Watch the video above for the short version of Accessing Spiritual Awakening with Curated Sound Healing or read the longer version below.
Spiritual awakening and transformative experiences have a profound relationship with specific sounds, tones, rhythms, and their patterns as sound healing. Specific sound patterns have been used from ancient times through history to guide the listener into states that access valuable different perspectives, awareness, and insight from ordinary consciousness. These sound healing patterns offer life-altering experiences that are characterized by a sense of connection, heightened awareness, and a shift in consciousness. Curated sound and music has long been recognized as powerful tools that facilitate these profound experiences.
There are three essential areas that people benefit from using curated sound healing methods for spiritual awakening and transformative experiences which are also known as extraordinary ore exceptional experiences, spiritual emergence syndrome, a samadhis experience, siddhis, ascension experiences, and other terms.
Each application has significant benefits that are long-lasting and reliable and deepen over time with consistent use.
The first area is for a person who wishes to have a spiritual transformative experience-People who are on the journey of their spiritual wakening and want to create a reliable method for themselves to access deeper states of consciousness. Creating a connection to the particular sound patterns enhances receptivity and familiarity with the process enhancing other areas of their physical, mental, emotional experiences and spiritual connection. These benefits include connecting to inner wisdom, insight, and expansive states of consciousness. While these sound practices builds and deepens overtime there is healing in the neurological system from stress and trauma which also benefits further development with transformative experiences.
Mild, Moderate, and Extreme Spiritual Awakening Experiences
The second area is for people who have an experience with a mild, moderate or extreme spiritual wakening or transformative experience. When a person has a more extreme spiritual awakening or transformative experience their neurological system is expanded and often is highly sensitive. There are also heightened changes in the electromagnetic systems. Specific sound healing methods provide anchoring with simultaneous access to heightened states. This contributes to managing and navigating experiences in a balanced way which supports processing, understanding and integration of heightened experience.
Moderate and Mild Spiritual Awakening Experiences
When there is an experience of a moderate or mild spiritual awakening and transformative experience using curated sound healing practices develops and deepens the relationship with non-ordinary consciousness that is strengthened over time with consistent use. The regular practice trains the ability to access these states easily and quickly and creates neurological recognition and familiarity which make it easier to access. And this familiarity facilitates more receptivity which can transfer into the dream state. These are non-pharmacological methods that access higher consciousness as a reliable method that is easily transportable.
Intense Musical Experiences as Spiritual Awakening Method
Other characteristics of using curated sound healing for spiritual awakening journey are drawing upon an Intense Musical experience also known as an IME. Intense Musical Experiences are methods of accessing spiritual awakening and transformative experiences that are profound and life changing. The research reveals people who experience an IME consider it to be of high significance with long-term effects and facilitates spiritual awakening experiences with the following four effects that include an altered states of consciousness that is an experience of harmony and self-realization.
- Once a person has an experience of an IME they are significantly motivated to create the same harmony in their daily lives.
- During an IME, the person develops various inner resources of understanding that were previously unknown or were not integrated for use into their lives
- Experiencing an IME results in long-term changes in personal values including their social relationships, how they engage in life, activities they pursue, personal development and perception of the meaning of life.
- In essence there is a profound shift in awareness which can be compared to a spiritual awakening, transformative experience, psychedelic experience that is fulfilling, harmonious, and connects the person in a deep way to their spirituality and values.
Changes in How Our Neurological System Responds
Research in neuroscience shows how particular sound and music facilitates spiritual awakening and transformative experiences through intense musical experiences. These experiences are considered transcendental and beyond our ordinary perceptions and sensory abilities. The key areas are
- Auditory and Sensory Entrainment: external consistent rhythmic sounds create a resonance with the listener that create brainwave synchronization. These states can induce changes from alpha state and deeper that are associated with deep meditation and insight.
- Emotional Regulation: Particular sound patterns evoke and regulate emotions, diminish depression and anxiety, as well as increase the feel-good chemicals of dopamine and serotonin. A component of using particular sound healing practices are rhythms and sounds that release emotional blockages that is a significant component of facilitating transformative experiences.
- Cognitive Awareness: When we listen to curated sound it facilitates shifts in consciousness from ordinary brain waves of beta state to alpha and sometimes deeper states. These states alter perception and understanding with new insights, establishing calm and centeredness. There is a stimulation of multisensory experiences that create profound transformative experiences.
