life" that commonly evoke awe - moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spirituality & religion, life & death, and epiphany. Going back to my experience at the music festival, the awe I was feeling would be mostly associated with collective effervescence, or the sense of harmony when people are engaged in a shared purpose. The "vast" element of that experience would be the tens of thousands of people who were present with me at the venue, a scale that greatly surpassed all of my previous experiences.

How do we know we are in awe? Vastness is often associated with feeling overwhelmed by something unknown, something that potentially threatens and crumbles us. Thus, the most iconic signs of awe include feeling goosebumps (a classical fear response), exhibiting a facial expression with eyes and mouth wide-opened, and producing vocal sounds such as "wooo" and "wow". You might also feel completely absorbed in that experience (or "living in the moment") and an elevating euphoria. Below are a few experiences corresponding to some of the "8 Wonders of Life" that induced awe in my life.

1. Moral beauty A video of hundreds of medical students at the Elbert Einstein College of Medicine erupted in joy and tears after retired professor Ruth Gottsman announced to donate 1 billion dollars left by her deceased husband to make the college tuition-free from now onward.
   

2. Collective effervescence My first time attending EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival), where I was surrounded by tens of thousands of people who dressed in stunningly creative outfits and collectively engaged in the shared purpose of appreciating the music
   

3. Nature: Being immersed by an entire field of tulips when I traveled to Holland
   

4. Music + Visual design: Seeing the tidal wave scene from Interstellar while hearing Hans Zimmer's "Mountain" played in the background
   

The Magic of Awe

How does awe contribute to psychological and physical well-being? First, on a physiological level, research has shown that awe is associated with reduced inflammation, deactivated sympathetic nervous system (which calms our body down), and increased oxytocin release (a hormone associated with physical touch and intimacy)(Monroy & Keltner, 2023). Next, it is crucial to point out that, along with gratitude and compassion, awe is categorized as a self-transcendent emotion, meaning it shifts our attention from focusing on ourselves to focusing on the external world, or what's beyond the self. Thus, this self-transcendent nature can potentially reset and liberate our state of mind. Think of it this way: when we are hit by a vast, awe-evoking experience, our sense of self becomes small; this in turn pulls us away from the "noises" of our internal environment that we ruminate on - a recent break-up, a presentation for the next day, or a project that we've been stuck on. Experiencing awe is like pressing a button that temporarily clears and overrides the "browsing history" of our brain, freeing us from the chatter in our skull, and allowing us to enter the flow of what's in front of us. Third, awe makes us more prosocial and self-less. When we feel small and pay less attention to ourselves, we re-evaluate the weight of other people. We might, for example, feel a higher sense of humility (Steller et al., 2018). The deflation of the sense of self also makes us less narcissistic, more generous, and more helpful to those around us. Finally, awe potentially stimulates our mind's growth and development by promoting curiosity and a sense of meaning. Perhaps awe catalyzes the realization of how trivial our existence is. A degree from Harvard, a senior position at Google, and a net worth of seven million dollars - all rendered trivial in the face of vast beings such as time, nature, and death. After all, our existence merely accounts for an extremely tiny fraction of our galaxy, and there are more galaxies in the universe than the grains of sand on a beach. Consequently, this realization can become a momentum that reshapes our understanding of the world and prompts us to be curious about experiences external to the self and to be appreciative of the underlying systems that serve as the bedrock of our existence..

Diving deeper into the diminished sense of self

Now it's time to revisit my philosophical explanation of why it may be beneficial to let awe take us on a "temporary journey beyond the self" every once in a while, just as my experience at EDC took me.

The optimal distinctiveness theory states that humans have two fundamental needs to fulfill: (1) the need to be unique and distinct from others, and (2) the need to feel belonging to a larger community. My philosophical explanation is also based on this idea of "balancing two types of existential needs": that we all have (1) the need for the sense of self to be embodied by something concrete and specific (e.g., this can be achieved by pursuing and possessing our identities such as being a brother, a student, or a musician), and (2) the need for us to be freed from the "weight" of those identities and feel supported by something vast (such as religion and nature). On one end, we feel secure by putting much effort into finding our identity through what we are and do - our major, occupation, socioeconomic status, race, gender, and passion. On the other end, the responsibilities, norms, and values that correspond to those identities add to our psychological and spiritual weight. We talk and market our identities at networking events; we evaluate our worth by observing and asking about others' identities; we fight and defend our identities when they are criticized or misunderstood; we self-examine if what we say and do aligns with our identities. These acts in our day-to-day lives make us become hyper-focused on the self. When left unchecked, we spawn maladaptive tendencies such as narcissism, pathological social comparison, inferiority complex, and rumination.

 I believe awe is a doorway that speaks to our second existential need - to be freed from the "weight" of those identities and feel carried by something vast. The diminished sense of self that awe induces pushes us to face something beyond ourselves, something more neutral, eternal, and divine. Don't get me wrong. The sudden experience of being challenged by something vast and unknown can be scary. It may make us feel powerless since the relative size and weight of our identities becomes perceptually small. Just imagine feeling the dream job that you've clung to define yourself suddenly become tiny in the face of a new wave of awe-inducing AI technology, or your understanding about the origin of the universe being completely shattered when the scientific community makes a revolutionary discovery. The key ingredients of awe - the vast and the unknown - can make our world crumble. It can even evoke a nihilistic feeling that nothing matters.

That being said, there are also positive things that we can potentially harness from the experience of awe. Our problems in life (most of which are associated with the self) temporarily depreciate and become perceptually non-threatening, even non-existent. Meanwhile, we might realize that our existence is carried by a larger entity - mother nature, virtues, god, etc. As a result, our minds become free, open, and lightweight. We might start to see more possibilities, adopt a more hopeful and optimistic attitude, and feel fresh ideas surfacing. We might also discover new insights about the self and realize what's truly meaningful to us, given all the "noises" generated by our identities are temporarily cleared by awe.

It would be interesting for scientists to explore the relationship between awe and ego death, or a complete loss of subjective self-identity commonly experienced after taking psychedelics. In fact, one study has found that one's proneness to awe contributes to the personality growth stimulated by microdosing psychedelics. Furthermore, research by Lyubomirsky (2022) has proposed that recreational drugs such as MDMA can potentially facilitate intimacy and social connections. Thus, it would also be interesting to examine whether this "bringing down the interpersonal walls" function of MDMA facilitates the experiencing of social-related awe such as collective effervescence.

Concluding Thoughts

We live in a world where cultivating self-interests and identities is propagated to be the route to a better life. However, when these pursuits are left unchecked, they crystalize into maladaptive thoughts and behaviors that add to our stress and crush our spirit. When you begin to feel those tendencies trapping and sabotaging you, maybe it's time to connect to something vast and let awe reset your state of mind. How can we use awe as a self-care tool? Try practicing the following tips and asking yourself these questions:

1. Reflect on your past experiences with awe. What stimulus were you exposed to? Was it a scene from a movie, a verse from a song, a view from the top of a mountain, a sudden epiphany that came to you at the church, or a selfless act that changed the lives of hundreds of people? Which of the "8 Wonders of Life" was present at that moment? Do you remember displaying any physical signs of experiencing awe, such as having goosebumps?
   

2. Proactively seek out vast experiences. Ask yourself, do some of the "8 Wonders of Life" feel more awe-inducing than others to you? Why do you think that's the case?
   

3. Once you figure out what vast circumstances and stimuli speak to you the most, think about the future. How can you strategically expose yourself to them when you are trapped by stress and worries?