Mind over easy:
So in the interest of coming to a better understanding of what it looks like, I am curious to hear what others have to say about how stream entry may appear.
I understand the sentiment, and provide a few descriptions below, but would like to warn about the very real possibility of behavioral scripting. Relying too much on the descriptinons of other people's experiences can be misleading in both directions, towards over-confidence as well as uncertainty. Scripting is, in my opinion, one way in which the fetters of "adherence to rites and rituals" and "uncertainty and doubt" can bind the practitioner. End of sermon
-Level of sufferingSince stream-entry has this insight-increasing property, traditionally identified with "seeing things in terms of the four Noble Truths", this is a tricky question. Certainly there is a big sense of relief, i.e. less suffering, but there is also increased awareness and understanding of suffering. I was glad I was "over it", but was seeing much of my experience in terms of suffering all of a sudden. "Suffering less, noticing it more" as Daniel and Kenneth quote Bill Hamilton.
-Changed relationship to perception of the world
-...of the selfThese three (world, self, relationship between them)
are just different perspectives on the same thing, after stream-entry. In my case at least.
-Sureness that it was actually stream entry
-Time until you were sureAs I mentioned above, these are ways in which the first three fetters work. So there is something to be said for the "giving oneself permission" to enter the stream - the interplay of over-confidence, doubt, trying to re-live other people's experience (rites & rituals), self-image...
It took me some time to bust these chains. In a way, I had been a stream-enterer long before I would admit it. But in another way of seeing things, I wasn't, because I would not admit it. And no, this is not about make-believe or fooling oneself - just the opposite, in fact.
-Significance
-Was it a big deal? Did it strike you as significant? Or was it subtle?Big deal.
-Cycling, phenomenon related to cycling, how cycling manifestedIn my case, mainly in the sense of relief (that the cycles were completing without obstruction). Since I entered the stream off retreat, I did not have a hyper-detailed high-resolution sense of every single ñana in succession, more like the broad landmarks "edginess" "lights and visions and energy and weird dreams" "dark moods" "everything in its place".
-Fruitions
-Did you experience them? Did you not see them until a later path, if applicable? Were there things you thought were fruitions but weren't quite sure? Did this become clearer after time?Yes. Experiencing the lead-up and take-away of a fruition was my "goal" for stream-entry, and I was incredibly hung up on that, trying like crazy to re-live the descriptions in MCTB.
And to me, the fruitions of later path(s) are so fundamentally different that it took a lot of time to recognize them for what they were, and see the parallels and common points.
-Changes in personality, mood, way of conduct, etc...Yes... in all kinds of ways. Everything is subject to change. That in itself was my insight and fruit. It sounds terribly cheesy written down like that.
-View of traditional dogmas of enlightenment, spirituality, etc...
-How stream entry compared to dogmas you were aware of before stream entryWell... I learned to explore my own experience of this incredible universe, rathern than to confine my explorations to a tiny little sub-set of the universe, such as the dogmas.
I keep getting back to this point because it is so important.
-Changes in compassion, empathy, emotions towards othersThis came later, in fact. The emotional fetters around my heart were blasted away, and that was a whole different story from stream-entry.
-Changes in understanding of emotionsNot at stream-entry, no.
But for laughs, let me turn this around: "Changes in feeling of comprehension".
In other words, thinking about emotions is not the same as experiencing them. I am not my thoughts, they are not mine, they are not my self (and they are not my emotions, either).
This is hard to express, because all I can put into words is intellectual understanding, which is not what I am trying to put into them. So it looks like gibberish. Not much that can be done about it, really, except again to express the encouragement to go find out what feeling emotions is like, rather than cognize what thinking about emotions is like.
Cheers,
Florian