The collective areas include visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile and inner knowing, intuition, insight, understanding, healing including lessening of stress and understanding of trauma.
Sharing Sound Healing Transformational Experiences
Other applications of using curated sound healing as a spiritual transformative experience is with another person or group. The sharing experience creates social connections and bonds through listening to the sound patterns that create entrainment and resonance. As a group experience there is an exponential benefit for all the listeners through the experience that enhances the experience and benefits.
World Cultures Have Been Using Curated Sounds for Transformation for Thousands of Years
Using specific sound patterns and tones as methods to access shifts in consciousness for healing and transformation are not new and have been part of our collective world history. Different areas in the world developed sounds, repetitions, depth of particular sounds, and patterns that transformed the listener for profound changes. These intentional changes in consciousness, as a sound healing methods are useful for healing trauma, relationship issues, mental health concerns, and physical healing, and facilitate shifts into heightened states of consciousness that are transformational. Besides for individual use the wisdom keeper and medicine person of the community accessed these heightened states for interacting with the unseen world for the benefits to the community. You’ll notice as we go along there are repeating themes that show up that reveal the value of particular sound and music in these disparate cultures.
Greece and Ancient Sound Healing
In ancient Greece, about 200 years before the common era, Pythagoras has been identified to be the first person to discover the relationship between musical harmony and the mathematical harmony of numbers. And Pythagoras was a prominent person to recognize the value of music and learned to prescribe specific music for sound healing for the physical body and ailments of the mind and emotions. In digging deeper, Pythagoras was trained in Delphi, Greece by the seer/priestess, and prophet, Theamystoclea.
Egypt and Sound Healing
In Egypt Abd’el Hakim Awyan shared about the sound chambers underneath the pyramids and other special locations. The reverberations in these chambers have potent healing properties and are part of the ancient practices of using specific sounds for different transformational methods. These methods have been passed through time to a few remaining descendants who understand and use the different sound patterns as catalysts for dynamic change.
World Sound Chambers
Viktor Shamas, the psychologist mentions his experience of going into a sacred sound cave in Mexico with a guide. The sound reverberations are used for shifting and accessing higher levels of consciousness and transformation. However, the cave is only accessed through an indigenous person who knows where the cave is and how it effects listening. It is likely there are other caves for the same purposes around the world that remain sacred, protected, and hidden.
Indian Vedic Tradition of Sound Healing Codes as Mantras
Like the training that Pythagoras learned from Theamystiklea, in India, Vedic mantras were begun around 1000 years before the common era with applications for healing as well. Mantras are considered ways to release negative thoughts, create alignment, focus, create a healthier state of mind, as a therapeutic resource. In some applications a mantra is considered to cure illnesses and emotional problems, and achieve higher levels of consciousness, transcending regular perceptions of space and time. Mantra repetition, sound and tone are considered a spiritual formula of magical resonance, which evoke a feeling and inner connection, shifting consciousness, aiding in spiritual awakening and transformation.
Northern Australian Aborigines Healing Modality
While mantras were being used in India in 1000 B.C. an even older tradition unique to the northern Australian aborigines is the sound of the didgeridoo that induces relaxing brainwaves, pain relief, release of emotions, and increases in circulation based on research of modern science. This 60,000-year-old tradition accesses the three brains, the brain of the stomach, the brain of the heart, and the brain of the mind (or head) using the didgeridoo’s vibration. The vibration enters the body and shakes the cells. This allows access to the cellular memory and releases blocked energy. The didgeridoo sounds also transfer into other states of consciousness including the dreamtime. Aboriginal healers also use traditional vocalizations chants, repetitions to remove and release negative energies from the physical mental, emotional and spiritual bodies.
Relaxation Response
What all of these systems have in common are particular repeating sound patterns, selected tones some of which have harmonic overtones, which create and develop the relationship with the process that allows the listener to transition from waking consciousness into deep states, with simultaneous positive changes in brain waves, heart rate, and respiration. These simultaneous changes are the Relaxation Response and they also boost the immune system, create feelings of well-being and happiness because they release dopamine and serotonin, connecting into the physical body, mind and emotions, and spirit developing resilience and inner wisdom.
Additional understanding of these mystical and transformative experiences are referenced in Features of Mystical Experiences by Dr. William James. He identifies four main characteristics of mystical experiences which are
- Ineffability. Mystical experiences are powerful states of feeling that are beyond words. It is impossible for an Experiencer to verbally convey their importance, grandeur, and profundity to another. Mystical Experiences have to be experienced to be understood.
