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.
My Spiritual Awakening started in September 2011. I started experiencing profound physical symptoms, and it was definitely spontaneous. I started having lots of physical symptoms, and most of them haven’t stopped to this day. The first days I started hearing inner sounds, like a flute, drum, waterfall, beeping, buzzing, humming. Also sounds like roaring, whooshing, or thunderous noises and like ringing in the ears. Feeling tingling/pressure sensation between my eyes(third eye). Within the week I felt this Intense orgasmic energy rushing, like electricity circulating my body. I found out later that this experience is called a Kundalini Awakening. By the end of September 2011 I became disgusted by meat. By the next couple of months, on December 16th I went straight into veganism. That same day I started experiencing extrasensory perception; knowing, seeing other dimensions, seeing future scenarios of family members in dream state. The base of my head started to swell and I started growing two bumps above my eyebrows(photo in my facebook mobile album). In that same time frame I came across an article describing the 12 levels of light body activation, and I discovered I was in my 8th level of light body activation.
I was surprised (and happy) to hear about Gurdjieff’s experience on Kundalini. Gurdjieff has often publicly spoken against Kundalini(kinda buffer) and none of his books mention Kundalini.
Body froze after meditation, felt the absence of Karma during this experience and my friend who was talking to me actually said he felt as if he where talking right through me, as he reached for me with his hand to touch me, as if I were a ghost. Seeing an event happen moments before it actually happened. Being able to smell, much like a blood hound, in that I could tell where the smell was originating from,even though it was all the way on the other side of the store, trace both its path and age with out having to walk to the source and see for myself. Recognizing the smell for its chemical make up and not just for it being what my memory identified it as, thus it smelled much like purfume or cologne. Feeling it move up my spine, first as a sort of wiggle, then skip and like a cool river winding and finally heard in the ears like the bongs of a drum. Animal dreams, prophetic dreams, even a dream that gave me the name Ephan, verbally heard. My surrounding slowing down, much like in the martial arts movies. At one time, able to turn of sense of pain, to where touch was just a dull touch. Raja yoga for a brief time. Dhurana, Dhyana and I suppose Samadhi. Saw the circle of Akasha once in deep meditation but did not enter because of lack of instruction and knowledge as to what it was. Dream yoga- Years later after much of this, I tried dream yoga, and it worked the first knight. Entered through a luminous skelleton like head, through the left eye ( akasha ) into a void where I felt only the warmth of myself and sensed the complete lack of life within this space other then my own. A few nights later, entered a similar space but this time I was the circle or inclosed by a sort of circle, in the darkness. Looking inward I saw a luminous body clothed in white linen, lying as if a sacrifice and floating before me as I looked inward towards center of the spherical presence I seemed to be within ( Atman ). It took me years of reading to even understand what I had seen until I read an occult book by Rudolph Steiner. Any how, I abandoned my practices of (deep medtiation ) and currently live like every one else. But back then things were much different. Hightened awareness, The sun feeling as if it were burning my skin. Smell, Taste, Touch, Hearing ( such as drums, wind and a roaring river in my head, all were effected. No fear of death. I made it to the fith chakra above the emotions and feelings and according to text I have read if I had not brought my spirit back down I may have reached the sixth were there is no return to a normal physical life. At this point I was aware of charkas and Rapture “the spiritual energy that passes through the chakras. I did not sleep for two weeks as the sense of sleep is an emotion and I was above emotions so I only observed my body resting and all the spiritual comotion that came to my awareness when the body went to rest. There was something that seemed like roaring fire in the crown of my head and one night when I decided I could not go on living like this, I invisioned cool rain poring down upon this fire like rain falling through my body. I felt the energy move back down through my heart like sparks of fire being ecstinguished and over the next few nights my awareness became more physically and mentally normal. Visualizations can be powerful in both raising awareness and lowering it. Well wishes to anyone who has hightened their awareness. Tony. Ephan – the name given to me in a recent dream.
