I haven’t meet too many others where the awakening happened “out of the blue” so I don’t have a huge dataset, but I suspect there are some general differences between people where it happened without warning or preparation and where it happened after years of seeking and practice.
I’ll speak for myself here, and it may or not match the experience of others.
EXPLORING THE TERRAIN & FINDING HEALING
In my case, when the oneness shift happened, I had not been a “seeker” and I was not interested in awakening or spirituality. I was an atheist teenager with an interest in parapsychology.
After the oneness shift, I was mostly interested in learning to navigate the terrain, and to help more of my human self align with it (AKA heal).
I have been interested in spirituality, obviously, since I occasionally come across someone who clearly are familiar with the terrain and can give some good practical advice for how to explore and learn to navigate and live from and as it.
I am not interested in it for the same reasons as many are. That may be why I often feel I don’t fit in most spiritual groups. Many there are spiritual seekers and I am not, apart from seeking to explore and to heal at a very human level.
I am interested in what I notice here and now, in immediacy. Not so much what others say about it. Although it’s fun when others who are clearly familiar with the terrain share their experience, noticing, and explorations. They always have their own take on it.
PRAGMATIC APPROACH
Since I was an atheist, I don’t feel much allegiance to any particular spiritual group or tradition. I use whatever approach or tool that seems useful independent of where it comes from.
The tools I have found most useful have come from Taoism (Taoist inner yoga, tai chi, qigong), Tibetan Buddhism (tonglen), Buddhism in general (basic meditation, sense field explorations, Kiloby Inquiries), Buddhism and other traditions (training a more stable attention), Hawaian shamanic traditions (Ho’oponopno), Christianity (Jesus/Heart Prayer, Christ meditation), older unknown and modern known orgins (Breema), no tradition in particular (The Work of Byron Katie, Headless Way), modern psychology (Big Mind process, parts work, Jung, Process Work), and so on.
I honestly don’t care where it comes from as long as it seems useful.
CHALLENGES FROM LACK OF PREPARATION
Since it happened out of the blue, I was – at a very human level – not prepared.
It was profoundly disorienting at a human level. Everything was turned upside-down and inside-out. I felt profoundly alone in it. I was wondering if I was losing my mind.
At the same time, it was profoundly familiar – it was revealed as what is always here and all I had ever known. There was a profound sense of coming home.
There was an enormous constant deluge of insights (many of which I am still noticing and writing about here), and enormous energies ran through my system for years afterwards.
It took some years before I met someone who understood from their own experience, first Birgitte H. and then Hanne B. Both were, unsurprisingly looking back at it, also from outside of any particular tradition.
I assume that if you come from years of practice within a tradition, it can be a bit different. The initial upheaval may be similar, but there is also some understanding – at a human level – of what’s going on, and there is usually some support in place from the tradition, group, and teachers.
UPSIDES OF THE OUT-OF-THE-BLUE VERSIONS
So there are challenges inherent in the out-of-the blue versions, but also upsides, at least in my experience.
Some of them are mentioned or hinted at above: I am more free of traditions. I am more interested in exploring than seeking (apart from healing for my human self). I take a pragmatic approach. It all got started with a bang, although it made it very wobbly at a human level. When I meet others where it also happened out-of-the-blue, there is an instant recognition and excitement in finding someone who understands. (Although it’s always different in the details, as it should be.)
I am far more interested in what I notice here and now, in immediacy, than in what anyone is saying about it.
I also take not being very interested in spirituality – apart from the pragmatics of it – as a plus. (A lot of it is a distraction and comes from fantasies and wishful and fearful thinking, although when that happens, it becomes part of the path and fuel for exploration.)