- Noetic quality. Although mystical experiences are similar to states of feeling, they are also states of knowing. The mystical experience contains new understanding, new awareness, elevating revelations, and/or insights into depths of truth. They provide a glimpse of some aspect of the infinite intelligence, vast omnipresence, peace, and/or bliss/love of the Higher Power or Force underlying all reality.
- Transiency. Except in rare cases, mystical experiences cannot be sustained for long. They usually can only be reproduced imperfectly in memory, although there is a permanent longevity of the psychological and spiritual impact that remains.
- Passivity. Although mystical states may be facilitated by certain spiritual practices, once the mystical experience has begun “the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance” or “as if he were grasped and held by a superior power.” (William James)
What Are the Different Ways People Experience a Spiritual Awakening or Transformative Experience
Often the most known kinds of extreme spiritual awakening and transformative experiences are from a near-death experience (NDE). These are significant transformative events where there are changes in brain waves, respiration, heart rate, and loss of consciousness. In other kinds of spiritual awakening and transformative experiences they occur within the dream state, from an out of body experience, intuitive experience, other life memory, after death communication, post death communication experience, mystical experience, visitations, kundalini and Shaktipat experiences, inspired creativity, mystical visions that include known or unknown saints, or illuminated beings.
Any of these experiences may be spontaneous, related to visiting a location that is a trigger, practices in ceremony, group or individual higher level of consciousness, occur from using specific practices, and from the use of psychedelics.
Diving Deeper to Understanding Spiritual Awakening and Transformative Experiences; Defining Spiritual Awakening
Spiritual awakening refers to a heightened state of awareness where an individual experiences a profound connection to the greater universe/multiverse. This experience may involve a deepened feeling of unity with everything, understanding the Oneness, diminishing of the ego and relationship with social norms of cultural and emotional expectations, and an experience and feeling of the interconnectedness of all life. A spiritual awakening may be accompanied by feelings of peacefulness, happiness, even bliss and joy, and purpose which may be a change in direction from how life was unfolding. Spiritual awakening experiences are frequently accompanied by intuitive abilities and lasting heightened awareness although some components may be fleeting. Overtime memory and understanding of profound or extreme spiritual awakening experiences can occur like a drip-feed of integration. This process allows the person to accept and integrate their memory as it is remembered. This can be because having the complete memory at one time is overwhelming and too dysregulating.
Characteristics of Transformative Experiences
Transformative experiences may involve significant changes in perception, cognition, understanding, and emotion. These experiences may change an individual’s worldview and perception of connectedness, social, personal financial, career values, and behaviors. Key characteristics include:
- Profound Insight: Experiencing and sustaining a deep new understanding and or perspectives. Expansive awareness of the function and purpose of the life, different beings, relationships, purpose of self and others may also occur.
- Emotional Changes: Emotions connected to past experiences or experienced during a transformative experience are expressed or released and can lead to healing. Sensitivity to others emotional states and environments can also occur.
- Developing of Compassion: Understanding and compassion for one’s self and others is developed through accessing heightened states of consciousness. Connecting and developing compassion is considered to be a higher order function of human development. Compassion and kindness extend through consideration and empathy through cognitive understanding and also emotional connection.
- Changes in Behaviors: Life direction is enhanced with new attitudes, or knowings, and activities due to changes in values and understanding, intuition, and insight. New abilities may emerge that contribute to change in life direction offering, knowing and/or learning of healing modalities.
- Increased Sensitivity: Intuitive perspective is enhanced resulting in new sensitivity that is heightened to food consumption, surroundings, locations, dreams, meditation, and people and creatures.
Difference in Acceptance of Transformative States
In different traditions in the world contrary to the prevailing Western belief, spiritual awakening states and transformative experiences are normal responses within our neurological system to changes that occur when going through a spiritual awakening and transformative experience. In these different (and ancient) cultures what is identified in Western culture and medicine as a break from reality, mental health crisis, or psychosis is understood by the shaman, or medicine healer or wisdom keeper as an opportunity to explore and train into transformative states. This more humane and compassionate understanding is even more insightful because of understanding the person has value to the community because of their change in perception for being able to navigate different dimensions. Often the person may learn or go into a type of altered state called a trance.
