When is a peak experience not a peak experience? Good question. My answer would be - when you are observing yourself in the middle of your own peak experience, you are not really "peaking."
Which is sort of frustrating. The observing is actually a distancing, and this distancing means you really aren't totally "having" it. I experienced this over the weekend. I was in the middle of a situation that had "peak" written all over it. But I was strangely disconnected from my own experience.
Having it, means really losing it to the moment. And you can't will it. It has to overtake you. If you are conscious of what's happening, or what's not happening, you have already lost your shot at peak. So instead of a good feeling of satisfaction, you are left in an unsatisfied haze. A missed opportunity. Not peak at all.