The message may be in transit for as much as a second or two, and during that existential moment the pain is potential, not real.

Much of the research in pain control today is aimed at extending that existential moment and keeping the message from reaching the brain.

She threw her arms around me, and kissed me on the lips for one long existential moment.

I think we're at a particular cultural moment, this existential moment of Blairism, and that is eliciting a more dynamic response.

"If you'd like to have an existential moment, that would be a good time," he told the judges.

In Cold Bay, Alaska, he had his existential moment.

The thought of losing his dogs triggered an existential moment: "It really upset me when Man Ray died," he said.

They were having an existential moment and craving a meal at Red Lobster.

In a certain philosophical context, death can be seen as the ultimate existential moment in one's life.

Nature acts as the setting for hunters' or fishermen's existential moment of transcendence-especially at the moment when prey is killed.