My very first Kundalini experience was as a one-off session on a yoga retreat. Being a little self-conscious I positioned myself at the back of the Shala at the back of the group. During the session I became increasingly aware of someone in the empty space next to me and assumed that, having my eyes closed, I had not noticed one of the group coming in late. After a minute or two I felt warmth on that side and was a little surprised that the person was so close to me given that there was so much space so opened my eyes for a second just to see who it was. There indeed appeared to be something next to me but it wasn’t a person in my group. I saw a figure much taller than me that appeared to be moving too. I continued to close my eyes for some time, concentrate harder on the kundalini and hoped that it would be gone the next time I opened my eyes! The next time I opened my eyes it still appeared to be there and I have to admit, I was a bit scared. At the end of the session, it appeared to just lower to the floor and disappear. It took me two days to approach the teacher to discuss the experience and understand what it was and why because I felt a little emotional and fearful, however, she took the time to explain Kundalini to me in more depth and reassured me. Since then, my outlook on life is changing and my priorities are re-ordering themselves. Although not wanting to sound dramatic, my life is changing around me and I am increasingly placing more importance on living. I am questioning the things in life than I used to just accept and learning more from my yoga practice. I am returning to a week long Kundalini themed yoga retreat later this year and hope that my knowledge and practice will be further enhanced.
I do believe that this is what started happening within me. a year and a half ago. I was going through a big life change and had a sudden emotional crisis (after doing research I believe it must have been the shattering of my ego). I spontaneously decided to meditate ( a practice that I had not done in over 10 years). My memory is foggy about the details but soon after starting to meditate and clear my mind I had experience of being sucked into a void of nothingness, for what felt like an eternity. When I woke up I felt the most intense love and feeling of beautiful interconnectedness with the entire universe!!! This feeling lasted for a few days and it was so incredible. What followed was very scary. I started to have intense nightmares and would wake up at 3am every night with the feeling of some sort of presence near by. I had intense mood swings and physical health symptoms which I believe was my body spontaneously cleansing itself. Friends and family started sending me messages of love and gratitude and commented on the fact that I had a beautiful glow. Since then, when I meditate or excersise I get an intense headache in my third eye region to the point that I feel like it is cracking open. Painful. Thank you for sharing this information. I will go find a guide or teacher who has experience in this to help me. Sometimes I am filled with bliss, other times I am terrified. Peace
I have experienced a few of these, the most noticeable however was when I first started meditating and my entire body became paralyzed. I thought I was dying, or being possessed. I freaked out and shook out my arms, and eventually was able to shake out my legs (since that’s where the paralysis started). I flicked on the light and sat there for a few minutes, then decided to try it again. Sure enough, the paralysis started creeping up my legs, and then I felt like my entire body had fallen asleep and then started that numb foot prickling sensation. I have no other way to explain it. I felt like I was getting whiplash but I wasn’t moving. Finally it ebbed away, and I felt just fine. In fact I felt more than fine, I felt in a constant state of stupefied happiness.
After beginning a regular Yoga practice, I was on my way to the studio and I felt a static electricity buzzing on the top of my head, then I felt a “pop”, a release on the crown of my head, like a lid popped open and I felt all the fear, worry and anxiety just drain out of my heart. I never felt such a peace and relaxing state of being. It was amazing.
Um, I have a question. I haven’t done anything, yet I’m experiencing this, why is that? I’ve felt the tingling, cold in the system, mostly going down my right arm and into my hand, twitching of my muscles, burning, pressure in the Third Eye Region, sudden bursts of energy, rising up and elongating the spine, pain in the lower back, back of the neck and headaches, I keep seeing lights whenever I close my eyes, vibratory energy, and sometimes I arms churn.
I’ve never learned anything about this, nor had I even known anything about it until I did some research. What should I do?
I initially experienced the kundalini when I regularly attended meditation seminars 17 years ago. It was a frightening experience because I could not find anyone to validate what I was going through. I ended up in the ER, had panic attacks and heat sensations, and became fully aware of the validity of chakras in the body. One day I sat down and had a talk with my guiding self: “Yes, I am grateful for this new awareness, however I need to go to work and school, and keep my life together. Let’s go a bit slower.” Eventually it tapered off, and of course, as all things go, I found myself missing it. I went on to finish my degree, acquired a family and a career, and life carried on with all its ups and downs. Now, the kundalini has returned, unbidden, but in a way, welcomed. I have ringing in my ears, and sensations of energy flowing throughout my body. I read spiritual articles and books, but am not involved with any regular yoga or meditation practice. The energy will stop at a particular chakra for several hours, and then move on or dissipate. Right now my heart chakra and midback areas are energized. Other times, the crown or mid forehead is stressed. I have had several interesting dreams. Sometimes I feel like I’ve taken a pain medication, and a sense of well being pervades. It’s as if my body and consciousness is being slowly woven into a spiritual self. However, I keep feeling like I should be using this energy in some sort of way. I am also a bit over emotional – I am trying to keep this in check. But then I say to myself, “Relax, it seems to know what it is doing. Sit back and see what happens.”
My kundalini has awakened 5 days ago. It is incredible. I started yoga last year in some ashram in Trivandrum, India and I felt the benefits of it. Healthier body, clearer mind. But this is beyond words. The final trigger was my desire of some occupied girl. I came to my lonely room in the evening and not knowing what to do with myself I went to my last resort. I closed my eyes, started focusing on my breath and suddenly I did an automatic yoga series of more than an hour and I think I could have continued till now. I have been practicing for hours every day and sometimes it is exhausting but the male seed that has clearly shown me it wants to be directed upwards seems to be divided in my body. After this my body gives myself a full massage and focusses itself on painful spots. In my case, as a “former” drug-and alcohol addict of only 26 years, it works a lot on my liver. I don’t know what the end of this will be, but I completely surrender to this force! Thank you Anmol, you are a hero.
ive experienced some of all but mostly the rare ones. is this bad?
Dear all I have been hearing all your stories , just like to let u guys know there are ancient scriptures talk about these experiences. Especially hallucination during meditation and waking up the chakras. It tells you not to linger on to those hallucinations , if you become fascinated by it it will occupy you and lead you to the wrong directions (going crazy). That’s why a lot people goes insane when searching for spirit and energy. The scriptures specifically tells practitioners not to see things or hear things. If u had it once its perfectly fine, but you have to tell your mind not to have it again. Or other spirit, not your own, will try to get a control of you, then you become those that lived in a mental house once they have complete control over you. It’s fine to feel physical changes within your body and mind(energy flowing ). And seeing just bright light, that is actually your spirit. But I try not go there not to see things as ancient scripture warns. So I do kudalini with my eyes open. It will let you avoid seeing hallucinations. If u see them ! Do Not Linger On Them! That’s what they warned us. Just let the energy replenish your body and mind it will help retreating your body. And be more aware of things you will become more intelligent and various emotions that are stronger than normal. It’s all part of the process don’t worry it has to do with open up the Charkras , these short emotions come with it, the body soul and mind changing emotions and hormones are also being affected. It’s natural during these processes, for example desire to know all things or feel being enlightened knowing all things, or desire urges, just know that they will come. Don’t think you are above everyone else, that u are better than others , scriptures warns that also. Some people fallen at this stage because they think they can be the guru, they knows it all…this stage is also dangers. So it teaches us to be humble at all times so we don’t fall to the wrong side. Believe or not this stuff is dangers. So there are a lot scriptures on keeping your self intact on track. Being humble is one important way~ not seeing stuff or hallucinations is another. If you see it more than once you should stop meditation and consult a teacher or pray to god for help getting rid of these things. As they might be possessive. Wish everyone good luck and be successful. Just remember not to see things and not to be boastfulness and be humble()
I have had two such experiences, both were very similar physically but the second time much more pleasurable. They were about 10 years apart.
The first time occurred during a silent meditation retreat. My mind felt very focused and I was seemingly able to see the space between thoughts. At about that moment I felt suddenly like my body was compressing and moving. Then without warning an incredible bright, white, energy travelled up from my belly/navel region, shot up my spine and up out the top of my head. The light and energy was beyond comprehension, it was so intense. It scared the hell out of me!
The second time was spontaneous, I was in the shower. Suddenly similar very intense energy shot up my spine and again out the top of the head. (This energy for me is very hard to describe, it is very bright and extremely strong, there is nothing else I have ever seen or experienced to relate it to.) But this time it came with the most intense bliss I have ever felt. For two hours I was essentially non functional, laying on the floor weeping with bliss. Nothing in my day to day experience can hold the minutest fraction of similarity to this experience. It was truly bliss beyond any comprehension.
These were incredible experiences, but I am in no way enlightened or have special powers. I am grateful to have experienced this in my life.
Hi I’ve just come across this site. I googled “electrical waves through my body” as I have been experiencing many of the symptoms described on your site as Kundalini. Initially, I put many of these experiences down to the menopause but I wasn’t convinced that this was the sole contributory factor to what I was experiencing and this is why. Approximately 7 to 8 years ago after experiencing several emotional traumas I decided I needed to take up a hobby to take my mind off things and to channel negative energies into position energies. So, in short, I took up guitar lessons. The only way I can explain what happened to me on my first lesson was that I felt connected to the guitar and I felt as though this is what I should have been doing throughout my life as I immediately connected with the sound of the music and learned quickly how to play the guitar. I am now writing my own music and songs and I am working to finish my first CD at the age of 56!! However, during this time I experienced many of the symptoms of Kundalini Rising, which I did not understand and indeed was frightened by. Having read from your website I feel as though through learning music I have awakened my soul and my true self. I’m amazed at what I have accomplished to date and didn’t think I was capable of learning to play an instrument or learning to play and understand music. I would like to become more comfortable within myself and more confident in what I’m doing and to realise my full potential i.e. my true self. Can you offer any advice? Please let me know your thoughts and if indeed I have awakened Kundalini within me.. I’m very self conscious about the fact that I’ve taken up writing music and songs so late in my life but I almost feel reborn. It would be great to have your comments on this perhaps somewhat rare phenomenon. Many Thanks.
For the past two years I’ve been meditating full-time, 8-10 hours per day, focusing on shamatha meditation. The two shamatha techniques I’ve been practicing are awareness of the space of the mind and its appearances, and full-body mindfulness of breathing. Early on in retreat, almost two years ago, I began noticing energy being drawn to my forehead, as if pulled there by a magnet. Sometimes it was a bit distracting or mildly uncomfortable, but I figured the issue would pass as I continued with the practice, deepening relaxation and so forth. However, it hasn’t resolved itself, and sometimes it can be quite painful like a tension headache, with soreness often building up in the tissue in areas of my scalp and face. Overall, my body, energy system, and awareness have become much more relaxed, stable, and clear than ever before in my life, and I feel great overall, but when I sit or lie down to meditate, or when I’m engaged in other activities requiring cognitive engagement, the discomfort in and around my forehead becomes quite a nuisance and has become a major obstacle to deepening my practice. The congested energy in the forehead seems to be the underlying issue, and the pain that I feel, which can feel like a headache, a sinus infection, soreness in the jaw, tingling on the top of the head, and a sore neck, all seem to be derivative problems. Even when I’m quite deeply relaxed and comfortable in meditation, I feel the energy being pulled to and congested in the forehead. I’ve tried everything I can think of for over a year, including all kinds of behavioral adjustments and shifts in my approach to practice, but it hasn’t gotten better, and I’m not even sure what the causes and conditions are that have given rise to it. I’ve also seen medical doctors and energy workers. Can anyone offer any advice to help me diagnose this issue and perhaps suggest what I can do about it?
