Effects of Live Music and Set & Setting on Awe, Mystical Experience, and Aesthetic Chills
Open Mind July 1, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.17605/osf.io/z97ds (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Preregistered observational field study |
|---|---|
| Population | Concert attendees at the Lonelinoise – Sofia's Trip performance at Down the Rabbit Hole Festival and subsequent events |
| Measures | BFI-10, DPES, AWE-SF, MEQ-4, CEQ-7 |
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key findings | This is a preregistration describing a planned study; no results are reported. The authors propose that concert context, including expectations, personality, and substance use, will influence awe, mystical-type experiences, and aesthetic chills. |
Abstract
This project investigates how the context of a live concert — including prior expectations, personality, and acute psychoactive substance use — shapes intense emotional and altered-state responses to music, specifically feelings of awe and wonder, mystical-type experiences, and aesthetic chills. The study is part of an ongoing programme of research at the Leiden University PRSM Lab into peak experiences and altered states in naturalistic, real-world settings. Participants complete a short pre-concert survey (~5 min) before the Lonelinoise – Sofia's Trip concert and a short post-concert survey (~5 min) immediately after, linked via an anonymous session code. Pre-concert measures include personality (BFI-10), awe-proneness (DPES), absorption, prior expectations, and optional self-reported substance use. Post-concert measures include awe (AWE-SF), mystical experience (MEQ-4), aesthetic chills, challenging experience (CEQ-7), and a brief open-text reflection analysed using sentence-embedding methods to quantify semantic distance across participants. No data have been collected for this study yet. Data collection begins on Sunday 5 July 2026 at Down the Rabbit Hole Festival (Beuningen, Netherlands). All hypotheses, measures, and analysis decisions were specified in advance, on the basis of the finalised Qualtrics questionnaire and approved Ethics Protocol (ECP Leiden University, ref. 2026-06-17-M. van Elk-V3-6830). This preregistration covers the initial data collection event. Follow-up data collection is planned at subsequent performances of the same concert in different settings, including the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE). Data from all events will be merged, and a robustness analysis will assess whether setting moderated the main effects.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns Carmelite nuns | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| EEG activity in Carmelite nuns during a mystical experience Carmelite nuns | 2008 | Observational cohort | n = 14 |
| Neural correlates of mystical experience Vietnam veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury and matched healthy controls | 2015 | Observational cohort | n = 148 |
| The Peak Experience Variable in DPT-Assisted Psychotherapy with Cancer Patients Cancer patients | 1977 | Observational study | n = 128 |
| Psilocybin-Induced Mystical-Type Experiences are Related to Persisting Positive Effects: A Quantitative and Qualitative Report Healthy volunteers | 2022 | Observational cohort | n = 28 |