Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Awe is an emotion that you feel when you encounter
Speaker 2: something that is vast or beyond your frame of reference
Speaker 2: that you can't understand with your current knowledge.
Speaker 1: Daker Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University
Speaker 1: of California, Berkeley, and he's an expert on the emotion
Speaker 1: of awe. Maybe you felt awe the first time you
Speaker 1: saw a natural wonder like the Grand Canyon, or when
Speaker 1: your child was born. Whatever the experience, it likely changed
Speaker 1: the way you view the world.
Speaker 2: These momentary experiences of awe, through their shifts, their challenges
Speaker 2: to your belief system, you tend to look at the
Speaker 2: world more carefully. You tend to entertain alternative hypotheses, and
Speaker 2: those are all cognitive strategies that help us be more resilient.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, we explore awe, the science behind it,
Speaker 1: why it matters, and how we can find more of
Speaker 1: it in our everyday lives. I'm Maya Shunker and this
Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans, a show about who
Speaker 1: we are and who we become in the face of
Speaker 1: a big change. Daker Keltner has spent the last twenty
Speaker 1: five years studying the science of emotions. His latest book
Speaker 1: is called AWE, The New Science of Everyday Wonder and
Speaker 1: How It Can Transform Your Life. In it, Daker argues
Speaker 1: that this powerful and mysterious emotion is actually critical to
Speaker 1: our well being. Long before Daker was an academic, he
Speaker 1: was a self described sixties wild child. He and his
Speaker 1: younger brother Rolf were constantly seeking out new adventures.
Speaker 2: My brother and I had these extraordinary early experiences of
Speaker 2: awe every summer since my mom taught at a public university.
Speaker 2: We'd hop into our VW bus and just like drive
Speaker 2: for a month, and we drove into the Rockies one time.
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean this is nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: This was the parenting of the era where we would
Speaker 2: just wander in the wilds and my parents were like,
Speaker 2: see you at dinner when we were seven and nine.
Speaker 2: You know that we just saw extraordinary things. But one
Speaker 2: in particulary members one of our first nights camping, we
Speaker 2: were camping in near the Pacific Ocean, and we just
Speaker 2: slept in the sand and heard the ocean, saw the
Speaker 2: big sky, you know, in these old cotton sleeping bags,
Speaker 2: and just felt like we were bonded together through on
Speaker 2: wonder and it continued all the way till the end
Speaker 2: of his life.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we just did everything together. And then
Speaker 2: he six years ago started to depart from me, which
Speaker 2: is he got colon cancer and that's a horrific disease
Speaker 2: and it was brutal for two years. And then he
Speaker 2: chose to take a cocktail and end his life because
Speaker 2: he had stage four and knew what was coming. And
Speaker 2: you know, I got a call from his wife, Kim,
Speaker 2: that he had done that, and we all rushed up
Speaker 2: to his home in the foothills of the Sierras. And
Speaker 2: I had been waiting for this. I've been preparing for this.
Speaker 2: I write about how to approach in an open way
Speaker 2: the loss of young people whom you care about. And
Speaker 2: he was lying on the bed and his face was
Speaker 2: turned to the side, and he was smiling this particular
Speaker 2: smile that looked as if he was being called into
Speaker 2: something transcendent. It almost looked a little blissful. And I'm
Speaker 2: a scientist, and I'm like trying to make sense of this.
Speaker 2: I have no religious background, you know, very naive spiritually,
Speaker 2: and I just saw some part of him being pulled
Speaker 2: into other dimensions that I just felt the space was
Speaker 2: vibrating and pulsating, and there was this glow and I
Speaker 2: felt Awe. You know, we were all around him in
Speaker 2: this moment of reverence, and I was like, wow, what
Speaker 2: is life? You know, what is his life? His life
Speaker 2: is my life? What do I make of that? And
Speaker 2: I was incredibly reassured by our science, which is around
Speaker 2: the world contrary to Western assumptions, people find the passage
Speaker 2: of life all inspiring. It's one of the biggest mysteries
Speaker 2: we'll confront And I was awe struck. Then in the grief,
Speaker 2: I descended into you know, a Joan Didion like psychosis.
Speaker 2: I was just like man. I was knocked out of
Speaker 2: my ordinary ways of understanding the world, really struggling. Had
Speaker 2: all these extraordinary experiences of sensing him and hearing his voice,
Speaker 2: and I went in search of Awe. And part of
Speaker 2: that search was to think about our experiences together my
Speaker 2: brother Off and me, write about them, find them again.
