BreathSync

We breathe more than twenty thousand times a day. Each inhale and exhale is subtle enough to fade into the background— an automatic rhythm that keeps us alive yet rarely enters awareness. Breathing is one of the most intimate and continuous physiological processes we have, but also one of the least noticed.

We seldom perceive our own breath, and almost never notice another person’s breathing unless we share physical closeness or emotional intimacy with them — a partner sleeping beside us, a friend calming down next to us, a child’s breath softening as they fall asleep. Outside such rare proximities, breathing remains private, hidden behind social boundaries and everyday noise.

Yet breath is more than mechanical. It reflects our internal state in real time — tightening with anxiety, opening with groundedness, speeding up with excitement, slowing with relief.

In social psychology, empathy refers to the capacity to understand and resonate with another’s internal state, spanning both cognitive empathy (recognizing how someone feels) and affective empathy (sharing that feeling) (Davis, 1994). Empathy is also physiological: research shows that people often unconsciously align their bodily rhythms—posture, heartbeat, even breathing—with those around them (Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson, 1994). In group contexts, such synchrony strengthens social bonding, promotes emotional convergence, supports collective regulation, and creates a sense of shared presence.

Thus, even minimal cues—like witnessing another person’s breathing pattern—can evoke connection, resonance, and a feeling of belonging within a group (Feldman, 2012).

These insights suggest that breathing—normally private, invisible, and unnoticed—may be a uniquely sensitive medium for examining how people relate to themselves and to others. By turning breath into something perceptible, we create an opportunity to observe processes that usually remain hidden: how individuals recognize their own internal state, how they attune to another person’s emotional rhythm, and how subtle physiological cues shape feelings of connection.

This project begins with a simple yet provocative question: 
1. How does making one’s own breath visible influence self-empathy, emotional regulation, and the perception of internal states?
2. How does witnessing the breathing patterns of unfamiliar others affect group empathy, perceived social connection, and emotional resonance?

By making one’s own breath visible, the system lets users encounter their internal rhythm as something tangible—inviting gentleness, recognition, and a softened relationship with the self.
By presenting the anonymous breaths of strangers, it reveals how pure rhythm—without faces or stories—can still evoke resonance, distance, or fleeting connection.
Together with the survey and shared database, the system traces how breath becomes a medium through which individuals sense themselves, sense others, and momentarily share an embodied emotional space.

With ambient and main music layers, stronger breathing increases the ambient sound while reducing the main track.