Awe

Today, a new science of synchrony has figured out the methods and mathematics to chart the patterns in which people sync up their actions with others to reveal how Durkheim’s thesis works. We are quick to move in unison with others. In doing so, we feel what others feel, through empathic processes in the brain we shall soon consider. As we become aware of folding into collective movement and feeling, we invoke symbols, images, and ideas to explain what unites us—vast experiences require vast explanations. We explain the pulsating feelings of dancing at a rave in terms of a spiritual principle, for example, or the waves of cheers of a hundred thousand fans at a game by invoking a kind of character, or spirit, that defines our team. We feel awe as our default self gives way to a sense of being part of an interdependent collective. We lose track of time, our goals, and, often, our social inhibitions. Free from the burdens of the self, we feel part of something larger, and inclined toward the “saintly tendencies” of awe.

This wonder of life can overtake us almost anytime we move in unison: In more obvious contexts honed by thousands of years of cultural evolution—rituals, ceremonies, pilgrimages, weddings, folk dances, and funerals. In more spontaneous waves of movement at political protests, sports celebrations, concerts, and festivals. And in more subtle, barely perceptible ways in our mundane lives, such as when we’re simply out walking with others as part of the rhythm of our day.

Human Waves of Awe

As Daybreaker’s dance unfolds, the emcee, Elliot, pointed to the right side of the arena and announced it was time to do a wave. The waves of sound that were his words stirred a wave of human movement. Like ocean waves far out from shore, this human wave of arms rising began slowly. It picked up momentum as it circled the four curving sides of the arena. Coming into its homestretch, individual bodies became one undulating movement, exulting with woo

s, woo-hoos, and, for those caught off guard by the effervescence of it all, WHOAs.

Human waves now ritualistically arise at football games, political rallies, concerts, and graduations. They tend to move clockwise and travel at a speed of twenty seats per second. They occur when nothing meaningful is happening; waves initiated during a keynote speech or the penalty kick will dissipate quickly in half-hearted movements. And they can be started by as few as 20 people in a stadium of 100,000. It takes just a handful of people to stir collective awe.

Moving in unison can also emerge in chaotic contexts. One group of scientists analyzed the movements of concertgoers at a heavy metal show. At the center of such a show is the mosh pit, a maelstrom of colliding bodies. This vortex of bodily chaos, the study found, is surrounded by a slow, undulating wave of tightly packed concertgoers protecting the crowd surfers on top of the mosh pit from truly dangerous falls. Mosh pits, a very symbol of social disorder, have an order that “permits harmony and some unison.” Little did those metalheads and punks know.

Our readiness to become part of human waves of different kinds speaks to how wired we are to move in unison. Studies find that four-month-olds mirror the tongue protrusions and smiles of adults, and older children imitate the postures and gestures of teachers, parents, coaches, hip-hop artists, and sports stars. As adults, we mirror others’ postures and hand movements; their tones of voice and grammatical tendencies; and their smiles, frowns, blushes, and furrowed brows, often without consciously realizing it. Through such mirroring, the boundaries between self and other dissolve, opening us up to the awe we feel in being part of a collective. Poet Ross Gay observes in his wonderful The Book of Delights

how striking this “porosity” of human bodies is, “how so often, and mostly unbeknownst, our bodies are the bodies of others.” Moving the way our bodies were meant to move.

As our bodies become the bodies of others, our biological rhythms synchronize with those of others. Sports fans’ heart rhythms synchronize when they watch games together, their collective pulse tracking the agonies and ecstasies of the game. The same proved to be true of villagers in San Pedro Manrique, Spain, who gathered at night to watch a fire-walking ritual. Sources of collective effervescence—ceremonies, musical performances, sports, dances, rituals within churches—shift the rhythms of our bodies to a shared biological rhythm, breaking down that most basic barrier between self and other, the idea that we are physically separated by the boundaries of our skin.