Self-Transcendence Accompanies Aesthetic Chills

Abstract

Self-transcendence (ST) is a positive altered state of consciousness associated with ego-dissolution, connectedness, and moral elevation, which mediates well-being, meaning-making, and prosociality. Conventional paths to ST such as religious practice, meditative practice, and psychedelics pose nontrivial barriers to entry, limiting ST’s study and wide application. Aesthetic chills (henceforth “chills”) are a peak psychophysiological response characterized by a pleasurable, cold sensation, and subjective qualities and outcomes intuitively similar to ST. However, evidence is lacking directly relating chills and ST. We exposed 2937 participants to chills-eliciting stimuli, then assayed chills intensity, mood and ST measures. Controlling for prior state and trait differences, chills were robustly associated with ST. Analyses of main effects and covariance structure found that chills occurrence and intensity, and ST measures, form a tightly interrelated construct. These findings suggest that ST experiences are reliably evokable via exposure to aesthetic chills-evoking audiovisual media. We discuss implications of chills-evoking media for tractable studies of ST and democratized applications of ST towards human flourishing.

Aesthetic chills mitigate maladaptive cognition in depression

“…Here, we investigated whether the peak experience of aesthetic chills could mimic some of these effects and thereby induce changes in deep-seated models of the self to mitigate shame (i.e., foster self-acceptance) in patients with a depressed mood. Aesthetic chills (thereafter "chills") are a peak emotional response induced by powerful, sometimes life-changing stimuli [20][21][22][23]. They are characterized by a specific bodily response of thermoregulatory mechanisms such as shivers and goosebumps [21,[24][25][26] and discrete neural correlates associated with reward and well-being [21,[24][25][26][27].…”

Schema Surgery: AI-generated Peak Positive Emotional Stimuli Deactivate Maladaptive Schema

“…In particular, aesthetic experiences eliciting awe, beauty, and chills have been linked with elevated positive affect, increased openness to new ideas, self-transcendence, and a heightened sense of meaning in life (Piff et al, 2015;Schurtz et al, 2012;Christov-Moore et al, 2023). Aesthetic chills, induced by stimuli such as music, speech, or films (Blood & Zatorre, 2001;Schoeller et al, 2023a), hold particular promise in mitigating EMS in depression, as suggested by preliminary findings demonstrating that Chills PAE can improve dysfunctional, depressogenic self-schema .…”