The Neuroscience of Magic, Curiosity, and Awe

If you’ve ever felt like life used to feel more vivid, more textured, or more meaningful, you’re not imagining it. Many people reach adulthood and quietly wonder where that sense of magic went—why days blur together, or why moments don’t land the way they once did. Neuroscience offers a surprisingly gentle explanation:

Your brain didn’t lose wonder. It learned efficiency.

Why Wonder Fades Over Time

The brain is constantly learning through repetition. When experiences become familiar, the nervous system begins to predict what comes next. This process—known in psychology as habituation—helps conserve energy and keeps us functioning smoothly.

It’s what allows you to move through routines without effort. But it also means the brain stops paying close attention to what it already “knows.” Over time, this can make life feel flatter—not because anything is wrong, but because attention has narrowed.

Life on Autopilot

When prediction takes over, attention often turns inward. We spend more time thinking about our lives than actually experiencing them—planning, replaying conversations, worrying about what’s next.

In neuroscience, this inward loop is associated with activity in the Default Mode Network, a system involved in self-referential thinking and mind-wandering. It’s a normal part of the brain—but when it dominates, presence tends to fade.

Autopilot isn’t a flaw. It’s a survival strategy. But it’s not where meaning lives.

Where “Magic” Actually Comes From

From a neurological perspective, magic isn’t mystical or abstract.

It arises when novelty meets attention.

Curiosity plays a central role here. Research shows that curiosity activates dopamine pathways linked to learning, motivation, and engagement. Dopamine isn’t about pleasure—it’s about seeking. It signals the brain to lean forward, to explore, to stay with the moment. This is why curiosity doesn’t feel relaxing.

It feels alive.

The Neuroscience of Awe

Awe is one of the most powerful ways novelty shows up in the brain.

Functional MRI studies suggest that awe reduces activity in brain regions involved in self-referential processing. In simple terms, the internal narrator quiets. Mind-wandering decreases. Attention moves outward, into the present experience.

One fMRI study describes awe as being marked by a reduction in spontaneous self-reflective thought—so strong that the brain becomes as focused as it would during an active task. Participants even reported experiencing a “smaller self,” not in a diminishing way, but in a freeing one.

Awe doesn’t erase the self. It softens its grip.

Source: Van Elk et al., 2019

Why Awe Feels Meaningful

By interrupting prediction and self-focus, awe creates psychological space. Research links awe to increased well-being, greater prosocial behavior, and reduced stress-related inflammation. From a nervous system perspective, awe acts like a reset—pulling attention out of rumination and back into direct experience. This is why moments of awe tend to linger. They remind the brain how to be present.

The brain is plastic—it changes through experience.

What’s often overlooked is that novelty doesn’t need to be dramatic to matter. Even small shifts in attention can support emotional flexibility and reduce rumination over time.

You don’t need to change your life.You need to change how you meet it.

Practicing Everyday: Abracadabra

Living with more presence isn’t about forcing wonder. It’s about creating conditions for curiosity to return.

You might start by:

• taking a different route

• slowing down one routine and noticing texture, sound, or light

• asking a question without rushing to answer it

• allowing mild confusion instead of immediately resolving it

  
  

Confusion is often the doorway to curiosity—because it signals that prediction has paused.

A Gentle Reframe

Abracadabra doesn’t mean escaping reality.

It means choosing presence over prediction. Curiosity over certainty. These are not abstract ideas—they’re nervous system shifts. Magic, in this sense, isn’t imaginary. It’s what happens when attention wakes up.

Presence isn’t something you either have or don’t have. It’s a state the nervous system enters when conditions are right. Therapy can support this process by helping loosen rigid prediction patterns and reconnect attention with lived experience—without forcing positivity or bypassing real challenges.

References

Van Elk, M., Arciniegas Gomez, M. A., Van der Zwaag, W., Van Schie, H. T., & Sauter, D. (2019). The

neural correlates of the awe experience: Reduced default mode network activity during feelings of awe. Human brain mapping, 40(12), 3561–3574. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24616