Kundalini Awakening Symptoms
Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening
Real Life Experiences & Descriptions of Kundalini Rising
Are you going through a kundalini awakening episode or experience? Let’s find out…
Kundalini awakening symptoms are truly a very intriguing subject. Really there is no correct answer to the question, “What are the symptoms of Kundalini Rising?”, as thankfully, each of us is absolutely unique and thus, on a unique trajectory on the path to Kundalini Awakening. That said, there are some common kundalini experiences that are often reported, which I would like to share with you in this article.
Although we can draw up endless lists of symptoms from third party accounts, I would like to instead make this series about kundalini symptoms that you or I have actually experienced. In this article, I will give a recent account from one of my students about what she experienced shortly after class, and then I will add my own kundalini experiences and observations as well.
In the comments section, I encourage you to add any kundalini awakening experiences or symptoms you have felt, so others can better understand what they might be going through. Here is the recent email I received from my student, Aida:
Aida’s Experience of Kundalini Awakening:
I am a student of the “Gentle Kundalini Class”. I just finished taking a series of exercise specifically for the spine.
As I left the class I felt energized as I usually feel after each class, but this time it was a little different, I was feeling extra aware of my surrounding. Like a light turned on. My back was so straight. It lasted all day.If I could go to class every morning I would go. It makes my day start right in every way. And there are times when I am not feeling like going to class and I push myself to go and do not regret it.Thank you for being my teacher.Aida D.
For those interested, here is a link to the Spinal Warmup Kundalini Yoga Kriya we did in class that day. Thank you Aida, for sharing your personal experiences with us.
This particular experience of kundalini is very interesting and significant. This is because it is the common experience of advanced meditation and of kundalini yoga. In the article, Powerful Kundalini Yoga Battles Profound Zen Meditation, I described my own such experience with kundalini awakening, but not from doing kundalini yoga, but instead from doing Silent Mind Meditation!
Aida’s experience points at the two things that all yoga and meditation boils down to. Energy and Awareness.
My favorite description of Kundalini Yoga is, “The Yoga of Awareness,” and as you see from her account, she felt more aware, as the energy of kundalini had risen up her spine. In meditation, it is the same. The demand for intense awareness, in order to comprehend the thought process via direct perception, leads to energy (kundalini) rising up and elongating the spine. Awareness then follows.
Jiddu Krishnamurti describes this experience of kundlaini energy flowing up the spine as “The rush of water filling up and thus causing a pipe to stand erect.”
When we insist that the spine be straight during meditation, it is simply to facilitate this awakening and thus, to assist in being more aware. I have experienced kundalini rising and puling up with such force, during meditation, that it sometimes make me feel as if I am going to be launched right off the ground or as if it’s going to pull my head off and up into the sky.
Symptoms of Kundalini Awakening:
I am going to describe some of the physical symptoms my students or I have felt due to kundalini awakening. I know there are many emotional and mental symptoms as well, and you are welcome to share those with us in the comments section below. I am grouping the experiences into 3 categories, common, uncommon and rare, according to what I have observed.
Common Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Tingling in the body and brain region. Also sometimes described as ants walking, tickling energy or flushes of energy. The brain being flushed with energy is quite pleasant :-).
- Heat or cold in the system, or running along various channels and chakra centers.
- Fluttering or twitching of muscles.
- Pinching or burning in various regions of the body or brain.
Uncommon Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Pressure in the Third Eye Region (Ajna Chakra). This is pressure, tingling or other sensation in the center of the forehead. Can go on for years (14 years and counting so far for me). Caution: If the pressure, due to certain practices, intensifies to uncomfortable levels you feel are “immense”, you should cease that practice and consult a competent kundalini yoga teacher.
- Sudden bursts of energy anywhere in the body. These are almost always short lived, from a few seconds to a few minutes.
- Spontaneous yoga asans or kundalini yoga movements. They may come on spontaneously, or they may take over, as if on auto-pilot when one is practicing Kundalini Yoga Kriyas or Exercises (For an example see article: Explosive Kundalini Rising in Class Today).
- Kundalini Shakti rising up and elongating the spine.
- Incredible feeling of love and desire for your partner (not ordinary lust, alcohol induced or otherwise :-). Usually comes upon you spontaneously, deep in the night. Sex feels like it’s the first such experience and the intense feelings of attraction emanate from somewhere beyond yourself.