Speaker 2: And it taught me that Awe is a mysterious part
Speaker 2: of the happiness equation.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like you, even as children, you
Speaker 1: stumbled upon AWE before you even recognized what it was.
Speaker 1: That it was an emotion that one can feel. I mean,
Speaker 1: you were blessed with an environment that was so all filled.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder looking back. I mean, we'll get
Speaker 1: into the definition of on a moment, but looking back,
Speaker 1: what is it due to a relationship when you are
Speaker 1: sharing in one of the most profound human emotions one
Speaker 1: can have with another person.
Speaker 2: What an extraordinary question? And I had that's the first
Speaker 2: person to ask me that question. What it does, AWE
Speaker 2: is about dissolving the sense of individual self, the boundaries
Speaker 2: between self and other, and merging you with others in
Speaker 2: almost a spiritual way, like we share a soul or
Speaker 2: a deep sense of meaning in the world, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it. And Maya, that's what it did.
Speaker 2: You know. We had all these incredible experiences of the
Speaker 2: wildness of Laurel Canyon in the late sixties and the
Speaker 2: crazy figures there and music and festivals and Martin Luther
Speaker 2: King's death, and what it merged in Ralf and I
Speaker 2: was a shared mind. It's one of the great human
Speaker 2: achievements that we can share a representation of reality with
Speaker 2: other people and all gets you there quickly and time
Speaker 2: and time again. My brother and I would have these
Speaker 2: extraordinary experiences where it was like our minds saw reality together.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love the framework that you provide around AWE
Speaker 1: because it is really hard to disentangle feelings of AWE
Speaker 1: from other emotions that we feel, like wonder and fear.
Speaker 1: And you talk about two defining characteristics of AWE, So
Speaker 1: one is received vastness and the second is a need
Speaker 1: for accommodation. And I'd really love to flesh out these
Speaker 1: two concepts because I think these will be aids for
Speaker 1: those who are listening to try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: how I kind of met the criteria for an awe
Speaker 1: inspiring experience. So let's start with this notion of perceived vastness.
Speaker 1: Can you help us understand what that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, vastness can be physical, like one time
Speaker 2: I actually met Will Chamberlain. He's seven feet tall. I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, you know that guy's big, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was awestruck. It can be temporal when you
Speaker 2: think about the vastness of time you know that a
Speaker 2: redwood tree lives, for example, And it can be semantic.
Speaker 2: It can be conceptual, like wow, the idea of evolution
Speaker 2: is vast I mean it just accounts for every instant
Speaker 2: of every living form. I think what happens with OZ
Speaker 2: You realize that you are part of larger systems of
Speaker 2: life that you don't ordinarily understand. That I am part
Speaker 2: of a long family history, a cultural history indigenous to
Speaker 2: I'm part of an ecological system, I am a living form,
Speaker 2: I'm a species within an ecosystem, and AWE opens our
Speaker 2: eyes to the very important idea that I, as an individual,
Speaker 2: am embedded in larger systems of meaning.
Speaker 1: And what about the need for accommodation? What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's kind of the mystery component. And
Speaker 2: I like using the word mystery because it just avoids
Speaker 2: that clunkiness of psychological terminology. But you need for accommodation,
Speaker 2: But that's.
Speaker 1: Rolls off the tongue decker, you know. No, I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the scientific paper for what it's the worth. But yes,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the use of the word mystery.
Speaker 2: Thank you you and three other people. So yeah, need
Speaker 2: for accommodation is that you see things, and ordinarily most
Speaker 2: of what we perceive sort of is readily made sense
Speaker 2: of with our knowledge structures for better and for worse.
Speaker 2: And then what happens with AWE is it really transcends
Speaker 2: your current understanding knowledge about the world, and you have
Speaker 2: to accommodate your knowledge structures. And that's where wonder comes in,
Speaker 2: which is wonder is a state that follows AWE. Why
Speaker 2: this big experience of all You know, Newton in de
Speaker 2: Kart were blown away by rainbows and in the following
Speaker 2: state of wonder they did the math and the physics
Speaker 2: color theory to figure them out. So need for accommodation
Speaker 2: is the sort of state as AWE unfold three, you realize, God,
Speaker 2: I got to really update my belief systems. I got
Speaker 2: to change my thinking about what humans can do, or
Speaker 2: what children are like, or the nature of an ecosystem,
Speaker 2: or what music can do emotionally, and so we change
Speaker 2: our knowledge as a result of all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is my favorite component of AWE and we'll
Speaker 1: return to it in a bit that I think the
Speaker 1: need for accommodation is. What a powerful force, especially in
Speaker 1: our current society, to force mental agility upon us. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting, but I'll save it. I'll save
Speaker 1: it for a little later. I want to establish the basics.
