A limit-experience is a type of action or experience which approaches the edge of living in terms of its intensity and its seeming impossibility. This approach has been lead to the seeking of limit experiences as a sort of mysticism

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

. A limit experience breaks the subject

Subject (philosophy)

In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...

 from itself. The idea is associated with Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

, Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot was a French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist. His work had a strong influence on post-structuralist philosophers such as Jacques Derrida.-Works:...

, and Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

.

Limit experience as defined by Michel Foucault deals with the traditional conceptions of reality and the need for them to be challenged and exposed. According to the argument, discipline associated with social control drives pleasure out of our bodies only to reemerge as fantasy. Social control is also discussed in his book "A history of sexuality". In which he addresses the way regulation of sexuality masks a deeper form of social control. Limit-experience is a type of somaesthetic "edgework" that goes on to test the limits of ordered reality.