A peak experience, as first described by psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1964 book, Motivation and Personality, is a positive life event or experience that is of the highest emotional resonance and elation. It is a time of intense joy or rapture, often experienced as a result of deep engagement in meaningful pursuits, a profound sense of connection to oneself and the world around one, a feeling of profound insight into some aspect of life, or a moment of 'flow' - of complete absorption in a creative activity. This all-consuming feeling of being in the right place, at the right time, is what Maslow describe as the ultimate state of feeling "full humanness".

See also: peak state, flow state, altered state, peak performance, non-ordinary state