My story is a long one. For the past few years, I have had very bad back pain and I had started doing meditation on my own in my home to help with the pain. One day, my back went into spasm, and my doctor gave me a prescription muscle relaxant. I was also on an anti-biotic. I had started doing my regular meditation, but I had remembered a Youtube video that described astral projection. I thought I would try that technique, ‘just for fun’. Well…that’s when the cray-cray got out of control. So, as I was doing the ‘astral projection’ meditation, my body started rocking back and forth on the mat. Back and forth, back and forth and I was not in control of it. It wasn’t like a seizure, just a rocking. It felt as though my ‘soul’/’spirit’ was trying to get out and I FELT the energy moving up my spine and it felt like bands snapping. It reminded me of the scene in the Matrix when Neo is in the slime-pod and the cables that are attached to him snap off. Looking back now, I think it was my chakrahs opening. I felt the engergy trying to get out my third eye area and out of my head. For a few days before this, I had had the tingling itchy sensations, but I assumed it was the anti-biotic because one of the side-effects was itching. Then, the next three days were crazy. I thought that time went backwards, I had tachycardia, brachycardia, hallucinations, I thought I heard people cheering me on from ‘the other side’ . I also heard loud CRACKING. It sounded like my whole house was going to crack open, it was soooo loud. (maybe my pineal opening???). I thought I could control water and wind. I lived in metaphor and was thinking like GOD. I understood the fractal nature of our universe. I was lost in a sea of red and blue. Everything had MEANING. I hallucinated and saw my own self glow in the dark like Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could SEE the energy coming out of my hands… I kept saying I was a white light healer from S******. I could hear the Tibetan chimes ringing across the globe for me. I felt very cool, all over. I could smell the flowers in my garden, even though it was early Spring and the flowers were not yet blossoming and the windows were closed. I smelled incense though I was not burning any. I could see balls of light floating down the road. Water sparkled like liquid diamonds exploding out of my tap. I could hear everything. Needless to say, I ended up in the hospital where they labelled it acute psychosis, which I believed was due to the prescription medications mixing. It wasn’t until a year later, I went to a psychic just for a ‘fun reading’ and she asked me why I was off work. ALL I told her was that I was having trouble sleeping. Then she said, “last year you had a Kundalini Awakening. The doctors think it is one thing, but really it was a Kundalini Awakening”.
The doctors were always curious why the hallucinations and strangeness lasted for so long. The meds should have been out of my system in a few days, but I was full on cray-cray for almost 3 weeks.
i m doing kundalini awakening from the last one month…felt things like tingling muscle spasms..altered sleeping and eating patterns heat sensations and vibrations..more importantly i feel like some kinda wheel moving inside the ajna chakra…the heart chakra…throat chakra and buzzing sound in my ears..all the things are pleasurable…but i m confused all the time about it..am i doing this correctly is my kundalini awakening….reply plz
I’m surprised wave-like undulations/modulations and pulses of energy isn’t on the list. It feels like the motion of a jelly fish. The energy waves travel through multiple senses or all the senses. Expand and contract movements. In this one instance, a pulse of energy pulsed in a wavy circuit around my chest and face, round and round. Such a unique and vivid sensation. Also cool breeze like sensation across the palms of the hands.
BTW it was the most INTENSE and scary thing I’ve ever experienced! Sounded like a jet plane was in my living room the sound was so intense, my blinds started to shake and the light from outside got SO BRIGHT! and continued to get brighter, i got scared and tried to wake up and i felt like someone was holding my arms down, and i felt a sensation (hard to explain) of my chest (spirit energy?) being pulled towards the light. I panicked. All of a sudden, i was awake..When I fell asleep again, i had 2 dreams back to back that came true THAt night..
I’ve experienced the RARE one!
I’ve been looking for answers.. I’ve haven’t been the same since! This happened RIGHT before a long series of events in my relationship took place n I believe they were meant to happen to make me stronger.
I keep having dreams that come true, I can hear Everything.. Its crazy but I need help or guidance!