I have experienced, in a number of ways, what I like to call the 'shining moment'. Other people have other names. This moment is almost always achieved, for me, in competition. I have, occasionally, felt it after a particularly deep session of meditation, but it is much easier for me to achieve when in a contest. The contest may be physical, such as swordfighting or martial arts, mental, such as go or a card game, or some blend of the two, such as a video game.

What unites them all is the clarity they seem to impart to me, when everything but this exact moment seems to fall away, and I feel like I can see the possible lines unfolding from the moment. There is a thrill in that moment, a desire to win, and a fearlessness which fills me. In this moment, all stress seems distant and indistinct.

This moment is something I have trouble explaining to others who have never had it, especially my obsession with it, my desire to achieve it again. It doesn't happen every time I play a game, or get in a fight, but there is always a thrill, a joy which accompanies these actions, the knowledge that I'm close to the Moment. This thrill, this pursuit of the moment of shining clarity, leads me to play video games, go, Magic the Gathering, to fight with shinai, to have bat'leth battles with klingons, and to enjoy all of them.

Talking to a friend, it became clear to me that I had been labouring under an illusion most of my life, I had imagined that everyone felt this rush, and the shining moment as frequently as I did. He claimed he was 'unsure if he'd ever felt anything like that'.

I was curious. Have you felt the shining moment? How do you find it? Do you find it in a broad variety of actions, or a select few?

What if I don't have them, but I have some idea what you're talking about? Or what if I have them, but I don't have them all the time and/pr they aren't the reason I do anything competitive? What if we're both crazy?

I say this partially because I'm a pedant and partially to illustrate that my experience of things tends to be pretty convoluted, messy and full of articulations. As a result such moments of clarity generally don't occur to me. The only cases in which I approach what you're describing is when a finite local situation is resolved, at which point it crystallizes and I feel happy that it is now essentially accounted for. That and the "Aha!" moments we all get.

I clearly forgot the most important option on all polls:
'I don't like any of your answers'

+1

I voted for OP being crazy, but only because he left out the most obvious choices: "yes, sometimes" and "no, unfortunately not"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensho

Go does it for me more often than anything else I've found, but still not often enough.

I find it in any activity which totally absorbs me: playing go, playing music, reading, writing, hiking in the mountains, sailing a sailboat, ... It's not something limited to go. Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi wrote a book about it. He called the feeling or mental state "flow".

Well, I don't know. That sounds like a good start. They mention that the psychologist specifically refers to flow being encouraged by meditation and martial arts, which this mental state definitely is.

It's possible that Csikszentmihalyi is talking about the same thing I am, just from a different angle of attack. I wonder, though, since about two thirds of the responders to the poll think I'm crazy or have no experience with this phenomenon, does everyone really get it? Do people get it for things which I would not? For instance, I get it in a sparring match against equal opponents... is it possible that I'm wired to achieve flow in contests, and other epople are wired differently, for instance, in sailing a boat?

For me, it almost always has to be some contest or exertion. While I've achieved this state purely through meditative means, it is quite difficult, and almost always easier to simply seek out contests of skill to find the moment.

The link about Kensho was also interesting, though the religious tone seems to say that kensho is an enlightened state accessible through meditation and koans rather than physical moments, which are by definition, attached and not detached. I would need to find a practicing zen buddhist to discuss this with fully, I suppose.

Anyway, thanks to all who have responded.

I think it's most likely that people have different kinds of experiences when their attention becomes particularly immersed in a task. Certain elements like a shifting experience of duration and a focus on the immanent with the dropping away of the peripheral are probably common to all of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if many other specifics differ.

When I tend to experience something similar to 'flow', I usually feel like I'm going to get an ulcer because it tends to happen when I'm juggling a lot or when a very fine balance needs to be maintained. That's why I like momentum games such as Tribes and portions of Mirror's Edge. However, contrary to how Wikipedia describes it:



Anxiety is usually central to the experience. There's a rush, for sure, but for the duration of the experience it's not particularly pleasant. It's only upon success that anything resembling "spontaneous joy" or "rapture" occurs. It's also most likely to occur when I'm somewhat overmatched.

I don't believe I've ever heard Tribes compared with Mirror's Edge. And I thought I was the only one who enjoyed/bought/played the second. Not to hijack my own thread, but while I don't get the sensation I refer to while playing ME, There is something inherrently satisfying and powerful about a perfectly executed time trial.

In fact, most of the game is quite 'rush' inducing, though it's a different rush than my usual, except for the pace breakers of helicopters chasing me around shooting me, and combat sections which are unavoidable.

The game feels as if they made a superb game, with an interesting story, and a producer informed them, "Yes, but we have to have combat."

Anyway, enough hijacking of my own thread, back to the point:

I find it interesting that you find it an unpleasant experience, and that it comes when you're under some form of anxiety.

For me, it is actually fairly.. freeing. But, the balance aspect does enter, I think, as it usually comes when I'm focused on processing multiple channels of experience into a single moment.

I had an epiphany just once. It's led to a small ongoing project. I'll be able to determine whether it was a genuine moment of brilliance by whether the project finally works out or not :p.


I'm not sure if it's the same, but it had these characteristics. In any case, all I was doing was sitting down scribbling diagrams and thinking about something.

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I often have miai situations





and pushing through a small gap

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That don't impress me much

I recommend you cover your eyes and count to ten. The problem will go away, and you can get back to running around. Just don't ever go in room 237.

I do believe I know what you're talking about, with all of surrounding reality disappearing to the background. Sort of like a crazy level of focus. Although, I'm not sure about clarity being imparted. That clarity is something you already had in the beginning, but just doesn't come out when you're mind is wandering to other things. I can get to it when playing videogames at times, but it goes away when I start thinking about the fact that I might mess up (thus messing me up).

Can't say I've had it very often with go, except for certain points in some games where I really want to win.

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It sometimes happens for me when playing volleyball. It is usually when I am blocking a spiker. Time slows down, and movement is effortless. I can see what is going to happen. Indeed, I can see what has happened. It feels like memory, as if I have been there before. It has a sense of inevitability, if not predestination. It is like being able to see a film unrolled, all the frames visible at the same time.

The ball is in the air, floating like a soap bubble. The spiker leaps, drifting up to meet the ball. The rest of the world could disappear, and I wouldn't notice. There is me, a ball, and the opponent.
I time my jump with no anxiety, no uncertainty. It has to be right at this certain moment, indeed it feels as if it would be impossible not to jump. Decision making has no sense of conflict, merely assenting to the ineveitable. I jump at that particular microsecond because, well, this frame is when the jump always happens. Always has, always will.

The spiker hammers the ball. It floats along, and it slowly compresses against my palm. Then time springs back to normal speed, and the ball ricochets away faster than I can see, back into their court. And the future returns to being uncertain.

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Many people describe what you're talking about as being "in the zone". It's happened to me a few times mostly during a physical activity. One example was on a golf course. As I swung my club on a par 3, I could feel that everything was perfect and that the ball was going right at the hole. No tension, no anxiety, nothing. I just knew the shot was perfect. The ball hit the flagstick about 18 inches above the hole. Unfortunately, it didn't go in but I had a tap in birdie.

It's also happened to me in a couple of go games. I could see the board with complete clarity and the 4-5 move sequences I needed to play to capture large groups.

How to get into the zone? That's literally a million dollar question. You'd be rich if you could figure that one out.