Speaker 1: So I was incredibly excited to learn from your research
Speaker 1: and your scholarship that there are far more sources of
Speaker 1: awe than I'd realized. And based on what you learned,
Speaker 1: you've categorized awe into what you call the eight Wonders
Speaker 1: of life.
Speaker 2: You know what we did, Maya is we gathered twenty
Speaker 2: six hundred stories from people from twenty six cultures ranging
Speaker 2: from India to Mexico to Brazil to Chile to Poland.
Speaker 2: We translated them, a team of us classified them, and
Speaker 2: we came up with what I call the eight wonders,
Speaker 2: which are being out in nature, you know, the big sky,
Speaker 2: the mountains, the Grand Canyon, spiritual stuff, praying, being awestruck
Speaker 2: by the bag of a gita, having a relationship to
Speaker 2: spirit or God, music, something you know, well, you know,
Speaker 2: just being at a concert and Taylor Swift or peeky
Speaker 2: pop or what symphony, visual design, paintings, cars, buildings. I
Speaker 2: love this. One big idea is you know, infinity, big data, AI,
Speaker 2: life and death brings people off, watching people be born,
Speaker 2: watching them go. And then two that really surprise me,
Speaker 2: which are collective effervescence or moving in unison with people, dancing,
Speaker 2: singing in a choir, cheering at a sporting event, chanting
Speaker 2: at a political protest, and then the one that I
Speaker 2: still marvel at, which is moral beauty, which is just
Speaker 2: being moved when you witness people's sacrifice and courage and
Speaker 2: character and overcoming and wisdom, right, just being blown away
Speaker 2: by how good human beings can be.
Speaker 1: You know, those last two you hit on are the
Speaker 1: ones that I absolutely love, moral beauty and collective effervescence,
Speaker 1: because one, I think they're underappreciated sources of awe. Certainly
Speaker 1: I was unfamiliar that moral beauty is a source of awe,
Speaker 1: and I feel like this is the form of awe
Speaker 1: Decker that I feel all the time, more than I
Speaker 1: feel awe when it comes to seeing a beautiful sunset,
Speaker 1: more than any other source of off. Maybe music comes close, actually,
Speaker 1: because I have a very personal relationship with music. But
Speaker 1: the feeling that I get when I witness other people's courage, kindness, resilience,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so moved. And maybe it's because I'm
Speaker 1: trained as a cognitive scientist and I'm so fascinated by
Speaker 1: human psychology that when I witness these kinds of acts,
Speaker 1: I feel really transformed by them. And so I loved
Speaker 1: learning that Not only is this a source of awe,
Speaker 1: but it's the most widely felt source of awe. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's also inspiring that when you pull humans, they don't
Speaker 1: say the sunset, they say other people, what other people
Speaker 1: bring to the table. I mean, I find that remarkable
Speaker 1: because all the beauty of all the other source of
Speaker 1: awe is not lost on me, right, But to think
Speaker 1: that that came to the top of the list, I
Speaker 1: find that onspiring. Honestly, I actually.
Speaker 2: Get goose by at your reflection. I was surprised too,
Speaker 2: and I didn't expect moral beauty to be a common
Speaker 2: source of awe. I thought it was all nature and religion,
Speaker 2: and it was this robust and very shared experience in
Speaker 2: these twenty six different countries that you see. It's so
Speaker 2: interesting that we tear up and are ready to do
Speaker 2: good in the world when we see people sacrifice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that when we see courage somebody overcoming racism writer sexism.
Speaker 2: You have shifts in your physiology of oxytocin release where
Speaker 2: you feel more open to the world. And once you
Speaker 2: wrap your mind around this, the prevalence of moral beauty
Speaker 2: and how it inspires us, then you start to think
Speaker 2: about the people who have changed your life through their
Speaker 2: moral beauty. You know, a teacher or a coach, or
Speaker 2: someone in the streets you think about, how wow, once
Speaker 2: you open your eyes to it, you can walk through
Speaker 2: a city and suddenly you see seventeen acts of moral
Speaker 2: beauty that are holding the society together. So I too,
Speaker 2: like you, my, and I'm grateful you brought it up.