- Unfortunately, pain in the lower back, back of the neck and headaches.
Rare Kundalini Awakening Symptoms:
- Experience of divine light within. Very intense light, usually pure white and incredibly beautiful. I call it the Radiation of the Lord.
- Tremendous vibratory energy (sometimes feels like it’s coming from the inner ears). Very blissful, but can intensify to the point where it would completely overwhelm your consciousness if you let it.
- Spontaneous bliss, intensely pleasurable.
- This one is a bit scary. Complete paralysis of the body. Complete immobility and rigidity takes place. As with the all consuming vibratory energy, it requires some courage to allow.
- This one is exceedingly rare. I have experienced it only once in my life, and have only ever read about it being experienced by one other – the master of awareness, G. I. Gurdjieff. The arms and legs churn like that of a baby. It happens naturally and cannot be simulated. It is also intensely pleasurable and quite a remarkable experience.
There are of course a wide range of transcendental experiences, some of which you will find described in the category Spiritual Enlightenment Experiences. Above, I have provide those that are more commonly associated with kundalini awakening, although many would argue, including Swami Vivekananda, that all enlightenment experiences have to do with kundalini entering the brain region in some capacity.
So if you have experienced some kundalini symptoms as well, please do share them with us below. I think it will benefit others identify if what they are going through is actually symptoms of the ever mysterious kundalini awakening.
Lastly I would like to add that I have head pains and I constantly hear a buzzing noise in my head. I also somethimes feel like there is crawling in my back area.
Hello, I am in great need help. I’ve been suffering terribly and would to know if anyone has experienced similar problems or could help me understand what is occurring. I first started noticing a negative change in my thought patterns (which happened out of the blue) and I suffered psychic attacks. I worked on myself internally and my psychic attacks diminished. However I still suffered with humiliating digestive problems. I started noticing that I could see with my eye lids closed. I felt cool sensations as if the wind was blowing but I was inside. More recently I began feeling like I could sense other peoples’ energy as if I were in there head. I have not experienced anything positive. I suffered a lot and I just want to be normal the way I was before all of this. I think that this has hindered me from having a normal life. I don’t go out, and I’m always tired. I would like to add that my mother suffered from mental illness and my sister is also suffering with mental issues.
I could go on about this forever but I will make it as concise as possible. Since your vibration is raising you’re becoming significantly more powerful therefore susceptible to low vibrational and evil energies. The purpose of these energies are to reduce you to your animal instincts. The most powerful people can also become the most evil – the most depressed – the most angry – the most mentally ill etc. So now what you have to do is make your vessel match. You must quit eating inflammatory and processed foods altogether entirely. Sugar, gluten/wheat, fried, packaged, restaurant food, etc. you must fast, expose yourself to sunlight for over an hour a day, remove all the chemicals from your home and clean with alcohol and vinegar. The exposure to these accepted substances are poisonous to your pineal gland the second you breathe them in. Your diet should consist of unprocessed or as unprocessed as possible meats, dairies, vegetables and fruits, seeds. You can get creative of course I still bake and make huge dishes that are incredible this does not have to be a painful process if you just know what you like and learn how to make it differently. That’s it. If you continue the same behaviors you exhibited before this journey that the consciousness and the vessel are separate [which they are absolutely not – they are a unit] this will absolutely never work and you’ll fall right back into the way you were before. Blissfully low empathy bouncing from one pleasure to the next with no internal will power. I hope this made sense. There is no way around it.
Meant to say clean your home and your clothes with vinegar only and add alcohol if you must to surfaces but absolutely nothing else. as your sensitivity increases your sensitivity to yourself must increase. It is absolutely worth it I promise.
Hi Anmol:
This is completely random for me and I’d never do this in a million years, but stumbled on your page by trying to look up the below experience. I just learned about kundalini awakening right now; so I’m not very well-versed. However, I was hoping you might be able to let me know if my experience aligns with what I’ve learned on your site so far.
When I was a sophomore in college (9 years ago) I was going through a tough time, psychologically/spiritually, and found myself praying quite a bit and very intensely. One night, I went to bed crying and eventually fell asleep. I vividly remember “waking up” (while still sleeping) in a room that was completely white with a door-less doorway ahead (about 25 feet or so) and to my left. I was seated on the floor clutching my legs, looked around, and couldn’t even see the corners of the room because it was so white. I noticed that I was wearing a white robe as well.
