Sudden Awakening and Problems of Identity Integration

        Grof and Grof’s (1989) work on altered states of consciousness and spiritual emergencies led them to suggest that psychological disturbances associated with sudden awakenings can occur “when the intellect is not well coordinated and developed; when the emotions and the imagination are uncontrolled; when the nervous system is too sensitive; or when the inrush of spiritual energy is overwhelming in its suddenness and intensity” (p. 35).  During these times, the understanding of one’s self and world can be challenged resulting in an integration-identification failure (Wilber, Engler, & Brown, 1986).  The failure of integration is neither a cognitive distortion nor a brain abnormality; rather the mind/body reacts to an inner fear of disintegration which is followed by a free fall and flood of abysmal terror (Almaas, 1996; Epstein, 1986).

        The late Suzanne Segal’s (1996) The Collision with the Infinite:  A Life Beyond the Personal Self is a personal account of her awakening experience, its aftermath, and the resulting shift in her identity/self-structure.  For Segal (1996), the sudden awakening experience led to a ten-year journey that included periods of profound fear, terror, psychological upheaval and finally the divestiture of her personal identity.  Innocently described, Segal (1996) recalled her initial awakening experience:

The experience of a sudden awakening can have profound effects on the mind/body and, it may be assumed, on life following such an awakening.

        In Western culture great emphasis is placed on the state, value, development and survival of the individual self.  Thus, terror and aversion may be a common reaction to an awakening as experienced by an unsuspecting Westerner (Segal, 1996).  By contrast, Eastern culture has a vast array of spiritual traditions, religions, and schools of thought that prepare the individual for a series of awakenings, i.e., Sufism, Taoism, Hindu Vedanta, and various schools of Buddhism.   In these spiritual traditions, following an initial awakening, the practitioner is then guided to fully flower this realization by living a life in accordance with its truth (Doori, 2002).

        For Westerners, stumbling upon the infinite is certainly not a deliberate ambition (Chah, 2002; Renz, 2005; Sahn, 2006).  Rather, awakening can be experienced as a spontaneous, abrupt shift both intense and powerful.   This shift is aptly illustrated by McKenna (2002) who describes the legendary Arjuna’s awakening experience as found in the Bhagavad-Gita:  “Arjuna didn’t get out of bed that morning hoping to see Krishna’s universal form.  He was just having a bad day at the office when the universe flashed him” (p. 5). And in the midst of an awakening experience, our self is brought into question, even extinction.  Therefore, it is helpful to consider the subjective nature and essences of these experiences with an aim of comprehending how they impede personal growth or, conversely, lead to the full flowering of one’s Being (Segal, 1996).  In this article a transpersonal phenomenological inquiry of an awakening experience is presented with the purpose of:  1) elucidating a Westerner’s experience of awakening, and 2) bringing clarity to the transpersonal themes that appear in consciousness in the aftermath of an awakening experience.