The Spiritual awakening experience can be considered a type of trance. What is a Trance and how is it related to sound healing
Trance is defined as a “temporary marked alteration in the state of consciousness or loss of customary sense of personal identity. This is an expanded state experienced as creative flow, deep meditation state of consciousness that includes various modes of extra-sensory perception. Spiritual Awakening experiences can also occur during the dream state through lucid dreaming and other kinds of dreams g that change perception of reality.
What are the Characteristics of Curated Sound that Make it Effective in Creating Intense Musical Experiences that are Transformative
Rhythm
Human beings are hard wired for certain patterns and rhythms. These particular patterns are resonant to our listening like the repeating sounds of the ocean’s waves and a Mother’s heartbeat. The resonance with these consistent sound rhythms, repetitions are dynamic patterns that we instinctively respond to.
Tone Frequency
The particular tone or pitch of the sounds used is instrumental in accessing expansive states of consciousness. Whether the instrument is a Tibetan or crystal bowl, human voice,, drum rhythm pattern, sound of the ocean or droning sound. We know only specific vocalizations and sounds are effective for catalyzing changes in consciousness.
Familiarity
When a person is familiar with the particular sound healing modality it becomes a reliable method especially when it is practiced regularly. Regular use imparts the process into memory and experience and the neurological system that can be relied upon for shifting from ordinary consciousness into a relaxed, restorative, creative, and expanded states that provide insight.
Conditions
The conditions that are most suitable for using sound healing are when there is dedicated time that is not interrupted by other activities. Interferences include from other sounds, disturbances from people or animals moving through, the need to get up and attend to something, or phones. Other contributing areas to creating the optimum conditions for getting the benefits of curated sound healing are using the same location, where it is peaceful, and comfortable. And because using sound healing is something we can do alone or with others the practice is transportable and easy to use.
Intention and Mind Set
Creating an intention at the beginning of each sound healing experience sets expectations and clarifies the parameters. This process also holds the time duration. The intention can be to allow the process to unfold as well as other specific intentions for insight, relaxation, and experiences. These intentions can also be progressive as the person develops their abilities and can lead to more advanced options.
Practice
The benefits of the sound healing practice are enhanced when it is a regular activity. Using curated sound healing is not a one-time intervention but a consistent method as a tool that creates a connection of resonance and enhanced being. Research shows the benefits are not only during the experience but the changes in brain functioning, the physical body, emotional and mental system occur all the time and when in ordinary consciousness. And even benefit getting good sleep.
Breathing/Respiration
Using our breath to change consciousness is a means used in different practices for transformation. When we listen to specific sound am music compositions there are changes in our breathing that occur simply by listening. This is our resonance with the patterns of sounds and repetitions that changes our breathing patterns that contribute to our system transferring into advanced states.
Other Specialties-Harmonic Overtones
are found in different instruments from Tibetan bowls, the human voice, and other sounds that are around us including electricity. Using harmonic overtones which is multiple tones occurring at the same time with one note creates a sense of expansiveness and transcendence when the pitch is pleasing. The didgeridoo, harmonic overtone singing, and Tibetan and crystal bowls can produce these effects that facilitate accessing relaxed states, and sometimes deep states of consciousness.
Brain Imaging Studies
Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have shown that listening to music activates brain regions involved in emotion, reward, and social connection. These activations correlate with self-reported experiences of transcendence and transformation, providing a neurological basis for these phenomena.
Physiological Measurements
Measurements of heart rate, skin conductance, and hormone levels (e.g., cortisol, oxytocin) have demonstrated the physiological impact of music. These studies support specific sound compositions that can induce profound emotional and physiological responses, contributing to transformative experiences.
Sustaining a connection to transformative sound healing methods continues development and expansion of inner wisdom as a consistent interface with the numinous that offers profound benefits for our physical body, emotions, neurological system delivering an ancient connection to the mystical realm. This ability changes the limiting beliefs and parameters of our current reality that restrictively binds us. The grandeur of this interface takes us to new levels of understanding! Curated sound healing is for individual and group use for gathering insights, and innovative solutions that were previously unavailable and unimaginable as an untapped resource. Connecting to deeper methods of consciousness activates parts of our brain that have previously been unused guiding our way to personal growth, physical, mental and emotional healing, compassion, and deeper understanding and connection to profound states of consciousness and lasting transformation.
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