The cheap, cop-out answer to the thread title: "You'll know it when it happens to you."
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Now the real answer...
Because of the fundamental nature of language (see Ferdinand de Saussure), it is close to impossible to adequately describe a mystical experience -- that is, a state of mystical awareness -- to someone who has not experienced such a thing themselves.
Almost all efforts to do so at best leave their recipients baffled and at worse convince them they understand what they do not actually understand. Consequently, this thread makes almost no reference at all to anything that might be considered "the content of a mystical experience".
Instead, it seeks to present the curious person with a means of testing to see if they have experienced mystical awareness. It does that by selecting one -- and only one -- hallmark trait of mystical experiences and explaining as best as possible exactly what that trait is and how to recognize it. In other words, if you are experiencing normal conscious or subconscious awareness, you will not experience that particular hallmark trait. But if you do experience that trait, then you are experiencing mystical awareness. At least according to me.
This test for mystical awareness is analogous to a test for the presence of carbon monoxide. Such a test tells you nothing or almost nothing about the nature and properties of carbon monoxide, but it does detect whether the gas is present. In the same fashion, this test tells you whether mystical awareness was present, but it tells you almost nothing about the nature or properties of mystical awareness (other than the one hallmark trait selected as the trait to test for).
In the simplest possible language, that hallmark trait is the absence of any perception that reality is comprised of wholly distinct (discrete) things on a fundamental or bedrock level.
But what does that mean?
Please allow me to illustrate. Suppose you are currently looking at a computer screen. Without needing to think about it, you are almost certainly perceiving that screen as not the same thing as you. That is, your mind is dividing the world into self (you) and non-self (not you). Thus you are most likely under the impression that you are an observer observing things that are fundamentally and basically separate from you.
Now during a mystical experience, the distinction between you (the observer) and not-you (the observed) ceases to exist while some form of experiencing (awareness) yet continues.
So here's the test. If you perceive reality as something that you are observing, you are in a state of normal consciousness. BUT if you no longer perceive reality as something that you are observing, then you are in a state of mystical awareness. In a state of mystical awareness, there is no observer to observe.
Last, this test is almost certainly impossible to perform during an actual mystical experience. It can only be conducted if you are not in a state of mystical awareness. Hence, the mere fact you can ask if there is a you who is observing a not-you is enough to tell you that you are in a normal state of consciousness.
_____________________
Now here is some music offered in a futile effort to make up for such a poorly written and boring thread...
.......
Now the real answer...
Because of the fundamental nature of language (see Ferdinand de Saussure), it is close to impossible to adequately describe a mystical experience -- that is, a state of mystical awareness -- to someone who has not experienced such a thing themselves.
Almost all efforts to do so at best leave their recipients baffled and at worse convince them they understand what they do not actually understand. Consequently, this thread makes almost no reference at all to anything that might be considered "the content of a mystical experience".
Instead, it seeks to present the curious person with a means of testing to see if they have experienced mystical awareness. It does that by selecting one -- and only one -- hallmark trait of mystical experiences and explaining as best as possible exactly what that trait is and how to recognize it. In other words, if you are experiencing normal conscious or subconscious awareness, you will not experience that particular hallmark trait. But if you do experience that trait, then you are experiencing mystical awareness. At least according to me.
This test for mystical awareness is analogous to a test for the presence of carbon monoxide. Such a test tells you nothing or almost nothing about the nature and properties of carbon monoxide, but it does detect whether the gas is present. In the same fashion, this test tells you whether mystical awareness was present, but it tells you almost nothing about the nature or properties of mystical awareness (other than the one hallmark trait selected as the trait to test for).
In the simplest possible language, that hallmark trait is the absence of any perception that reality is comprised of wholly distinct (discrete) things on a fundamental or bedrock level.
But what does that mean?
Please allow me to illustrate. Suppose you are currently looking at a computer screen. Without needing to think about it, you are almost certainly perceiving that screen as not the same thing as you. That is, your mind is dividing the world into self (you) and non-self (not you). Thus you are most likely under the impression that you are an observer observing things that are fundamentally and basically separate from you.
Now during a mystical experience, the distinction between you (the observer) and not-you (the observed) ceases to exist while some form of experiencing (awareness) yet continues.
So here's the test. If you perceive reality as something that you are observing, you are in a state of normal consciousness. BUT if you no longer perceive reality as something that you are observing, then you are in a state of mystical awareness. In a state of mystical awareness, there is no observer to observe.
Last, this test is almost certainly impossible to perform during an actual mystical experience. It can only be conducted if you are not in a state of mystical awareness. Hence, the mere fact you can ask if there is a you who is observing a not-you is enough to tell you that you are in a normal state of consciousness.
_____________________
Now here is some music offered in a futile effort to make up for such a poorly written and boring thread...
