As a parent of two young children during the pandemic, perhaps I could be forgiven for my appreciation of Disney movies. One thing that Disney often does well is to vividly portray a character’s experience of feeling connected, sometimes after having gone through a challenging disconnection. Moana comes to feel connected to her people, their past, the islands, and the sea (“We were voyagers!”). Asha, from Wish, comes to feel connected to everything, since we are all made of the same stuff as stars (“You’re a star!”). And many other examples could be given.

While these examples are fictional, the experience of connectedness could not be more real. This involves perceiving and feeling that you are somehow connected to something vast, such as everyone or everything, or something local, like your community. It might involve feeling one with, or similar to, or interdependent with, or in harmony with, or conjoined with this larger whole. It is measured in psychological research by items such as “I felt completely connected to everything,” or “I felt closely connected to humanity.” While feeling connected in this way is closely associated with other states like awe or mystical experience, researchers are increasingly realizing that it is a distinct and uniquely transformative experience. 

Feeling connected is an overwhelmingly pleasant feeling that people enjoy having. When you feel connected to something vast, your stressors seem smaller, and your resources for managing them seem larger. You don’t feel isolated, and you feel that you have at least some valuable features because of your connections, mitigating risks of depression. Your felt connections with other people and the environment lead you to experience more empathy and to think and act in kinder ways toward others and the natural world. The perception that you are connected to a larger whole contributes to a sense that your life makes sense, enhancing your experience of your life as meaningful.

This isn’t to deny that there are limits to the value of experiencing connectedness, or liabilities associated with it. For example, when people feel connected, they might forego enforcing punishments that really should be enforced. And, especially when one feels connected to one specific community in contrast to other communities, connectedness might support pro-group behaviors that unfairly disadvantage out-groups. Still, the main thrust of research on connectedness, especially when it is directed toward wider wholes like everyone or everything, is overwhelmingly positive. 

If we have a healthy appreciation for the many ways connectedness can be valuable, a natural next question seems to be: how can we feel more connectedness? Here, I think research is only beginning to scratch the surface. But existing findings do provide a basis for a few recommendations.

First, one natural suggestion is to go after awe-inducing experiences. Given the close relationship between awe and connectedness, we might expect connectedness to frequently accompany awe. But I would hasten to add here that not just any awe experience is likely to do the trick. I often feel intense awe watching Steph Curry work his magic on the court. I could rewatch the gold medal game of the 2024 Olympics on repeat. But when I watch Steph, I don’t tend to feel connected to everyone or everything. The experience is focused more singularly on Steph and his greatness.

Other awe-inducing phenomena may be a better option for promoting connectedness. These might include vast phenomena which, when encountered, tend to give you a sense of where you fit in the wider scheme of things. They might include watching BBC’s Planet Earth, or enjoying a virtual reality representation of what it’s like to view the earth from space like an astronaut, or taking in a view of a place you know and love from a height that allows you to see how its various parts relate and how it fits into a wider context. Or they might involve engaging in synchronous activities with a large group of people, singing or dancing together.

Second, there are differences in people’s personalities and ways of thinking that can make a difference in their ability to feel connected. One important personality trait predictor of connectedness is absorption. People high in absorption tend to engage creatively and imaginatively with their experiences, making use of all their senses. Trying to change your personality would take time and effort, though it may be possible.

The way people think about how they fit into reality as a whole—their “worldview”—can also make a difference in experiencing connectedness. Worldviews are often religious or spiritual, and there is a close relationship between connectedness and spirituality. Religious traditions are often very good at providing ways of thinking about how everything fits together, along with resources to help people practice perceiving things in this manner, such as emotionally rich music and embodied rituals. 

But connectedness-inducing worldviews and practices are not the exclusive purview of the religious. People who identify as spiritual-but-not-religious might borrow eclectically various elements from different religious or philosophical worldviews and practices to craft their own syncretistic approaches to cultivating connectedness. While this is sometimes derided as “salad bar spirituality,” I would suggest that when done well, it can be the work of religious innovation or genius. Many people today also find scientific ideas and practicing science to be a source of spiritual fulfilment. In a recent survey instrument designed to measure this spiritualization of science, the single item that best reflected this tendency was,

Additionally, there is the path of drug-induced connectedness. Specifically, classic psychedelics as well as other drugs with psychedelic properties, such as ketamine, are known to reliably produce experiences of connectedness, which in turn help to predict the downstream benefits associated with these drugs. As one participant in a psychedelic trial described the experience, “It just opens you up and connects you…it’s animals, it’s trees—everything is interwoven, and that’s a big relief. It’s a big comfort.”

Psychedelics don’t always have these effects. Sometimes people have bad trips. Researchers tend to emphasize that the “set and setting” in which psychedelics are taken makes a big difference. People’s prior expectations and intentions with psychedelics, as well as the experienced support they receive during and after the experience, matter a lot. If administered responsibly and legally in a safe and supportive setting, psychedelics may be a pathway some people will find attractive for cultivating connectedness.

There are many different types of resources at our disposal for cultivating greater feelings of connectedness. In fact, I would suggest that people can grow in their skills to use the resources available to them to cultivate connectedness. When a person has both a healthy appreciation of the value of connectedness, being wise to both its benefits and its limits, and they also hone their skills to cultivate connectedness for themselves and others, I’d describe them as possessing a virtue of connectedness. They have become a connectedness sage. 

Maybe you know someone like this. Maybe you can become someone like this.