David DeSteno

And for many of them, they describe it as a deeply moving experience.

And again, I'm a terrible musician.

I can't play anything to save my life.

But when you look at people and know people who are really into jazz,

They start to enter this space when they're playing and improvising where it is not really the conscious mind that's doing it anymore.

It is just this kind of non-conscious feeling state that takes over.

And in some ways, I would argue, you know, that's a contemplative state.

When I say the word contemplative, most people picture kind of...

Buddhist monks sitting cross-legged on the ground or monks in Christian monasteries in deep meditation.

But there are active contemplative practices.

You can think of Sufis, which are a version of Islam, where they twirl in circles to put themselves in altered states.

Speaking in tongues is kind of like that.

It can be a very active state, but that increased activity can sometimes...

rev the mind up so much that it then begins to enter this altered state to quiet itself back down.

So I think music can do that for people.

Well, and think about beautiful architecture.

Many...

cathedrals or other places of worship they have these beautiful vaulted ceilings and when you go in if there's a service there's a choir singing beautiful music what does all that do it evokes this emotion that we call awe of of being overwhelmed at something's power feeling small yourself in the face of this but also connected and what we know about awe the emotion itself is and there's been studies on these some great studies by by decker keltner and in uc berkeley

where when people feel awe, it makes them want to actually be a better person.

They become more generous, more kind.