The science of awe… the most neglected emotion
Tuesday, October 10, 2023. This one is for my new friend and housemate, Meg, who asked about hiking trails. Revised Sunday, October 22, 2023. Because what is awe without poetry?
Awe is not an emotion that is particularly well integrated into the human experience. That’s too bad, because things have been particularly awful lately…
In this blog post, I’ll be discussing 3 studies on the emotion of awe…
Research continually indicates that the positive feeling from enjoying the beauty of nature, (such as living in the gorgeous Berkshires), or getting lost in a painting, or in the delightful improvisations of a Jazz combo, can actually help protect the body against heart disease, arthritis, depression, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
The first study shows that a sense of awe is anti-inflammatory…
Dr. Dacher Keltner, one of the study’s authors, tried to explain the biology of awe:
“That awe, wonder and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests that the things we do to experience these emotions — a walk in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art — have a direct influence upon health and life expectancy.”
How the study was conducted
Across two different experiments, 200 humans recorded their daily emotions during the day, including the extent to which they felt the following emotions:
Amusement.
Awe.
Compassion.
Contentment.
Joy.
Love.
Pride.
The cheeks of all the study subjects were also swabbed to measure the cytokine Interleukin 6, which is a marker of inflammation.
The results, published in the journal Emotion, showed that experiencing positive emotions was linked to lower inflammation marker levels (Stellar et al., 2015).
But the eccentric emotion of awe, in particular, had an unusually strong correlation with lower cytokine levels.
Dr. Jennifer Stellar, the study’s lead author, said:
“Awe is associated with curiosity and a desire to explore, suggesting antithetical behavioral responses to those found during inflammation, where individuals typically withdraw from others in their environment.”
Depression & awe
You probably noticed that I write a sh*tload on this blog about depression. It’s one of the most important topic for family therapy thought leaders to discuss with their gentle readers.
We now strongly suspect that during depression, the pro-inflammatory cytokines are thought to be essential, as they tend to block and otherwise interfere with hormones and neurotransmitters, (such as our old friends dopamine and serotonin). This is probably why clinical depression fu*ks with memory, sleep, appetite and mood so profoundly.
People who are depressed have been found to have higher levels of certain inflammatory cytokines.
However, unfortunately, this research couldn’t sort out what causes what. Dr. Stellar elaborated:
“It is possible that having lower cytokines makes people feel more positive emotions, or that the relationship is bidirectional.”
Here’s why this is so interesting. How many studies can establish a pathway to positive emotions, which, in turn, can fine-tune a boost in your body’s defenses against both mental and physical illness?
That’s why I’m awestruck by the power of awe…
The next study tells us how 40% of humans might be able to feel more awe…
It’s been estimated that a sizable chunk of humanity, (roughly 40%, give or take), are thought to be able to reliably remember their dreams upon arising.
If you’re one of those humans who is able to remember their dreams, you have an awful heads up. Thinking about your dreams positively can help people at work by promoting the emotion of awe, a study finds.
Why is this important? Awe is an awfully underutilized emotion. The feeling of awe from a recalled dream narrative tends to carry over into the working day. This increases resilience and your ability to make progress on your goals.
This data emerged from a study that examined the positive spillover impact of recalling dreams during waking life, particularly at work.
If you’re one of the 40% of humans who reliably remember their dreams upon waking, this study suggests that you’ll get a boost in your resilience in your work environment.
Dr. Casher Belinda, the study’s first author, said:
“Similar to having an epiphany, we found that connecting the dots between dreams and reality gives rise to awe — an emotion that sparks a tendency to think about ourselves and our experiences in the grand scheme of things.
This makes subsequent work stressors seem less daunting, bolstering resilience and productivity throughout the workday.”
People experience awe when they undergo something vast — something that challenges or shifts their understanding or way of thinking about things in a profound, enduring fashion.
These experiences can come as a variety of different experiences; some are physical, such as when witnessing a spectacular meteor shower, or cognitive, such as contemplating the implications of a magnificent new idea.
What I found so fascinating about awe is that it often bleeds into on the extremes or upper limits of other emotions, for example, it’s not uncommon for some humans to experience awe as a collateral experience of either profound gratitude or admiration.
Dreams are conceptually vast experiences that have a striking capacity to elicit feelings of awe. Their detachment from the contours of ordinary experience can make them challenging to remember.
How the study was conducted
The researchers recorded 5,000 reports of the dreams of humans with full-time jobs.
While dreaming might seem to have little to do with working for a living, strangely enough, the impact of a remembered dream has staying power in the mind during working hours..
