When performers are in the zone, it’s spiritual, researcher finds

Prima ballerinas Anna Pavlova and Margot Fonteyn reported entering altered states of consciousness and having "spiritual" experiences during performance, a University of Queensland researcher says. Master of Arts (Studies in Religion) graduate Lynda Flower said her research aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of "peak performance lived experiences" and the meaning people made of them. "Greater understanding is increasingly important with the current trend of applying knowledge gained about peak performance - particularly in sport - to other high-performance areas such as the legal profession, business, education, medicine and the military," Ms Flower said. "Although there is a considerable amount of research into 'peak performance lived experiences', there is a distinct lack of clarity surrounding frequently used terms and the spiritual aspect. "Terms such as mystical, spiritual and peak experiences, 'in the zone' and 'states of flow' are used interchangeably in literature, but participants have rarely been asked about their spiritual understanding of these experiences." Ms Flower ed seven former professional ballet dancers for her research. "I chose ballet dancers as my focus because, with their strict training regimes, dancers are regarded as elite athletes - but they are also performing artists. "What I wanted to find out is whether they had spiritual experiences during moments of peak performance and if so, what they made of them and how they interpreted them.