How Long do Mystical Experiences Last?

19 Aug

Written by Kirsti Formoso, MSc. Transpersonal Psychology, BSc. Psychology

Are you having a special kind of spiritual awakening and wondering how long it will last? Mystical experiences are powerful spiritual awakening experiences, but are they fleeting moments in time, or can they last longer? Read on to find out what the research says about how long a mystical experience lasts.

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

If you’ve come here wondering how long spiritual awakenings last, the answer is, it depends on what you call a spiritual awakening. As a transpersonal psychologist, it’s important for me to use the right terminology when discussing people's spiritual journey experiences. Spiritual awakening is a very broad term.

It refers to the action of waking up from a deep sleep, an illusion, if you like, waking up to realise you are not the body and you are not the mind. But it doesn’t stop at the realisation. Waking up is a process of orienting ourselves more to the truth of who we are than to our egoic selves. And this can take a lifetime.

Mystical experiences and kundalini awakening experiences, on the other hand, are like a catalyst. They are discrete experiences along the path of spiritual awakening. Moments when we wake up from the illusion of thinking we are our bodies and our minds.

For more information about kundalini awakenings, check you my article: Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening: What to Expect on Your Journey

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

Mystical experiences are powerful spiritual awakening experiences. They are a specific type of spiritual awakening experience that has been researched more extensively than others. Because of this, these experiences are very clearly defined within the research.

Specifically, a mystical experience has five elements: oneness, noetic, ineffable, positive emotions and time-space alterations. If you are wondering if you’ve had a mystical experience or would like to know more about specifically what a mystical experience is, head over to my blog: What Is a Mystical Experience? 7 Science-Backed Signs You’ve Had One

People who have mystical experiences say that it’s one of the most, if not the most, profound experiences of their lives. Many say that the altered state of consciousness came about very suddenly and disappeared just as quickly. So powerful are these brief moments in time that many people spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into that state.

But what if that state wasn’t fleeting but lasted hours, days, weeks, months or even years?

EARLY MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE RESEARCH

For many years, the consensus has been that mystical experiences are fleeting moments in time. William James, the first psychologist to investigate mystical experiences, suggested they were transient and the experiencer had a passive role. Other qualitative research has alluded to the same.

Added to that, most research into mystical experiences has taken place within psychedelic therapy research. Psychedelic mystical experiences occur during the five or six hours that the psychoactive substance is active. And, to my knowledge are just as fleeting as most non-psychedelic experiences.

So, the consensus seems to be that mystical experiences are fleeting and over before we’ve had a chance to realise what is going on.

TIME DISTORTION OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

A defining feature of mystical experiences is the way they distort our perception of time and space. It can be very difficult to know whether your experience lasted 30 seconds or 3 minutes. Time seems, in that moment, to disappear. Time is inconsequential in a moment of expanded awareness, universality, nothingness, pure ecstasy and joy. Nothing could be farther from importance. So, knowing how long it lasts is trivial. But then our logical mind kicks in, wanting to know.

RECENT RESEARCH INTO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

Welcome the inquisitive minds within the fields of transpersonal psychology and psychopharmacology. With renewed interest in the therapeutics of psychedelics and the acknowledgement that mystical experiences play a pivotal role, we’re seeing a growing body of research into both psychedelic mystical experiences and non-psychedelic mystical experiences.

At this time, there are two published research papers that use questionnaires to investigate non-psychedelic mystical experiences that I know of to date. One is my own, and the other is by Corneille and Luke (2021). Both ask how long the participants’ mystical experiences were.

Understanding the altered perception of time during mystical experiences, both researchers recognised that participants would find it hard to know whether they had an experience that was one or three minutes long, so the questions were broader.

The findings were unexpected, defied consensus, and challenged long-standing beliefs in the field.

HOW LONG DO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES LAST?

According to my peer-reviewed and published research, only 56% of mystical experiences last less than a few minutes. While 10% of my participants' experiences lasted hours, and 10% lasted several weeks.

More astounding for many is that more than 20% of the participants from my last research project reported that their mystical experience lasted months if not years. This supported research by Corneille and Luke (2021). But it also reflected my own experience.

I have had two mystical experiences, and while the first was fleeting, lasting only a matter of seconds or minutes, my last mystical experience lasted over a year before I fully and completely returned to my egoic self. While there is a sudden start to mystical experiences, some mystical experiences seem to sort of fade gradually over time.

EXTENDED MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

With about 30% of the population reporting mystical experiences and a fifth of those mystical experiences lasting months, if not years, it’s pretty rare. But it’s common enough that more research should be conducted around this phenomenon. In Western psychology, very little is known about this extended altered state of consciousness, and there is little support or information out there for these people. I know, I struggled to find help, guidance and support for myself.

SUPPORT FOR EXTENDED MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

You might be wondering why someone experiencing an extended mystical experience would need help, guidance and support. Being in a state of effortless joy, expanded consciousness and noetic wisdom can’t be bad, can it. Surely, if people spend their whole lives trying to get back into that state, one who finds themselves there naturally should be happy and content.

I can only speak from my own perspective, as there’s very little literature out there on the subject, and happy and content I was. Living in effortless joy, expanded consciousness, and noetic wisdom was fabulous. And I feel so much gratitude for it.

But, during that time, I also felt a bit lonely and isolated. My worldview was in stark contrast to those around me. I didn’t understand why people got obsessed with petty dramas or why they couldn’t see with more clarity. But, more importantly, I didn’t know what to do with it. I had no guidance.

EXTENDED MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES AND SPIRITUAL BYPASSING

My friend thought I was enlightened. She thought that I should go out into the world and teach spirituality. But I fear that is the beginning of all fallen gurus. And a fallen guru, I am sure I would have become. Mistaking an extended mystical experience for enlightenment is a dangerous path, both for the person who made the mistake and the followers who believed the mistake.

Thankfully, something within me knew that was a bad idea. I kept it to myself as I processed and witnessed my extended mystical experience and my gradual merging back into a more egoic state of mind.

While one may be blessed or find themselves in this altered state of consciousness for many months or years, it does not mean they are enlightened and, therefore, wise, perfect and pure. They are just having an extended mystical experience. Their ego is still fully intact and ready to revel in any importance, attention and admiration it can attract. Spiritual bypassing is alive and kicking in the spiritual world and as dangerous as ever in the extended mystical experience. If not the most dangerous.

DURATION OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING EXPERIENCES

Spiritual awakenings can last a lifetime, but mystical experiences are discrete experiences along the spiritual path to awakening that tend to have a shorter lifespan.

Whether a mystical experience lasts seconds or years is not important. A mystical experience is a gift of noetic insight that has the power to transform us. The most incredible transformations have happened in the briefest of mystical experiences. The power of truth needs no time.

It is what we do with these spiritual experiences along the spiritual path that matters. It’s what we learn, how we change and how we evolve that matters. The question is, more importantly, how do I integrate what I have learnt from this spiritual awakening experience?

As a transpersonal psychologist, I help people navigate their mystical experiences. If you’d like more support and guidance around your mystical experience, feel free to drop me a message.