The entire time I was in the room, I felt very calm. All of a sudden I noticed a man walking slowly through the door way and towards me. I couldn’t see exactly who it was but I got the feeling in my body of extreme nervousness BUT in a very good and positive way. Essentially, it was like meeting a personal hero or someone you always admired greatly but magnified by 1 million; or even the feeling you get when you go down the first steep hill on a rollercoaster. He slowed as he came towards me and smiled. I noticed that he looked like the artistic representations of Jesus with the goatee and everything. For a brief moment, we just looked at each other and he continued to smile. He bent over slightly, reached his hand towards mine as if to help me stand up, smiled, and said “I’ve been waiting for you.”
As soon as his hands clasped with mine, I woke up. A rush of energy went up and down my body in waves for a few minutes. I was unable to move any part of my body, the energy shot up and down my body in intense waves and it felt like someone was literally “scrubbing my soul” clean and creating a blank slate. While this was happening I couldn’t see any part of my dorm room (I had the top bunk). All I saw were colors that seemed to be varying in intensity all around me. The rush of energy stopped, I felt completely exhausted, realized there were tears going down my face, was smiling, and drifted off to sleep.
The next day, I felt completely different and it’s hard to describe. Basically, I didn’t feel as if I existed on the earth but with the earth. I don’t know if that makes any sense. As I walked to the cafeteria, to class, to a friends dorm, I didn’t feel like I was walking but moving within “existence”. I apologize that I can’t describe it any better than that using words, but I don’t have words for it I guess. That same day I remember walking back from the cafeteria and seeing a bird pecking the grass. When I looked at the bird (it looked at me since I was passing by) I felt like that special effect in the movies when the camera focuses on an object and magnifies it to your eye. It’s as if I became the bird for a bit and “understood” its place in the grand scheme of things. By “understood”, I mean I saw its importance/purpose to the tree, to the worm, to the sky, to the ground etc. It only took a few seconds before I got out of this mini-trance, but afterwards, I felt that I “understood” the bird. Then I looked at the moon and had the same experience of realizing its importance/purpose place in the grand scheme of things.
There were more things that occurred that I never understood and to this day I sometimes find my mind wandering back to those few days 9 years ago. I’ve not had an experience like the white room since then, but I have had and continue to have “realization” and “understanding” experiences with people, animals, situations, death, life, etc.
What troubles me is that I’m a 29 year old guy who’s never been able to understand what I’m supposed to do with that experience or how to find a path to understand it better. I’ve never heard of christianity talking about the realization/understanding aspect (I may have not paid attention). I continue to have the residual effects of that experience and am confused as to how or what I’m supposed to do. I don’t wish to recreate it, but I would like to understand these realizations and things that continue to happen to me.
Any suggestions? Thanks for reading this long post? I’ve not said this to any of my buddies. As you can imagine, it’s not the most manly of things to talk about and I don’t know if people would “get it”. Any thoughts you have would help me a great deal.
Thanks!
Matt
Hi Robert,
Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you all the success.
Cheers,
Anmol
Hi Anmol,
Great Blog! I just wanted to get back in contact and say hi!
Robert Morgen :)
Hi Anmol,
At this moment in my life i am very confused. Back in 1994 April, I had an experience that has changed my life, but has also caused me a great deal of stress. A friend of mine can to visit me and told me about Jesus, I said ” yeh, yeh..i know all about that, i still have my bible here from when iwas 8yrs old ..see” i’d just like to say, at this time i was into the occult ( wican ) and had started to listen to classical music and had a strange fasination with watching the wind blowing throw the trees ( weird eh?) Anyway after my friend left, for about the next two weeks i started reading my bible and borrowed an old cassette tape with songs on… On a sunny day in April 1994, i was walking throw a park listeniing to this tape, the song was ” breath of God Breathe on me” as i listened to this acappella song iand the harmony unity in all the singing, something inside me broke, gave up, i started crying and as i did i was suddenly overwhelmed with this amazing love, heat, and i felt something travel up through and out of top of my head. for the next 3weeks or so, i felt this burning ball of energy in my navel/stomach area, and was in love with everything, i mean a deep divine love and i felt so pure. Then the problems started, imy mind was starting to fill up with horrible thoughts, i thought i was going insane, i kept ALL of this whole time of my life to myself, and suffered, i was on anti-depressants. i had trouble concentrating, but i kept reading the Scriptures and prayed. i got baptised in August of that year at a charismatic church i had started attending, which was an overwhelming experience and i felt purified, my Christian walk hasnt been easy over the last 15yrs, and confusing with many different experiences. i stumbled onto the subject of kundalini couple years ago, through a fundamental christian site, declaring that certain charismatic christian groups are in fact kundalini. Which has led me to ask you for your help, please, as i am confused as i have alot of the symptoms of kundalini, ie; The burning in base of spine going up n down, heat, tingling, waves of emotion coming on me, love (same as 1994 experience),peace. The pressures in the skull, inhanced perceptions of sight,smell, hearing my name called as lay down and shut eyes, awarness of other peoples energy, etc. And i am confused and doubting my christian faith, and it’s causing me great stress, which isnt an easy thing for me to admit here. i desire truth, before experiences. can you help me please?