Dr. Belinda advised:
“We arrive at work shortly after interacting with deceased loved ones, narrowly escaping or failing to escape traumatic events and performing acts of immeasurable ability.
Regardless of our personal beliefs about dreams, these experiences bleed into and affect our waking lives — including how productive we are at work.”
The key seems to be ascribing meaning to dreams rather than simply dismissing them as the random effusions of an out-of-control brain.
For those who like to explore their dreams, creating a dream journal might be a good idea, Dr Belinda said:
“…a dream journal allows meaningful dreams to stick with you.
Recording dreams gives them repeated opportunities to elicit beneficial emotions and make connections between dreams.”
The upside of awful nightmares…
While the previous study did not investigate the question of what happens when you remember a nightmare at work, of having nightmares about work.
But other research has revealed a protective aspect to nightmares; they may help prepare us for real-life fear-inducing situations.
Memento Mori
The ancient stoics had a mental discipline for remembering the inevitability of death called Memento Mori.
The ancient stoics believed that humans would respond better to unfortunate events when they have emotionally prepared for hardship in advance.
Researchers say that humans dream of anxious situations during the night at least in part, to buck us up to deal with the real anxiety-prone situations we deal with at work everyday.
Apparently even bad dreams are a part of God’s plan to enhance our situational awareness.
And finally, what astronauts can teach us about awe…
The last study is cross-cultural research on astronauts. The research indicates that an abiding sense of awe and wonder can help people feel more connected to one another and help reframe problems with more utility.
What I liked about this study was that it wasn’t about the astronauts. It was a study about awe. The researchers assumed that astronauts who have seen the Earth from space could provide a clue as to how we can all feel more awe and wonder.
We now know that the view from so far away from the Earth provokes a rare and unique phenomenon called the Overview Effect.
Dr. David Yaden, the study’s first author, said:
“We watch sunsets whenever we travel to beautiful places to get a little taste of this kind of experience.
These astronauts are experiencing something far more extreme.
By studying the more-extreme version of a general phenomenon, you can often learn more about it.”
The researchers analyzed the reports of many astronauts from all over the world…
Each astronaut, no matter their culture of origin, described their own experience of seeing the Earth from space for extended periods of time. Something only a handful of humans have ever experienced.
The astronauts, without fail, described it as a profound, life-changing, and ineffable experience.
These astronauts used words like connectedness, vastness, perception and unity. What I found so intriguing was that we must not understand these astronauts too quickly.
It would be a mistake to assume that these words conveyed religious or spiritual overtones. Quite the opposite. The experience was very secular for the astronauts, Dr Yaden elaborated:
“Space is so fascinating because it’s a highly scientific, highly secular environment, so it doesn’t have these connotations.
We think of people who do a lot of meditation or climb mountains, people who are awe junkies, having these experiences.
We don’t [often] think of these very strict scientists reporting these blissful moments.”
The astronauts’ experience is so fascinating — and potentially life-changing — that the researchers want to find out how we can all have more of it in our lives.
Mr. Johannes Eichstaedt, one of the study’s co-authors, said:
“Behavior is extremely hard to change, so to stumble across something that has such a profound and reproducible effect, that should make psychologists sit up straight and say:
‘What’s going on here?
A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH
by Maya Angelou
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
When we come to it… will we create awesome interventions?
What If God is one of us? As the song goes, recent horrific events may lead some to blame God for being an absentee landlord.
However, researchers are planning a follow-up experiment that will give humans a transcendent opportunity to gaze at Mother Earth from space in a virtual reality setting.
What if, as a result, experiencing the Overview Effect, becomes as ordinary an experience as a ride on a Ferris Wheel?
What an awesome way to deal with awful problems!
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Casher D. Belinda and Michael S. Christian, 2023: A Spillover Model of Dreams and Work Behavior: How Dream Meaning Ascription Promotes Awe and Employee Resilience. AMJ, 66, 1152–1182, https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2021.0377
Stellar, J. E., John-Henderson, N., Anderson, C. L., Gordon, A. M., McNeil, G. D., & Keltner, D. (2015). Positive affect and markers of inflammation: Discrete positive emotions predict lower levels of inflammatory cytokines. Emotion, 15(2), 129–133. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000033
Yaden, D. B., Iwry, J., Slack, K. J., Eichstaedt, J. C., Zhao, Y., Vaillant, G. E., & Newberg, A. B. (2016). The overview effect: Awe and self-transcendent experience in space flight. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000086
