Extreme Experience Reconsidered: Existential, Developmental, and Embodied Dimensions.
Shogo Tanaka
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science May 25, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-026-10005-4 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Keywords | Body schema Boundary situations Embodiment Extreme experience Psychological transformation |
| Key points | Proposes that extreme experiences are embodied threshold phenomena that disrupt ordinary selfhood and reorganize perception and agency, and that they have been addressed in earlier existential and psychological traditions. |
Abstract
This paper offers a theoretical re-situating of extreme experiences in response to Dominik Mihalits' (2025) multidimensional model. While acknowledging the value of Mihalits' effort to de-pathologize extreme experiences, it is argued that many of the phenomena he seeks to conceptualize have long been addressed within earlier traditions of psychological and existential thought. Drawing on Karl Jaspers' analysis of boundary situations and Abraham Maslow's theory of peak and plateau experiences, the paper reconstructs the existential and developmental significance of extreme experiences beyond their descriptive classification. It is proposed that such experiences are not merely defined by intensity but involve disruptions of ordinary selfhood and openings toward value-laden modes of perception. Building on this reinterpretation, the paper introduces an embodied perspective to clarify how these transformations are lived. By focusing on the dynamics of the lived body and body schema, extreme experiences are conceptualized as embodied threshold phenomena in which habitual patterns of perception, action, and agency are temporarily suspended and reorganized. From this perspective, Mihalits' six dimensions can be understood as descriptive markers of deeper existential, developmental, and embodied processes rather than as a wholly novel framework. The paper concludes that extreme experiences should be approached not as marginal anomalies but as moments in which the fundamental structure of human existence becomes particularly visible.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Vectorial Cerebral Hemisphericity as Differential Sources for the Sensed Presence, Mystical Experiences and Religious Conversions | 1993 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine | 1982 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |