Awe

A second kind of chills is a tingling sensation in the arms, shoulders, back of the neck, and on the crown of the head—“goose bumps.” ASMR resembles this form of the chills. This was the sensation that washed over me in returning to the eastern Sierras to hike to Duck Lake, as Rolf and I had done before he passed. Studies have found that goose bumps are associated with a heightened sense that you are joined with others in community. Our experiences of awe are accompanied by goose bumps but not cold shivers. Once again, more evidence of the distinctions between awe and fear and horror.

If we follow these two kinds of chills back in our evolutionary history, where does this journey take us? Here is the latest thinking on the mammalian beginnings of awe, or, if you feel a bit expansive, the evolution of the soul.

Alongside eating and keeping oxygen at the right level, maintaining the right body temperature is fundamental to survival. Complex brain and body mechanisms kick into gear when we are too hot or too cold. Highly social mammals, such as certain rodents, wolves, primates, and humans, have an additional tool in their tool kit for handling extreme cold: they huddle. This is in keeping with a broader evolutionary principle, that social mammals like rats, dogs, and humans lean in and coordinate with others when facing peril.

Social mammals’ first response to extreme cold is piloerection, the bodily reaction underlying goose bumps. Piloerection causes the skin to bunch, rendering it less porous to the cold. Visible piloerection signals to others to huddle, initiating proximity and tactile contact, which in humans takes the form of supportive touch and even embrace. Proximity and tactile contact activate a neurochemistry of connection. This includes the release of oxytocin, a neurochemical that travels through the brain and body promoting openness to others, and activation of the vagus nerve. When our mammalian relatives encountered vast and perilous mysteries—numbing cold, roaring water, sudden gusts of wind, thunderous deluges, and lightning—they piloerected, and found warmth and strength in drawing closer to others.

Should huddling be unavailable, mammals facing perilous cold turned to shivering and shuddering, vigorous muscle contractions that warm the body’s tissues. Today we humans shiver and shudder when facing imperiling mysteries and unknowns alone; when feeling rejected socially, ostracized, or acutely lonely; or when encountering the horrors others perpetrate. The cold shivers have a much different neurophysiological profile than goose bumps, involving activation in threat-related regions of the brain (the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) and elevated blood pressure. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea, the protagonist Roquentin experiences a “horrible ecstasy,” trembling and becoming nauseated when he looks at a chestnut tree while sitting alone on a park bench. His trembling and shuddering embody the central idea of existentialism, and for some the individualistic twentieth century: that we are alone in making meaning out of the mysteries of life.

Awe indeed follows Whitman’s “beautiful laws of physiology.” Our tears register our awareness of vast things that unite us with others. Our goose bumps accompany notions of joining with others and facing mysteries and unknowns together. Today we may sense these laws of bodily awe when moved by a favorite musical group, or in calling out in protest with others in the streets, or in bowing our heads together in contemplation. And in such rushes of tears and chills, Whitman’s body electric, we may glean a sense of what our souls might be.

As chills and tears wash over us, we often are left wordless and wondering, appreciating what is vast and mysterious about our place in it all. Being the hypersocial primate, we often reflexively communicate with others about the wonders of life. We do so in body movements and sounds that were our earliest language of awe.

Whoas

Rainbows stirred Newton and Descartes, we have learned, to some of their best mathematics and physics. For Paul “Bear” Vasquez, such harmonious colors in the sky led to a creation for our digital age. His three-minute video from 2010 of his encountering a double rainbow outside his home in Yosemite has been seen, as I write, nearly fifty million times. In the video you watch a double rainbow’s appearance over grassy foothills near Yosemite. Over the course of the three minutes, Vasquez travels through the sounds of transcendent states. He exults with whoas and ecstatic aahs. He howls. He cries and laughs the kind of existential laugh we emit when recognizing something vast and profound, beyond the narrow view of the default self. As the video nears its end, he observes, “Too much” and “Oh my god,” and wonders several times, “What does this mean?” In awe, we utter sounds of transcendence.