Are mystic states hallucinations or glimpses into a deeper reality?
There are moments that stand apart from the rest of life, moments that seem to vibrate with a different quality of reality. They may come in deep meditation, during prayer, in the midst of profound grief, at the birth of a child, or in the quiet vastness of nature. Without warning, the ordinary world shifts. Time stretches or falls away. Thought recedes into the background. And in its place is an overwhelming sense of presence, unity, and clarity that feels more true than the life you left behind a moment earlier.
In such moments, there is no doubt you are awake, yet the experience does not feel like ordinary waking consciousness. The boundaries between you and everything else dissolve into a seamless whole. You feel as if you are seeing reality without the filters of habit, language, or self-interest. Colors are richer. Sounds seem woven into silence. You are no longer looking at the world, but feel you are inside it, or perhaps it is inside you. There is a recognition that this is not something new, but something you have always known without knowing that you knew it.
For thousands of years, mystics from every tradition have described these states. Whether they call it union with God, awakening, satori, samadhi, or the eternal present, the descriptions share striking similarities. Across geography and belief systems, people speak of luminous clarity, unshakable peace, and a deep love or compassion that feels fundamental to existence itself. These reports are often accompanied by a profound shift in how life is lived afterward, as if a hidden axis of meaning has been revealed.
Modern science approaches these states with caution, often explaining them as altered brain activity, shifts in neurotransmitters, or disruptions in the Default Mode Network that normally holds together the narrative of the self. Neuroimaging studies do show distinctive patterns during mystical states, such as increased coherence between distant brain regions and reduced self-referential thinking. Yet the fact that an experience correlates with brain changes does not fully answer the question of what the experience is, or why it feels more real than ordinary life.
This is where the central tension arises. Are mystical states simply hallucinations? Are they beautiful but ultimately private constructions of the mind? Or do they reveal a dimension of reality that is always present, but usually hidden beneath the noise of thought and perception? The difficulty is that, by their nature, these states are subjective. They cannot be bottled, weighed, or photographed. They leave no physical trace except in the hearts and minds of those who return from them changed.
Yet, those who have experienced them often describe the same qualities: the absence of fear, the dissolution of self, the direct knowing that everything is interconnected, and the unshakable conviction that what they touched was not fantasy but truth. These are not vague impressions. They carry the force of something remembered, as if a curtain was drawn back to reveal the structure behind the stage.
Perhaps the question is not whether mystical states are real, but whether the narrow slice of consciousness we call “normal” is the full truth. If they are hallucinations, then reality itself must be stranger than we imagine, for so many different people to hallucinate the same patterns across cultures and time. If they are glimpses of a deeper reality, then our everyday mind is a doorway only partially open.
Either way, the experience leaves an imprint. It changes how you meet the world. It loosens the grip of fear. It makes the noise of ordinary life seem less solid. And once you have stood in that space, whether for seconds or hours, you may find yourself living not in search of new visions, but in the quiet work of remembering what you already saw.
Thank you for reading. Would love to know your thoughts.