Speaker 2: I feel like we live in this era of toxic politics,
Speaker 2: no commentary there, you know, Instagram comparisons, cynical views of
Speaker 2: human beings, and yet there's so much moral beauty to
Speaker 2: keep us inspired.
Speaker 1: So the other one that you mentioned is this notion
Speaker 1: of collective effervescence. So this is just in the shared,
Speaker 1: sometimes synchronous experiences that we all have, right, singing a
Speaker 1: song together, dancing together for people who have you know,
Speaker 1: religious background, praying together. Right, these are very powerful, poignant experiences.
Speaker 1: And it was so interesting. I was recently talking to
Speaker 1: a coworker of mine and we were talking about Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift concerts, which are of course a huge source of
Speaker 1: off for people worldwide, massive, and the prices of the
Speaker 1: tickets were just so high that I was asking her,
Speaker 1: I was like, how did you psychologically defend paying for
Speaker 1: these tickets because you know, you could, in theory just
Speaker 1: wait for the special to come out and watch it
Speaker 1: that way, or wait for like I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: they're alternatives. And she said something that was so interesting
Speaker 1: because I was just in the throes of reading your book, Decker,
Speaker 1: and so it's just like the dots connected. She said,
Speaker 1: you know, I would go to a Taylor Swift concert
Speaker 1: even if Taylor wasn't there performing and singing, if it
Speaker 1: was just tens of thousands of people sharing in the
Speaker 1: experience of singing and dancing together to her songs. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment that that's
Speaker 1: the experience she was going for, that's the one she
Speaker 1: can't approximate by hearing the concert in a Netflix special.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I just love your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, collective effervescence is this high level ecstatic
Speaker 2: feeling you have when you are with others and moving
Speaker 2: in unison in a way in which you start to
Speaker 2: share attention about something significant and it has this awe
Speaker 2: feeling of goosebumps and tears and tingly and you're starting
Speaker 2: to merge with others. And what I love about this
Speaker 2: wonder of life is that it reveals the important power
Speaker 2: of things you wouldn't ordinarily consider, like dance, right, Like dancing.
Speaker 2: You know most people, you get them talking about dancing
Speaker 2: at the last wedding, they're out and they're like, that's
Speaker 2: the best time I've had in yours, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Or sports. You know, sports are games. You know, they
Speaker 2: are games, and people are just like you said with
Speaker 2: the Taylor Swift example, like games are so meaningful. They
Speaker 2: cry when their teams lose and win.
Speaker 1: Oh totally.
Speaker 2: You know, they feel a sense of common cause with
Speaker 2: other fans.
Speaker 1: And I mean, in this moment, I feel such gratitude
Speaker 1: for our minds, Like it didn't have to be the
Speaker 1: case that we could get so swept up in these experiences.
Speaker 1: Like you said, sports completely manufactured human experience. If you
Speaker 1: think about the cosmic stakes, zero cosmic stakes, Yeah, around
Speaker 1: such team wins and yet and yet right, we feel
Speaker 1: so bonded through these experiences. We feel so bonded by
Speaker 1: hearing music together, dancing together. And you know this speaks
Speaker 1: to a huge component of awe, which is a feeling
Speaker 1: that we are part of a bigger collective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll quote Malcolm Clemens Young who was a
Speaker 2: minister whom I interviewed for the book, and he just
Speaker 2: I was in conversation with him and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: you can pray or meditate, or contemplate or reflect on
Speaker 2: what life means, but when you do it with other people,
Speaker 2: something changes. And I agree, and that's why your friend
Speaker 2: she's like, all I have to do is be around
Speaker 2: my friends who are fans of Taylor Swift, and I
Speaker 2: get a very big part of the magic, and that's
Speaker 2: collective effiveescence.
