What Are Peak Experiences?
One way to create a sense of happiness is to find peak experiences. You don’t have to look hard. It could be seeing a beautiful sunset. Noticing a blooming flower. Watching the ocean. Listening to waves crash on the sand. A piece of music. A cluster of clouds. The idea is to NOTICE and stop. Let yourself be in the moment and pay attention to the wonderful experiences that surround us.
We can become so busy that these moments pass us by. Which is a shame as often they are the very thing that could lift our mood, even if temporarily.
Our challenge to you is to take a picture of anything that creates a sense of peace, happiness, fulfilment beauty and wonder.
Upload your photo onto out twitter feed MovingMindsets@movingmindsets every day and share your bliss.
This is one of my peak experiences. It was a heart shaped hole in the rocks down at the beach. Beautiful and novel.
Sarah Godfrey
Below is a great article by Kendra Cherry explaining in more detail what are peak experiences. Worth a read.
In Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is located at the very top of the pyramid, representing the need to fulfill one’s individual potential. According to Maslow, peak experiences play an important role in self-actualization.
Self-actualization is actually considered quite rare, which means that peak experiences can be equally elusive. Not all people reach the peak of Maslow’s pyramid.
In one study, researchers found that only about two-percent of individuals surveyed had ever had a peak experience.
Peak experiences are not restricted solely to self-actualized individuals, however. Maslow believed that all people are capable of having these moments, but he also felt that self-actualized people were likely to experience them more often.
How Do Psychologists Define Peak Experiences?
Peak experiences are often described as transcendent moments of pure joy and elation. These are moments that stand out from everyday events. The memory of such events is lasting and people often liken them to a spiritual experience.
Other experts describe peak experiences in the following ways:
“Peak experiences involve a heightened sense of wonder, awe, or ecstasy over an experience.”
(Privette, “Defining moments of self-actualization: Peak performance and peak experience,” 2001)
“…a highly valued experience which is characterized by such intensity of perception, depth of feeling, or sense of profound significance as to cause it to stand out, in the subject’s mind, in more or less permanent contrast to the experiences that surround it in time and space.”
(Leach, “Meaning and Correlates of Peak Experience,” 1962)
The Characteristics of Peak Experiences
Privette (2001) developed an Experience Questionnaire designed to look at both the shared and unique characteristics of peak experiences. After looking at a wide variety of people, peak experiences have been identified as sharing three key characteristics:
- Significance: Peak experiences lead to an increase in personal awareness and understanding and can serve as a turning point in a person’s life.
- Spiritual: During a peak experience, people feel at one with the world and often experience a sense of losing track of time.
When Do Peak Experiences Occur?
Maslow suggested that one of the best ways to think of peak experiences are to think of the most wonderful experiences of your life. Those moments of ecstasy and complete and utter happiness. Being in love is one example of a peak experience. Such moments may also occur when you are in a creative moment or when reading a book or listening to a movie. You might feel a sense of “being hit” by a particular creative work in a way that strikes an emotional chord inside of yourself.
In one survey, people reported that peak experiences tended to occur during artistic, athletic or religious experiences. Moments in nature or during intimate moments with family or friends were also common. Achieving an important goal, either a personal or collective one, could also lead to a peak experience. Other moments when such experiences might occur include when an individual helps another person in need or after overcoming some type of adversity.
What Does a Peak Experience Feel Like?
So what exactly does it feel like to have a peak experience?
Peak Experiences and Flow
Peak experiences bear numerous similarities to the concept known as flow described by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is a state of mind during which people become so involved in an activity that the world seems to fade away and nothing else seems to matter. When in a state of flow, times seems to fly by, focus becomes sharp and people experience a loss of self-consciousness.
Flow can happen when a person is having a peak experiences, but obviously not all instances of flow qualify as peak experiences. Everyday moments such as becoming engrossed in a thrilling book, working on a satisfying project, or enjoying an afternoon game of basketball can all lead to a flow state, but these moments are not necessarily peak experiences.
References
Leach, D. (1962). Meaning and correlates of peak experience. Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida.
Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Polyson, J. (1985). Students’ peak experiences: A written exercise. Teaching of Psychology, 12, 211-213.
Privette, G. (2001). Defining moments of self-actualization: Peak performance and peak experience, in K. J. Schneider, J. F. T. Bugental, and J. F. Pierson (Eds.). The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, 161-180.
Thomas, L. E., & Cooper, P. E. (1980). Incidence and psychological correlates of intense spiritual experiences. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 12, 75-85.