stewart
also sounds for me are fiercely loud and when I see ‘things’ i try not to pay attention to them because i find it scary
and as a response to Amnol, stopping masturbation is like putting your head in a grinder. Kundalini energy is very sexual in nature, since I awoke mine, I have been masturbating heavly and this has helped to releive the pressure and relax me. Too much sexual energy building up is dangerous. Unless you have a weaker soul. Which isn’t the case for me because my chakras are aligned to take in energy.
This is random but here is my kundalini experience. After some intense meditating I felt something, like the head of a snake moving around in circles in my lower abdomen. During this an intense upheavel of negative emotion and thought, sometimes I felt like I was going to pop, but meditations to releive energy did the trick. I don’t think most people know what it is to awaken the kundalini, it is not a pleasurable experience. If you experiencepleasure, you are either extremely healed or you have not awakennign it at all, you should FEEL it. From what I have heard, the actual rising of it is much more painful. But after it all, there should eventually be bliss, power, balance and harmony.
Hi Arslan,
Awakening Kundalini is a very personal choice, as no one can guarantee that the process will be without challenges. So you have to be mentally ready. I suggest building/purifying the internal system with physical Kundalini Yoga & Pranayama, in conjunction with meditation, so that when Kundalini rises, the pathways are better suited for her voyage.
If you stop masturbation, as you have correctly noticed, Kundalini will have more intensity and power. This is as the energy is they used for spiritual evolution instead.
I suggest a nice, steady, systematic practice which will give you the best chance for a smooth ride, so to speak.
Feel free to use the free online kundalini yoga classes and sets I offer on this site to help prepare yourself.
Let me know your progress.
Best,
Anmol
Hi anmol
My kundalini awakened few months ago by meditation for 10min. It was my first meditation. I felt heat , pressure coming up the spine but stopped at middle of the spine. It was very painful. I think stopped at 2nd chakra. After that i didn’t do meditation but i still feel light kundalini. one more thing when i stop masturbation for two weeks then i feel strong kundalini, heat pressure. when i masturbate then i go back to very light kundalini. I also see colours blue, purple and others. I get pressure at my third eye.
should i stop masturbation?
why my kundalini stopped at 2nd chakra?
I wanna open my third eye plzz help
Dear Gauranga,
These symptoms all seem fine and are reported often with Kundalini Experiences and Ajna Chakra Awakening. With regard to your note on blood circulation, is it correct for me to say you were feeling a “paralysis”, for that I am aware happens, the cessation of blood circulation would be new to me and of concern.
Let me know.
Best,
Anmol
Hi Mike,
Really appreciate you sharing your experiences with us. This type of detail helps us understand more and more about kundalini awakening symptoms, how they manifest and what they can entail.
I have experienced much of the same as you have. The OBEs I have been told about, did not involve a cord either.
The experiences do tend to come in bunches so that is typical of what you are finding as well.
For concern with mental illness, firstly it tends to happen when you are slightly younger, I am trying to judge your age from the clues in the comment. Also, anxiety, fear and worry tend to play a role in that – which you are luckily not being subject to in any way.
Still given the family history, I would suggest to ration your energy between the everyday “mundane” life and meditation practice and make progress systematically.
Do keep us informed of your journey, I found it to be very interesting and educational.
On a side note, such feedback I intuitively feel will come in handy to those looking to study the subtle laws of the Universe more empirically.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
hi anmol ,
Gauranga here.After I read your article i tried fr the ajana chakra yoga.While doing the yoga i felt the tingling of muscles and brain and my arms became like babies and i felt like i am rising up.Wel after completion of the yoga my head got heavier and i had some intense feelings of love and desire for my partner.So are these symptons good or bad? that my head got heavier.i also felt like that my blood circulation has stopped and i cannot move my body. can u suggest me if these symptons are good or bad?