Speaker 1: After the break, we'll talk about how all can affect
Speaker 1: our minds and our bodies and how we can become
Speaker 1: more open to all inspiring experiences. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment with a slight change of plans. I've heard
Speaker 1: you say elsewhere that you think the central challenge of
Speaker 1: the mental health crisis today is too much self focus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that it seems like AWE helps us stave off narcissism,
Speaker 1: self absorption, self focus. So can you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that, and also just neuroscientifically, what's
Speaker 1: happening to us in the presence of AWE.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for contextualizing it in our mental health
Speaker 2: crisis of this era. And you know, I mean I've
Speaker 2: taught at a university for thirty years. I've seen twenty
Speaker 2: year olds for thirty years, and there has been this,
Speaker 2: you know, because of cultural values and the rise of
Speaker 2: individualism and the competition and the new technologies, too much
Speaker 2: focus on the self. And AWE is you know, it's
Speaker 2: so interesting when you ask people, tell me about an
Speaker 2: early experience of AWE that you had. Does one come
Speaker 2: to your mind?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one does. So. I was, I mean the younger
Speaker 1: part of my life. I was adding concert violinist. And
Speaker 1: I remember one night in particular, when I was twelve,
Speaker 1: I was at summer music camp and I was lying
Speaker 1: in bed in the dark with my discman back in
Speaker 1: the day when we had CDs, and I was listening
Speaker 1: to a recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and I
Speaker 1: felt it took over my physiology. My heart raced along
Speaker 1: with the melody. I felt shivers down my spine during
Speaker 1: certain phrases. I mean, I was so moved by the
Speaker 1: experience and it was so overwhelming to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could not believe that I was having I mean
Speaker 1: as close to a spiritual experience as I've ever had
Speaker 1: someone who's not religious, like you said, spiritually naive. That
Speaker 1: was probably the closest I've ever come.
Speaker 2: What we know neurophysiologically to your question is those experiences
Speaker 2: of awe, even in children, the tears, the goose bumps,
Speaker 2: that gives you the sense of chills, and the activation
Speaker 2: of the vegas nerve is part of this parasympathetic autonomic
Speaker 2: nervous system which opens you up and makes you curious
Speaker 2: about the world. We know neurophysiologically in the brain. All
Speaker 2: leads to the deactivation of the default mode network.
Speaker 1: Do you mind sharing what the default mode network does?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the default mode network does many different things, but
Speaker 2: one of the things that people write about is it's
Speaker 2: about the self, self representation, your goals, your intentions, your
Speaker 2: memories about yourself. So what it tells us is this neurophysiology.
Speaker 2: It's really useful that the dampening of the default mode
Speaker 2: networks the chills, the quiet, the vagus nerve gives you
Speaker 2: the warmth in the chest. Your self is starting to dissolve,
Speaker 2: and then you're becoming open to the world. It's that
Speaker 2: wonder and mystery and need to discover.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm reflecting on in this moment, is
Speaker 1: that awe takes some degree of intentionality. I mean, when
Speaker 1: I reflect back on it, my life as a violinist
Speaker 1: was very complex because it was very stressful as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was I was studying at Juilliard from
Speaker 1: the time I was nine. I was on like the
Speaker 1: speed train, you know, I was really trying to go
Speaker 1: pro so many prodigious kids around me. That made me
Speaker 1: feel incredibly insecure. And you can't really have the inspiring
Speaker 1: experience if your mental chatter is sabotaging all the time
Speaker 1: because you're unwilling to appreciate the joy of music because
Speaker 1: you're thinking about Rachel nextdoor, who can like run laps
Speaker 1: around you musically, right, And so I'm just thinking back,
Speaker 1: you know, there were so many moments where I lost
Speaker 1: sight of music's awe inspiring abilities. But it would be
Speaker 1: in these moments where I would have just like an
Speaker 1: experience of hearing music, not my own, just hearing music,
Speaker 1: where I feel like I regained access to the magnificence
Speaker 1: of it. I regain access to this feeling that I'm
Speaker 1: really small and music is really big, and that I was,
Speaker 1: like you said, a part of a collective like it
Speaker 1: dampened that individualistic competitive young maya. I need to win
Speaker 1: every concerto competition, vibe in favor of man. This stuff
Speaker 1: is so beautiful. Yeah, and I can't believe I can
Speaker 1: be part of this experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know your commentary is it will speak to
Speaker 2: the parents out there, and you know, the people who
Speaker 2: have gone through really competitive pressure cook childhood. It's like
Speaker 2: you did of how we've taken so many things. It
Speaker 2: should bring us all music and sports and doing math
Speaker 2: and writing fiction and what have you, and just the
Speaker 2: there's more pressure on young people and we've lost those moments. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that are why we do the thing in the first place.
