7 Common Spiritual Awakening Experiences

There are many spiritual websites discussing all kinds of spiritual awakening signs and symptoms, and I know that it can be quite confusing. In my spiritual awakening blog post “5 Signs of a Spiritual Awakening,” I offer my definition of some of the most basic aspects of an awakening. These are what I call primary spiritual awakening signs. From these signs, all kinds of byproduct experiences arise. What do I mean by byproduct experiences? I simply mean that an experience results because of the existence of the other signs of awakening. Without those signs, fatigue may simply be a sign that you aren’t sleep well and not that any kind of spiritual shift is going on. You see what I mean?

After a spiritual awakening, people often have a number of spiritual awakening experiences as they start to transition from living a daily life based on illusion and fear to one of truth, clarity, and love. Today, I’ll discuss seven experiences that I’ve heard and discussed the most in hopes that you can simply relax more deeply in your spiritual awakening and engage with whatever is being revealed, healed, and shifted within you.

Spiritual Awakening Experience 1: Bliss

Oh goodness, people love the bliss state. I’ve had stories shared with me of people spending months of time in bliss before the deeper work arose up and shook them out of their euphoria. Boy, did I miss the bus on that one in my initial shifts.

And I should emphasize that bliss is often in the initial shifts. It simply feels so good to get a clean drink of water after drinking the raw sewage of fear, lust, anger, jealousy, rage, shame, and so forth your whole life. The more you drink this water, the more it simply becomes your natural state. As such, it normalizes. You don’t feel blissful per se. You relax and mature into a place of peace that embraces bliss and all states of awareness.

For more on this specific topic, you can read this spiritual awakening blog post:

The Bliss State Comes and Then It Goes

Spiritual Awakening Experience 2: Disorientation

Secondly I wanted to talk about disorientation (This isn’t a chronology of how you experience things; it’s just the order I am writing today). Some people don’t get that lovely bliss state. They end up in disorientation. At this point, a part of the ego is wiped out, and the remaining part feels utterly clueless about life. This can happen especially if someone is deeply and utterly confused about the truth of life (think of a power-hungry person obsessed with fashion, money, and romance as the most important things in life). When they see the truth that is so opposite to their lives, they don’t know what to do anymore.

Disorientation can come at any stage of the transitional phase that comes after awakening. It simply depends on the person and what they’re integrating. At times, there is nothing to do than to sit and be present while you integrate the truth. It often requires creating healthier thought patterns and habitual actions. Consider how much work would go into changing your eating habits if you had a profound realization that your diet is completely wrong for you. But the disorientation does pass as you learn to trust your inner knowing and let go of the part that is trying to understand everything or force the truth into an old framework of thinking that does not work.

On a related note, this spiritual awakening blog post may be useful regarding this topic:

The Newness and Uncertainty After Releasing an Issue

Spiritual Awakening Experience 3: Fatigue

Fatigue and chronic fatigue are very common experiences for those in awakening as well as those who are healing. Especially when a lot of trauma and deep resistance are present, a person can have all their energy zapped. Their whole being is now working on that inner resistance, and in many respects, you are going to see how divided you have been against yourself.

In general, total transformation of the heart, body, mind, and subtle energy is profound work. It takes a lot of energy to metamorphosize, leaving you very little for doing stuff in the everyday world. It can be a good time to find a spiritual caretaker to look after your basic needs (finances, shelter, etc.) through this profound shift.

I should also mention that those people on the healing path can have similar chronic fatigue. This isn’t necessarily a spiritual awakening (hence why I emphasize the importance of those 5 signs of a spiritual awakening earlier). This is your body shutting down because you are completely overloaded with pain. You are being forced to deal with your pain through collapse rather than the arising of awakened awareness (although healing can fuel the arising of awareness because our divine awareness is a profoundly powerful healing tool).

