“When we listen to music that moves us, the dopaminergic circuitry of the brain is activated, which opens the mind to wonder and exploration. In this bodily state of musical awe, we often tear up and get the chills, those embodied signs of merging with others to face mysteries and the unknown… Music breaks down the boundaries between self and other and can unite us in feelings of awe… When we listen to music with others, the great rhythms of our bodies — heartbeat, breathing, hormonal fluctuations, sexual cycles, bodily motion — once separate, merge into a synchronized pattern. We sense that we are part of something larger, a community, a pattern of energy, an idea of the times — or what we might call the sacred.”

- Dacher Keltner