Ecstasy (emotion)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Thus the same manifestations are to be observed in each case : cries, songs, music, violent movements, dances, the search for exciteants which raise the vital level, etc."--The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) by Émile Durkheim, tr. Joseph Swain |
Illustration: The Ecstatic Virgin Anna Katharina Emmerich by (1885) by Gabriel Cornelius von Max
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Ecstasy is a category of altered states of consciousness or trancelike states in which an individual transcends ordinary consciousness and as a result has a heightened capacity for exceptional thought, intense concentration on a specific task, extraordinary physical abilities or intense emotional experience. This heightened capacity is typically accompanied by diminished awareness of some other matters. For instance, if one is concentrating on a physical task, then one might cease to be aware of any intellectual thoughts. On the other hand, making a spirit journey in an ecstatic trance involves the cessation of voluntary bodily movement. Subjective perception of time, space and/or self may strongly change or disappear during ecstasy.
See also
- Altered state of consciousness
- Ecstasy (philosophy)
- Entheogen
- Flow (psychology)
- Mysticism
- Poem of Ecstasy
- Religious ecstasy