For more about the fatigue and tiredness, please read on in this post:

Chronic Fatigue and Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual Awakening Experience 4: Apathy

The loss of desire that I mention as a sign of spiritual awakening can underpin apathy. Apathy, however, is when we ally ourselves with the old unconscious ego. We don’t know what we want, and we feel torn, confused, or hazy. When we ally with the divine intelligence in us, not desiring anything feels great, peaceful, and easeful. This phase can be a common spiritual awakening experience because oftentimes we try to put a foot in two worlds–the world of our soul and the world of our old unconscious ego.This creates inner conflict that makes everything seem impossible, which can turn apathy into  feeling stuck that can turn into a sense of hopeless and despair unfortunately.

It’s best to trust our inner process and to keep letting go of our old ways of living, having relationships, thinking and so forth. The apathy will subside.

Finally, sometimes, apathy is your divine self tell you that there is nothing to do right now.

For more about apathy and feeling lost during an awakening, I encourage you to read these posts:

Post-Awakening Challenges: The Lost Gray World of Apathy

Post-Awakening Concerns: Being Lost Within Absolute Freedom

Spiritual Awakening Experience 5: Phantom Pains

The lists online of physical pains and shifts people can have after a spiritual awakening are ridiculously extensive…emphasis on ridiculous. Let’s just say this: see your doctor first. If your body is fine, then let’s consider if your body pain is spiritual related. If so, it’s time to learn how to listen to your body and what is stored there.

Physical pain can occur in any part of the body. There is no limit, and the reason I call these phantom pains is because there is nothing physically wrong with your body. Yet there is pain. An old emotion, forgotten trauma, or something else is calling for your attention. It’s time to start listening.

For more on dealing with physical pain, please read one or both of these spiritual awakening blog posts:

Phantom Physical Pains and Spiritual Awakening

How to Find and Release Physical Pain During a Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual Awakening Experience 6: Sleep Disruption

My current theory about sleep disruption is that it, in part, has to do with how you orient to your awakening. If you consider it to be a problem that is “doing” something to you, you will tend to resist it during your waking hours. Your guard will tend to only be down at night at which point the energy of your presence can start to move and heal you. For some people, the resistance to their own truth and love can be so immense that they can give themselves full-blown insomnia.

On the other side, even if you aren’t consciously resisting, having a lot of energy moving through your body as you integrate this divine awareness can keep you up all night. There’s nothing wrong, but I do encourage you to work on relaxing as much as possible. Meditation can be a way to find your rest if you can’t sleep deep enough at night because of all that shifting energy.

Plus, there can be a lot of subconscious processing that goes in your dreams. For more on that topic, please enjoy this post about dreams and processing issues in our sleep:

Dreams and Processing Your Issues Through Your Subconscious

5 Types of Spiritual Awakening Sleep Problems and Insomnia

Spiritual Awakening Experience 7: Unfamiliar Energy Sensations

The last common spiritual awakening experience I felt like discussing today are the unfamiliar energy experiences. People can feel all kinds of surges, tingles, tickles, heat, cold, shivers, and so forth as energy moves, collides with stuck issues, and so forth. The advice is still the same; allow yourself to relax as much as possible. Engage with issues as they come up. Nothing bad is happening, and the more you simply allow the process to unfold, the easier it will go.

Furthermore, as I type this short update in 2023, I’d say that “spiritual energy” is a placeholder word for emotions and sensations that people don’t understand. To find out more of what I mean, I strongly encourage you to watch this video.

If it is helpful, please share with others.

Numerous Enjoyable and Fun Spiritual Awakening Experiences

There are also numerous enjoyable and fun spiritual awakening experiences that I won’t go into because they aren’t the ones people are concerned about. Aside from the bliss state that I mentioned already, there are all kinds of connections we can make within ourselves and with our surroundings and others. There are many, many wonderful realizations and revelations, and of course in our maturity, we find beautiful ways to share and work in this world from the awakened awareness.

At no time should you think that awakening is torturing you on this path, and you should also not attempt to hold onto the good feelings.

All experiences come and go.

This is the truth of living a human life, but with focus and engagement with your life, you can let go of the issues that need to be resolved and relax into a peaceful and clear life that you can enjoy from an awakened consciousness.