Hi Anmol, its mike again!
Three nights on from the above experience I had a different but very uplifting experience during sleep. Could this be connected to my last post.
I felt myself gently rocking as if I was trying to get out of my physical body (although this was not a conscious decision). I felt myself leave the physical body, turned back to see my body asleep on the bed but no connecting cord as people often report in OBEs. I moved around a bit before going through a window. I then found myself floating and swimming in a sort of indescribable ether/air I cant really describe it in language. It was blissful and beautiful. It seemed to have a colour of very pale blue. I was lucid and aware that I could change the course of this “dream” if I wanted. However I decided to turn down the opportunity and just let it drift and run. The bliss continued and it was if I felt myself starting to dissolve into it. There was no fear. I then found myself awake in bed quite elated in fact.
It feels as if this was related to my light experience the other evening but on this occasion I did not experience it.
I have had OBEs particularly in childhood and early adulthood but very very rarely in the last 30 years or so.
The remarkable thing about both stories is the positive and uplifting nature of the events. There has been no fear.
Thankyou for reading my posts
Mike
Hi Anmol
Many thanks for your work on this site. It is interesting to read of everyones experiences and I thank you for the time you spend responding to everyone. I would just like to share my experience the other night and invite your comment.
I have attended Christian church for some time but also have a keen interest in Budhism and New Physics, particurlalry how much of the New Physics confirms much of the ancient teachings. I have also been exploring many of the lost Gospels (ie Gospel of Thomas particularly). The internet has enabled me to explore much of this lately. Also in recent times I seemed to have lost wordly aspirations (this is positive) and have little interest in pursuit of career or consumerism
A week ago I spent a lovely week away and I spent about half an hour each day meditating and felt the benefit of this. I have had for the last 3 months or so a lower back problem which whilst not severe or dilapidating has been quite painful at times.
Thats very briefly my background.
Two nights ago whilst in a semi waking state after sleep I felt an energy rise through the spine and I was very hot. Then all of a sudden I experienced a blinding white light which seemd to encapsulate me. I remember thinking very briefly the light was so bright it was if it was a nuclear explosion although I realised at the same time it wasnt. It seemed too powerful to be a dream. On awakening I felt a feeling of bliss like Ive never felt before in my life. Eventually I returned to sleep and had a lucid dream (I have had these before but rarely).
The next day the feeling of bliss was still there and it seemed my consciousness was expanded somewhat and colours seemed more stunning than ever. The feeling of bliss was accompanied by a feeling that I was an observer of the world at that time rather than a participant, but I felt at remarkable peace with everything and everyone. Interestingly my back problem had been healed and there is no pain now.
There were no negative experiences about this experience at all.
There was one slight worry. Schizophrenia and mental illness is a problem with several members of my family so I have never really actively sought a kundilini experience as maybe such a powerful experience could perhaps trigger such an illness in myself if not correctly handled (am i right to be concerned or am i on completely the wrong track?)
I just know my experience was not a dream. Generally it was very positive and I have been uplifted. I have a changed feeling that traditional religions are actually restrictive in spiritual development and that this event has expanded my spirituality beyond the paradigms of structured religions but at the same time it has expanded my belief that in actual fact we are all inter connected and that we have nothing to fear after we die or even whilst we are on earth in this life.
Thank you
Mike
Hi Sapper,
Your experiences are very much in line with reported kundalini awakening symptoms. Thanks for sharing with us.
Best,
Anmol
I have had a variety of kundalii awakening symptoms while going through Rolfing and bioenergetics, and connected with marijuana therapy too. Sometimes I awake at night to find my arms and legs doing things – stretching and contorting, and my subconscious demanding that I let it have control, very warm and relaxing. Sometimes I wake in the morning and my spine demands to be allowed to stretch upwards and energy flows, I sense more vividly and focus on the moment, less prone to anxiety or thinking beyond the moment. Sometimes I look down and my body is getting on with life on its own, the subconscious taking over, walking along with no sensation of my body. Generally I have a sesne of incredible energy like when I was a child. I often can’t sit still!
Hi Alan,
Yes that certainly appears to have been a Kundalini awakening experience. Quite fascinating.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Best,
Anmol