Speaker 2: It's not the grade per se. And so I hope
Speaker 2: your narrative inspires people out there.
Speaker 1: I hope so too. And it's okay to have a
Speaker 1: dynamic relationship with all. I mean, I think that's what
Speaker 1: I realized is exactly, especially in my teenage years when
Speaker 1: I was filled with angst and I became a much
Speaker 1: more self conscious musician. That was probably when my all
Speaker 1: was muted the most. But then you are able to
Speaker 1: reclaim it.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I really encourage people coming out
Speaker 2: of this conversation is to think about those eight wonders.
Speaker 2: You know, where will you find on music tomorrow or
Speaker 2: visual design or out looking at the moral beauty of people?
Speaker 2: You know, one simple thing that we tested is you
Speaker 2: know a lot of people walk. They do it for
Speaker 2: the health benefits, but why not add some all?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, why not put down your devices, open up your
Speaker 2: mind a little, go somewhere mysterious, and then just look
Speaker 2: for large and small patterns out there in the natural world,
Speaker 2: the urban world. You can do it with music and
Speaker 2: it ironically, even though people think that AWE is mysterious
Speaker 2: and impossible to produce, it's something we can find pretty
Speaker 2: easily if we just shift out of this modern pressurized mindset.
Speaker 1: Yep, I love to dig in to the impact all
Speaker 1: has on our psychology. So do you mind sharing a
Speaker 1: study or two about the impacts of awe? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, maya. We started to compile these findings that
Speaker 2: little moments of AWE make you more generous, you share
Speaker 2: with strangers, you have a better inflammation profile, You are
Speaker 2: more creative, you polarize politics less, you see more common
Speaker 2: ground in ideological adversaries. And I always start, you know,
Speaker 2: I have taught happiness twenty five years at Berkeley and elsewhere,
Speaker 2: and just was like, wow, man, this is powerful, this
Speaker 2: emotion is good for us. And then we got to
Speaker 2: do a very unusual experiment, which is we took veterans
Speaker 2: and under resourced teenagers out rafting on the American River
Speaker 2: where my brother and I used to raft as kids,
Speaker 2: and so it had this deep personal resonance to me.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you raft, it's all you see
Speaker 2: the currents of the river and the beauty of the water,
Speaker 2: and you almost are thrown out of the raft. You're
Speaker 2: thrown out of the raft. It's wild. People are hooting
Speaker 2: and hollering. And what we found is that half day
Speaker 2: experience for veterans and teenagers living in hard places, going
Speaker 2: to tough schools, really tough under resource schools, dropping PTSD
Speaker 2: symptoms for veterans, Oh wow, yeah, I mean to get
Speaker 2: a week of relief from a rafting trip of that
Speaker 2: scales is really striking. And then for the teenagers, they
Speaker 2: were getting along better with their parents, they felt like
Speaker 2: they had community, they were feeling less stressed and greater
Speaker 2: well being.
Speaker 1: So there's going to be a surge in a sign
Speaker 1: ups for rafting trips among parents nationwide.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and rightfully so Dacker.
Speaker 1: Helped my teenager be nicer to me. That's what they're
Speaker 1: all going to be saying to you. That's great.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's why I'm really excited about AWE
Speaker 2: making its way into the manial health offerings, all being
Speaker 2: part of recovery from a surgery, you know, all being
Speaker 2: an approach to grief for cancers. We are just publishing
Speaker 2: a paper where we have an AWE training program that
Speaker 2: we delivered to health care providers during the pandemic, and
Speaker 2: just a minute of AWE a day led to greater
Speaker 2: well being, less stress, and greater physical robustness for health
Speaker 2: care providers. So good news for microdosis of all.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this hypothesis I love to run
Speaker 1: by you, which is that because when we experience AWE,
Speaker 1: we find ourselves updating our view on something. I do
Speaker 1: wonder if there's any spillover effects whether opening our minds
Speaker 1: up more generally helps us become more adaptable in other ways,
Speaker 1: that it actually makes us more resilient in the face
Speaker 1: of change.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, people who feel AWE they handle stresses better,
Speaker 2: they handle traumas better. They just can look at the
Speaker 2: problem from any different angles, and that's beneficial. Those are
Speaker 2: all cognitive strategies that help us be more resilient.
