What Awe Actually Is, According to Science
Psychologists and neuroscientists who study awe define it as the emotion we feel in response to something vast that defies our existing frame of reference, and leads us to change our perception of that frame of reference. It’s not simply appreciation or pleasure. It’s a specific disruption in the way the brain processes what it’s seeing.
Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt proposed a foundational model of awe in 2003 that still holds up remarkably well, arguing that awe requires two cognitive ingredients, the first being perceived vastness. The science finds awe to be distinct from closely related states like beauty, interest, admiration, and fear, and identifies it as something that orients individuals toward systems-based, meaning-making thought.
The Brain on Awe: What Imaging Studies Reveal
A heightened awe experience stimulates the vagus nerve, which calms the body, and releases a rush of dopamine and oxytocin, increasing a sense of connection. It also dramatically shifts which brain networks are firing. Imaging studies show that awe reduces activation in the self-referential default-mode network. That’s the part of the brain responsible for rumination, self-monitoring, and anxious inner chatter.
What researchers at UC Berkeley found, and what a growing field of awe researchers have since confirmed, is that awe isn’t just a pleasant feeling. It’s a specific neurological event that temporarily reconfigures how the brain processes the self, time, and social connection. The scale of those effects surprised even the people conducting the studies.
The Body Responds Too, Not Just the Mind
Recent research shows that awe doesn’t just change how we feel; it changes how our bodies work. Neuroscientist Virginia Sturm at the University of California, San Francisco, explains that the emotion moves the body out of “fight-or-flight” and into the calmer “rest-and-digest” state. Awe is associated with higher vagal tone, a marker of parasympathetic nervous system engagement, suggesting that it may calm the body through pathways like the vagus nerve.
Awe triggers a series of neurochemical reactions, altering neurotransmitters including dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin, which are linked to reward, social bonding, and mood regulation. A 2023 Harvard study found that just 15 minutes in nature can improve mental health, underscoring how quickly awe can soothe stress and alter our physiology.
Awe Bends Our Perception of Time
Even our sense of time bends under awe. In a 2012 Psychological Science study, participants who experienced awe felt time expand, which left them less impatient, more generous, and more satisfied with life. That’s a notable finding. The feeling of having “more time” isn’t a delusion; it’s a measurable shift in temporal perception tied to a specific emotional state.
Research suggests that awe slows the perception of time passing, creating the illusion of having more time. It’s one of the more counterintuitive results in the field: standing still at the edge of something enormous somehow makes the day feel longer, richer, and less rushed than a schedule packed with activity.
The “Small Self” Effect and What It Does for Us
One important distinction between awe and other emotions is that awe makes us feel small, a sense of self-diminishment in scientific terms. That’s actually good for us. Part of the experience of awe is that feeling of smallness that causes you to rescale yourself, or see yourself in a different light. The ego loosens its grip.
Across five studies involving more than 2,000 participants, researchers tested the hypothesis that awe can result in a diminishment of the individual self and its concerns, and increase prosocial behavior. In a representative national sample, dispositional tendencies to experience awe predicted greater generosity above and beyond other prosocial emotions. In follow-up experiments, inductions of awe increased ethical decision-making, generosity, and prosocial values.
Awe Makes Us More Connected to Other People
Experiences of awe, frequently elicited by the natural world but also by art, music, and human virtue, are profound and transformative. Beyond their individual benefits, awe experiences serve a vital social function: they expand an individual’s perspective from narrow self-interest to others’ needs and collective concerns.
Sharing moments of awe and wonder can open us to new connections and meaningful conversations. Research shows social trust has declined recently, but awe experiences can ease our openness to connect. Shared awe and wonder experiences restore our trust in humanity and prosocial activities. There’s something quietly powerful about the fact that a canyon or a coastline can do what years of social effort sometimes cannot.
The Stress Relief Is Real and It Happens Fast
A 2023 diary study tracking 269 adults for 22 days found that on days when people experienced more awe, they reported roughly one fifth less stress, fewer physical complaints, and greater well-being. The effect held across demographic groups and was consistent enough across the study period to rule out chance.
In 2022, researchers found that after a one-hour forest walk, 63 adults showed lower amygdala activity, the brain’s alarm center, during stress tasks than those who walked in a city. Older adults who took weekly 15-minute “awe walks,” intentionally paying attention to vast or beautiful natural features, showed increased positive emotion, reduced anxiety, and even changes in their smile patterns. The awe walkers also reported feeling more connected to other people.
Why Familiarity Doesn’t Kill the Feeling
Research consistently shows that astonishment opens up cognitive limits and opens people to new ideas. Awe simultaneously expands and challenges traditional knowledge, causing a reassessment of long-standing cognitive frameworks. This is part of why a place can move us on the tenth visit as much as the first: the brain hasn’t fully accommodated the scale.
The sensation is unmistakable: the wide-eyed, hushed-voice, goosebumps-down-the-back feeling that comes with grand, novel experiences, the kind that become permanently seared into memory. The novelty doesn’t have to be total. A familiar mountain at a different time of year, a coastline seen in a different light. The vastness is still there, and the brain responds to it every time.
The Places That Reliably Produce It
Certain landscapes have a near-universal track record for producing this response. Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park is unlike anywhere else. Standing at the edge of the 278-mile canyon is a humbling experience. The perspective from the rim reminds visitors of the vastness of the world and how small we really are.
Iceland delivers natural spectacle in abundance, starting with breathtaking viewing of the Northern Lights, which have been easier to spot in recent years due to increased solar activity. High above Yosemite National Park, the night sky inspires a sense of awe and wonder, encouraging stargazers to consider the scope of time and space, inspiring creativity and learning, and supporting the health of all life on Earth.
Awe as a Pathway to Meaning
A fifth pathway by which awe is likely to enhance mental and physical health is through elevating the individual’s sense of meaning. Meaning, or sense of purpose, is found in making sense of life events, finding connections between current events and the past, and one’s values and social relationships. Standing before something ancient and immovable has a way of clarifying what actually matters.
Awe inspired by wildlife can enhance learning, strengthen pro-environmental intentions, and create positive memories. This can further foster connections to others, deepen nature-human relationships, and promote spirituality, goal clarification, and humility. As a self-transcendent emotion, awe refers to an immediate emotional response or a sustained feeling to various stimuli, and the experience is of great significance not only for individual growth but also for social progress.
Why We Keep Going Back
The question buried in all this research isn’t just what awe does to us, it’s why we seek it out repeatedly, knowingly. We return to the same overlooks, the same coastlines, the same forest trails. Partly it’s habit, partly affection. Awe experiences are what psychologists call self-transcendent: they shift our attention away from ourselves, make us feel like we are part of something greater than ourselves, change our perception of time, and even make us more generous toward others.
Awe leads to a mental state of wonder and curiosity, a fertile ground for the creation of cultural forms through acts of innovation. That’s why the same waterfall inspires the same painter every summer. These moments might feel fleeting, but scientists say they can leave lasting imprints on the body and mind. That imprint is what draws us back, not just to remember, but to feel it again from the start.