Enlightening and Awakening Experiences; What’s the Difference?

Spiritual, enlightening, and awakening experiences, what’s the difference? And is there a difference?

That depends on who you ask. Many people will say there’s no difference. And in most cases, this isn’t a problem. But as a transpersonal psychologist, it’s important to be clear about what exactly we’re talking about. And if you’ve had an experience and want to know more about it, it’s helpful to be using the right terminology when you’re searching the net. So, with that, I shall break down the similarities and differences of terms like awakening experiences and enlightening experiences.

SPIRITUAL, ENLIGHTENING AND AWAKENING EXPERIENCES

Spiritual, enlightening, and awakening experiences are all types of altered states of consciousness associated with spirituality. They are usually profound moments of clarity and insight that reveals a deeper understanding of reality, existence, or the self. Sometimes you’ll come across or hear terms like religious experience, conversion experience, quantum change experiences and non-dual experiences. Again, they all fall under the category of altered states of consciousness associated with spirituality. In transpersonal psychology, these experiences are known as Exceptional Human Experiences.

EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN EXPERIENCES (EHEs)

Exceptional Human Experiences or EHEs are extraordinary experiences that offer a potential for growth and transformation if we engage with them and explore their deeper meanings. There are five types of Exceptional Human Experiences: psychic, mystical, encounter, death-related and enhanced “normal”. This blog will cover those EHEs that fall into the mystical category of EHEs. If you want to know more about the other types of EHE, like psychic, encounter or death-related, hop on over to my blog about EHE and transpersonal experiences. Back to the mystical!

WHAT ARE AWAKENING EXPERIENCES

Awakening experiences are common and are often the first kind of experience that we have within the EHE mystical group of experiences. This term refers to any experience where the experiencer feels, somehow, like they woke up as if they woke up from being asleep to something they’ve just discovered. This can feel like a revelation. It often happens when people go on their first spiritual retreat.

Having spent lots of time at yoga ashrams, I witnessed many people having awakening experiences. The kind of awakening experience that people have at a meditation retreat or yoga retreat is that there’s another way to live, and there’s more to life than shopping and burgers. It’s as if society has been keeping a big secret, and there’s a whole nother world out there. A world of spirituality, of the more subtle things in life, of psychic abilities, energies, and other things we can’t see with our eyes and won’t see much of in the media.

You don’t need to go on a spiritual retreat to have an awakening experience. In fact, people will talk about awakening in other contexts not directly related to spirituality. For example, during Covid, many people felt like they woke up from seeing life in a certain way. They realised what was important in life. They realised they didn’t need all the money and success that they thought they needed to be happy. Others felt like they woke up from a belief system that was erroneous and not serving their highest good.

So, awakening experiences can be quite varied. It could mean anything from waking up from the pandemic to a full-on enlightenment experience.

WHAT ARE TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCES

Transcendent experiences are moments where we transcend our personal identities, limitations, and boundaries. Often felt as a merging into something greater than yourself.

WHAT ARE ONENESS EXPERIENCES

A oneness experience is the sense that all is one, or everyone is one. The oneness experience at its most basic level can be felt at any good football match, protest, or concert. There’s a sense of oneness when everyone is in it together, breathing as one with a shared focus or interest.

You might have a oneness experience during a sermon, ritual or ceremony, this might feel more spiritual in nature to you. In the Bible it says when one or more are gathered in my name, there I shall be. I’ve had oneness experiences in a hall of 100 people meditating. There’s something really beautiful about when people come together for spiritual purposes.

You might also have a oneness experience while you’re out in nature. I often feel oneness in nature or at one with nature. It’s almost like nature absorbs me. Like the boundaries between myself and everything around me disappear, I love that feeling.

Oneness experiences form the basis of many mystical-type experiences, so you’ll hear this term used quite a bit here.

WHAT IS A NON-DUAL EXPERIENCE

Non-dual or non-duality just means not two. There is no other. So, in a non-dual experience, there’s not you and other than you, there’s just you or one. It’s as if any idea of personal identity vanishes. All egoic boundaries dissolve. It’s another way of saying oneness, but it specifically refers to the oneness or non-duality we find in spirituality.

I really struggled with this concept because before I started having non-dual experiences myself, I started to have dual experiences. I became aware that there was more than one dimension within me. I became acutely aware of my spirit self as something separate from my body and my egoic self. As I “developed” my spiritual practices, by all accounts, I should be experiencing non-duality, but I was experiencing acute duality!

Non-duality is a term that comes from spiritual traditions like Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism, where the nature of reality is seen as indivisible. Any distinctions we make between ourself and other is an illusion. There is just oneness and nothing else.

WHAT IS A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

Spiritual experience is a very broad term. It can mean anything from attending a meditation or yoga class to having a full-blown non-dual experience. It’s a vague term that doesn’t tell us much.

WHAT IS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Religious experiences tend to take place in a religious context or are experienced by people who identify as religious. Again, it's a very broad term. It can mean anything from going to church to having a non-dual experience. Religious people often understand their mystical-type experience in religious terms. And sometimes, they have visions of deities. So, a Christian might have a vision of Mother Mary or Jesus, while a Hindu might have a vision of a Hindu god.

WHAT IS A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

A mystical experience is a term used in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and psychology literature. It’s a very specific term that refers to an experience that has the elements of oneness, positive mood, noetic nature, time and space transcendence, and ineffableness. Other characteristics might be expressed as divine in nature, passive, expanded consciousness, paradoxical, and transient.

Because mystical experience is the cornerstone of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, there are questionnaires that measure mystical experiences. You can read my research on mystical experience questionnaires here.

WHAT IS AN ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCE

Awakening experiences, oneness experiences, non-dual experiences and mystical experiences have all been referred to as enlightening experiences. And in a way, they are all enlightening. But strictly speaking, an enlightening experience would be a oneness, non-dual or mystical experience.

Enlightening experience suggests a moment on a path towards enlightenment where enlightenment is not a guarantee. But the experience is like a sneak peek look or experience of what it means to be enlightened.

WHAT IS A RELIGIOUS CONVERSION EXPERIENCE

A religious conversion experience is quite an old-fashioned term, but I suspect it will become more popular again with more and more people turning to religion.

WHAT IS A QUANTUM CHANGE EXPERIENCE

Quantum Change experience is a term that focuses on the positive after-affect of having one of the above experiences. These experiences can have a profound effect on people, their sense of identity, reality and the world around them. All these experiences vary in degree of intensity. Usually, the more intense the experience, the stronger the positive effect. Such effects include things like no longer having an addiction, no longer suffering from depression, experiencing better relationships and generally having more positive feelings in life, like gratitude and awe.