perceived threat also flavors experiences: Our thinking was grounded in part in neuroscience: upon detecting threat, a small, almond-shaped region of the brain known as the amygdala revs up your body’s fight-or-flight response and, if activated during awe, should blend fear into the experience. For an excellent review of this fight-or-flight physiology, see: Rodrigues, Sarina M., Joseph E. LeDoux, and Robert M. Sapolsky. “The Influence of Stress Hormones on Fear Circuitry.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 32 (2009): 289–313. For recent thinking on the amygdala, see: FeldmanHall, Oriel, Paul Glimcher, Augustus L. Baker, NYU PROSPEC Collaboration, and Elizabeth A. Phelps. “The Functional Roles of the Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex in Processing Uncertainty.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 11 (2019): 1742–54. In terms of threat-based awe, Amie Gordon found that when awe does involve perceived threat, it feels less good, increases your heart rate, and diminishes your well-being. In this and other work, we find that threat-based awe amounts to about a quarter of our experiences of awe. Gordon, Amie M., Jennifer E. Stellar, Craig L. Anderson, Galen D. McNeil, Daniel Loew, and Dacher Keltner. “The Dark Side of the Sublime: Distinguishing a Threat-Based Variant of Awe.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113, no. 2 (2016): 310–28.

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Perceptions of threat: Nakayama, Masataka, Yuki Nozaki, Pamela Taylor, Dacher Keltner, and Yukiko Uchida. “Individual and Cultural Differences in Predispositions to Feel Positive and Negative Aspects of Awe.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 51, no. 10 (2020): 771–93. For an excellent treatment of this respect-based, fear-colored awe in Japan, see: Muto, Sera. “The Concept Structure of Respect-Related Emotions in Japanese University Students.” Shinrigaku Kenkyu 85, no. 2 (2014): 157–67. https://doi.org/10.4992/jjpsy.85.13021. PMID: 25016836.

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Emotions are like stories: I really owe this thinking to Keith Oatley. Keith is not only a world-class cognitive scientist and leading theorist in the science of emotion but a prizewinning novelist as well. Out of his love of literature and study of emotion, he has made the case that emotions have storylike structures. Oatley, Keith. Emotions: A Brief History. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.

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Having defined awe: For excellent stories of awe fitting for our digital age, see Jason Silva’s “Shots of Awe.” https://www.thisisjasonsilva.com/.

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understanding mystical awe: James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature: Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. New York; London: Longmans, Green, 1902.

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stories of awe: Bai, Yang, and Dacher Keltner. “Universals and Variations in Awe” (manuscript under review).

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concern about “WEIRD” samples: Studies involving only WEIRD samples do not generalize to non-WEIRD individuals, namely most people of the world. Henrich, Joseph, Steve Heine, and Ara Norenzayan. “The Weirdest People in the World?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33, no. 2–3 (2010): 61–83.

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a stirring theme: Edmundson, Mark. Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

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collective effervescence: Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by J. W. Swain. New York: Free Press, 1912.

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Many mentioned night skies: Marchant, Jo. Human Cosmos: Civilization and the Stars. New York: Dutton Press, 2020.

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our capacity to wonder: Drake, Nadia. “Our Nights Are Getting Brighter, and Earth Is Paying the Price.” National Geographic, April 3, 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/nights-are-getting-brighter-earth-paying-the-price-light-pollution-dark-skies/.

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