This post continues the discussion of the levels of experiences that will form the bottom segment of the Delta Model. Part One covered the introduction and took us from memorable to meaningful. This Part discusses transporting experiences (with no introduction).
Joe
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Transporting Experiences
When you create memorable and meaningful experiences, you have the further opportunity to make them transporting. Transporting experiences take us out of the present space or time, moving us metaphorically to another realm, to an affective if liminal space and time.
Transporting experiences take us out of the present space or time
Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s concept of the “hierarchy of needs”, mentioned in Chapter 2, situates at the top self-actualization, the need to fulfill one's full potential. According to Maslow, peak experiences create “moments of highest happiness and fulfillment” and are “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter”.[i] Peak experiences enable individuals to transcend their daily lives through euphoric moments, including religious experiences, getting a “runner’s high”, making a discovery, or by feeling a burst of love, reading an inspirational book, playing moving music, or examining a beautiful painting.
Even going to a theme park! As Wendy Heimann-Nunes and I wrote for Attractions Management:
Take, for instance, Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. Here, lifelong fans aren’t mere guests, but experience full euphoria as integral parts of the narrative – donning a costume; being a character in a galaxy far, far away; exploring new facets of their own identity in a universe that captivated them for years. Through these attractions, guests leave their daily lives behind and try “new versions of themselves with the agency to be a force for good or evil” as Scott Trowbridge, Senior Creative Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, told us. People also undergo peak experiences at Pandora – The World of Avatar, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, One World Observatory at the World Trade Center in New York – as well as numerous relatively immersive attractions without the big budgets of a Walt Disney or Universal Studios.[ii]
Wendy, an intellectual property lawyer focused on experience venues, gave me the term “transporting experiences” when, in writing our article, she told me of an amazing experience she had in and around a theme park ride, and that while it was not transformative she excitedly said it “transported” her.
Such phenomena extend beyond memorable moments and meaningful events to elevate our existence, at least for a time.
Such phenomena extend beyond memorable moments and meaningful events to elevate our existence, at least for a time. As some of the quick examples above attest, one way to have a peak experience is through flow, and all flow experiences are likewise transporting. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered and named the concept of flow, an “optimal experience” where the challenges you face are relatively balanced with your skills. Csikszentmihalyi gives the examples of “making music, rock climbing, dancing, sailing, and chess”[iii], but you can get into this state of elevated engagement in most any endeavor you face with passion and persistence. His research found that flow “provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality.”[iv]
When the challenge exceeds your skill level, however, you gain anxiety, while too high a skill level for the challenge leads to boredom. As Csikszentmihalyi writes, “One cannot enjoy doing the same thing at the same level for long. We grow either bored or frustrated; and then the desire to enjoy ourselves again pushes us to stretch our skills, or to discover new opportunities for using them.” [v] He further noted how flow changes your perception of time:
One of the most common descriptions of optimal experience is that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily does. The objective, external duration we measure with reference to outside events like night and day, or the orderly progression of clocks, is rendered irrelevant by the rhythms dictated by the activity. . . . [D]uring the flow experience the sense of time bears little relation to the passage of time as measured by the absolute convention of the clock.[vi]
Moreover, “freedom from the tyranny of time does add to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement.”[vii] I love that phrase – freedom from the tyranny of time! – and in gaining that freedom we transport ourselves, escaping the routine, shedding the mundane, exhilarating our emotions, exciting our senses, energizing our bodies, and elating our minds.
In gaining freedom from the tyranny of time we transport ourselves
While I’m sure there are other ways of having (and creating) transporting experiences, one other that deserves special attention is awe. While the word originally referred to great fear (once upon a time, anything “awesome” terrified people), particularly in using the term in contemplation of God it came to mean “solemn and reverential wonder”,[viii] an experience of smallness in the face of greatness. While I wrote above about transporting experiences taking us out of present space and time, the core element of awe is taking you outside of your self. You lose yourself in order to find your self.
The core element of awe is taking you outside of your self
Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the science of awe and wrote about in his book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He defines it as: “Being in the presence of something vast and mysterious that transcends your current understanding of the world.”[ix] Think of times you have experienced awe. What was the setting, the time, the spark? What thoughts sprang to mind? How long did it last, and how long did it seem to last? Did you feel transported?
Keltner’s book isn’t only about what he and his PhD students studied in the lab; it’s about the stories of awe he and collaborator Yang Bai (also a Berkeley professor) collected from people in 26 countries. From these stories he categorized eight types of awe, what he calls the “eight wonders of life”.[x] In order of their frequency of appearance in the over 2500 stories collected (with multiple categories possible in each story), these awe-filled wonders are: