Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark

Attempting to provide an academic definition of awe, social psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathain Haidt wrote: ‘Two appraisals are central and are present in all clear cases of awe: perceived vastness, and a need for accommodation, defined as an inability to assimilate an experience into current mental structures.’

a theory put forward by co-author Michael Tipton: ‘If you adapt to cold water, you also blunt your stress response to other daily stresses such as road rage, exams or getting fired at work.’

we should force ourselves out of gyms and off machines and into the natural world, knowing, or hoping, that we may stumble upon awe.

While so much of our self-exploration today is hash-tagged #wellness and displayed, it became obvious to me in the far reach of sacred lands, encircled by campfires and eucalypts, that sometimes the best way to pay attention to country is to keep your mouth shut, open your eyes and just listen.

The beach there was unspoiled, untamed, brimming with wildlife. We’d park our cars and run into the black sea, diving and swirling under the moon, watching a silvery, sparkling ribbon of phosphorescence trail behind our limbs. The tiny little sea creatures that absorbed the light of the sun were stirred up by our thrashing; we were streaming sequin

What can be done to nurture our inner lights, and guard them as jealously as an Olympian does a burning torch?

‘awe produces a vanishing self. The voice in your head, self-interest, self-consciousness, disappears. Here’s an emotion that knocks out a really important part of our identity . . . I think the central idea of awe is to quiet self-interest for a moment and to fold us into the social collective.’

seemed magical. These living lights became a kind of symbol of joy and abandon for me, and I tried to find more ways to experience them and companions who would love them as much as I did.

One of the more surprising findings of recent research is how commonly awe can be found: in museums, theatres, parks, ponds, while listening to a busker, or even, surprisingly, in micro doses, while watching a commercial or reading a story.

We more readily commiserate with the times when life is like a boa constrictor wrapped around our windpipes, squeezing out breath; like a dark ogre stealing our joy, our purpose and our hope as we sleep; or sometimes just like a thick black airless cave with no apparent exit.