Let's pretend that you were treading the path of enlightenment, maybe even having reached first path, without knowing about anything which one might read on these forums... What would you feel? Or, more precisely formulated, how would you explain your "spiritual" experiences without knowing them to be "spiritual"?

How would the cycles be felt if you didn't know about the cycles? How would you explain that?

Despite not having any clue about the progress of insight, I knew my earliest meditative experience (probably A&P) was spiritual because it came about by trying to reproduce something I'd read about in the biography of a yogi in the university library. I didn't know how to frame the experience, and failed to reproduce it no matter how I tried. I then spent years struggling through dark night territory without knowing it.

So I guess I can't answer your question per se, but I can certainly vouch for not knowing anything about formal meditation, about what to expect, how to progress, or even how to find out how to find these things out (before the internet it was a lot harder to figure this stuff out). I pretty much fumbled my own way through to 1st path over the course of about a dozen years just paying attention to life and reading pop-spirituality books looking for answers.

[Edited to add and then remove some personal details] The cycles were felt as periodic bouts of depression.

Craig