Speaker 1: And there is research showing that the what we'll call
Speaker 1: like agility of mind, that that transcends the specific area
Speaker 1: that was induced by the awe. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's so important. You may feel awe as
Speaker 2: the result of music or beautiful nature imagery, and it
Speaker 2: produces these more general emotional and cognitive states, the cognitive
Speaker 2: state being I am aware of multiple perspectives. I'm looking
Speaker 2: at evidence really hard. I'm thinking a more sophisticated way
Speaker 2: about systems around me that allows for resilience in your
Speaker 2: own personal life or in parenting or what have you.
Speaker 2: So they are broad effects with lots of skill over
Speaker 2: in good ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, I know your research looks at
Speaker 1: the role of of cognitive closure, so our desire to
Speaker 1: find a rive at definitive answers and conclusions for things.
Speaker 1: And it seems like as humans we fall on this continuum.
Speaker 1: Like some people have a deep need for cognitive closure
Speaker 1: cough cough me, And then there are people who are
Speaker 1: much more like free wheeling, open to mystery, open to
Speaker 1: not having answers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spot on.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now please tell me and help me, my
Speaker 1: dear friend, Acker, is it possible for me to become
Speaker 1: a slightly more open person, to cultivate a state of
Speaker 1: mind where I am more open to mystery, more open
Speaker 1: to uncertainty?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, of course, But how you know a
Speaker 2: couple of pathways to think about one is really cultivating
Speaker 2: an AWE practice if you will, like, make it part
Speaker 2: of your regular If you're a meditator, you love gratitude
Speaker 2: exercises or service work, Okay, make AWE part of your practice.
Speaker 2: And we do know AWE opens your mind and your neurophysiology.
Speaker 2: I might add, to be able to entertain more mysteries
Speaker 2: and more uncertainty. You know, we haven't talked about psychedelics
Speaker 2: or spirit medicines, but they too are sources of AWE,
Speaker 2: widely used by twenty thirty million Americans, and they make
Speaker 2: you more tolerant of uncertainty and more open to the
Speaker 2: fact that most of the great questions in life can't
Speaker 2: be answered definitively. So if you're not born wildly open
Speaker 2: to experience, you can cultivate it. But go in search
Speaker 2: of AWE through these eight wonders and see where your
Speaker 2: mind goes.
Speaker 1: Sorry laughing right now, because I'm realizing that my lack
Speaker 1: of openness is also going to prevent me from doing
Speaker 1: a psychedelic trip because I'm too scared of having a
Speaker 1: bad experience. Yeah. So I can't even know. But what
Speaker 1: I do like a very promising message from what you
Speaker 1: just shared with me is it seems like there's a
Speaker 1: virtuous cycle here. So the more you invite AWE, the
Speaker 1: more open you might become to it. And so I
Speaker 1: really like that. That's something I can hold on to.
Speaker 1: And I mean even my very conservative, scaredy cat nature
Speaker 1: can embrace.
Speaker 2: So that's great, our virtuous cycles that you will benefit from.
Speaker 1: My I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know in the book, I had this
Speaker 2: really interesting experience where, unlike you, I don't know a
Speaker 2: lot about music, but like most people, I love it.
Speaker 2: It changed my life. And I interviewed a cellist, Jumy Kendall.
Speaker 1: I loved that part of the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was playing a piece by John Adams,
Speaker 2: this great modern composer whom I like. But the piece
Speaker 2: was really challenging for me. I didn't get it, but
Speaker 2: there were moments in it that opened up my life,
Speaker 2: and so even if it feels unnatural, once the awe arises,
Speaker 2: it leads to this broadening of your mind to understand mystery.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my
Speaker 1: conversation with Dhaker, you might enjoy our episode with author
Speaker 1: Michael Pollin called how Psychedelics Can Change Our Minds. We'll
Speaker 1: link to that episode in the show notes and enjoin
Speaker 1: me next week. When I talked to world renowned violinist
Speaker 1: min Kim All is what initially drew her to a
Speaker 1: career in music, and after she endured a tragic loss,
Speaker 1: it's what helped bring her back to life. That's next
Speaker 1: time on A Slight Change of Plans. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green,
Speaker 1: our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vesto,
Speaker 1: and our producer Tricia Bobita. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Stefan Jaquie for letting us play a bit
Speaker 1: of his beautiful performance. Of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in this episode.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industry,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week