Peak Experiences

Lately, I've been using the phrase "peak experiences" to refer to really unusually good experiences. Maslow defined peak experiences as "rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter", and associated them with "self-actualizing individuals". I'm not sure I'm describing the same thing, and I'm skeptical that the experiences I'm talking about have to do with "self-actualization". For now, just beware that I'm using "peak experience" to mean "really really good experience".

From talking to friends, I get the impression that some people have fairly infrequent peak experiences that are much better than their average experiences, and some people don't. I'm the former sort of person; operationally, my peak experiences are good enough that I think I'd be willing to trade between a day and two weeks of average experiences for a single peak experience (lasting maybe 30 seconds to a few minutes), assuming all other effects of this trade are neutral. I'm not sure what my rate actually is because I haven't figured out how to make that kind of trade, especially in a way that makes other effects of these trades neutral.

How frequent are my peak experiences, and what are they like? I think I need a more explicit picture of what peak experiences look like in order to get a feeling for frequency; if I don't really know what they look like, it's hard for me to retrospectively say how often they happen (though I could just keep a counter in the future to get better data). I also think it'd be nice to have better vocabulary for peak experiences because then maybe I'd notice and appreciate them more, the same way having a better vocabulary for experiences of food, music, or movies helps me appreciate them more.

Here's an attempt at listing categories of peak experience that I've had, with made-up names that are supposed to get the gist across. I've left out a couple of things that aren't polite to blog about, and are probably obvious :) I'm sure I'm missing some categories or cutting things the wrong way in some cases, and it'd be interesting to find out whether other folks share these categories.

Frisson: actual frisson, a physical tingle or shiver along with a feeling of intense emotional response and emotion to an idea, a piece of music, or both. Often includes tearing up. It's a little embarrassing to give examples of what causes this in me, and I'm not sure why; it feels closely linked to the deepest and scariest-to-expose parts of my personal experience.
- Duration: up to a minute?
- Frequency: several times a week, probably?

On Fire: a feeling of excitement and cockiness about my work and the work of my community more generally. A feeling that my particular skills and idiosyncrasies line up really well with what I'm doing with my life. Sometimes related to reflecting on recent achievements. Kind of manic, but in a pleasant way. Check out how this guy dances; confident! (The end of that video is great, by the way.)
- Duration: a few minutes to 15 minutes?
- Frequency: once every week or two?

Deep Connection: hard to describe; a feeling of the removal of barriers between me and a person or people I'm with, or between me and the rest of the world. It feels like a lot of machinery that normally goes into charting my individual course through the world is turned off, and I'm not calculating risks and benefits anymore. I haven't had this happen without alcohol and a very comfortable social setting (that I'm in or have just left). If I'm alone, music helps a lot.
- Duration: a minute?
- Frequency: not sure; no more than a few times per year.

Pinch Me: this is a feeling I get when I realize I'm in a situation that's way outside what I expected in my gut (in a good way). For example, standing in the back of a water taxi speeding between islands in Venice at sunset (humblebrag!). It's sort of like a really nice form of incredulity, a feeling that a long-shot bet taken on a whim has paid off, or a feeling that I don't have any reasonable right to be experiencing this, but not in a way that pulls me out of the moment or makes me feel guilty about it.
- Duration: a few minutes to a half-hour?
- Frequency: maybe once or twice a year. By their nature, it seems like these can't happen very often.

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A few notes from making this list:

• Three of these categories are basically solitary, and the fourth (deep connection) I think I experience in a basically solitary way, despite it being about removing barriers between me and others / the world. This feels like a property of my intense experiences generally (good and bad). Is this correct, or typical?
• Music is a big factor!
• Higher-order awareness: it's tempting to think that these feelings are naturally higher-order ones, where being aware of the experience is part of the experience. I'm not sure this is right; certainly the only peak experiences I can report are ones that I took note of (e.g. by noticing the distinctive physical sensations of frisson), but I think these experiences would still be good if I wasn't taking note of them. Maybe there are whole categories that I wasn't very aware of, and so can't report!
• Flow is missing; I don't think I've experienced it. Ditto for anything involving raising kids.

This post felt pretty navel-gazey, and I'm generally skeptical that introspection of this kind translates well to writing -- everyone's experiences are different, and the insights that I have about myself might not be very applicable to others. I think I'll try to limit posts that are just about me and my experiences, but this is one I've been meaning to write for a while, so I'm glad I got it out there. (It also resulted in me changing my list of categories, which is useful for me.)