Awakening Experience
An Awakening Experience is a low to moderately intense, short duration type of Connection Experience that leads to a state of enhanced awareness and understanding.
List of Connection Experience Types
Activation Experience, Aesthetic Experience, Birth Experience, Clearing Experience, Completion Experience, Death Experience, Deep Flow, Diminutive Experience, Dream Experience, Flow Experience, Forced Connection, Healing Experience, Nadir Experience, Peak Experience, Plateau Experience, Push Experience, Rebirth Experience, Restorative Experience, Union Experience, Unity Experience, Zenith Experience
List of Awakening Experience Types
Awakening Experience Types: Baptism, Initiation Experience
List of Awakening Experience Outcomes
Awakening Experience Outcomes: Mushi-dokugo
Related LP Concepts
Awakening Experience > Affirmation of Awakening
Non LP Related Concepts
Notes
Taylor uses the term in an attempt to bring clarity to the terminologically confused landscape, and to point out that awakening experiences (a sub type of Connection Experience are not confined to spiritual or religious contexts, but can occur spontaneously.[1]
According to Taylor and Egeto-Szabo, an "temporary expansion and intensification of awareness, in which our state of being, our vision of the world and our relationship to it are transformed, bringing a sense of clarity, revelation and well- being. We perceive a sense of harmony and meaning, and transcend our normal sense of separateness from the world, experiencing a sense of connection and even unity" [2]
Taylor admits that "varying degrees of intensity"
"A 'low intensity' No.awakening experience may be a sense of heightened awareness, that one's surroundings have become more real, with qualities of 'is-ness' and 'alive-ness.' A 'medium intensity' awakening experience may include a powerful sense that all things are pervaded with - or manifestations of - a benevolent and radiant 'spirit-force,' so that they are all essentially one; and the individual may feel part of this oneness, realizing that they are not a separate and isolated ego. While in a high-intensity awakening experience, the whole material world may dissolve away into an ocean of blissful radiant spirit-force, which the individual feels is the essence of the universe, and of their own being; he or she may feel that they are the universe.[3]
Note how Taylor's definition passes into classical mystical or religious experiences. Think he's trying to overwork the definition of awakening experience, should be confined to low intensity connection experiences.
See Connection Axes which characterizes connection experiences along four axes, duration, intensity, quality, and outcome.
Technically, an awakening experience is a brief increase of CQ resulting from a temporary removal of Bodily Ego defences, either spontaneously, by engaging in Connection Practice, or using Connection Supplements. An awakening experience leads to significant, insight, realization -- a notable expansion of awareness and understanding.
See Connection Axes
For an awakening experience to be productive, it must be accompanied by acceptance, Accountability, and Atonement.
Awakening experiences are isolated and discrete events. Awakening experiences may be distinguished from the Awakening process, which is a process that occurs as the consequence of maturation, education, and the accumulation of discrete Connection Experiences.
Martin Bidney [4] recounts an awakening experience of Tolstoy, whose experience with a talented peasant boy radically changed his perception of meaning and life.
Footnotes
- ↑ Taylor, Steve. “Spontaneous Awakening Experiences: Beyond Religion and Spiritual Practice.” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 44, no. 1 (June 2012): 73–91.
- ↑ Taylor, Steve, and Krisztina Egeto-Szabo. “Exploring Awakening Experiences: A Study of Awakening Experience in Terms of Their Triggers, Characteristics, Duration and After Effects.” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 49, no. 1 (January 2017): 45–65. p. 45.
- ↑ Taylor, Steve. “Spontaneous Awakening Experiences: Beyond Religion and Spiritual Practice.” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 44, no. 1 (June 2012): 74–5.
- ↑ Bidney, Martin. “Epiphany in Autobiography: The Quantum Changes of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 60, no. 5 (May 2004): 471–80.
