Hello friends. This is a broad question for anyone who's made some progress. I'm not asking for theory or advice, I just want to know your own personal experience: how did you get on the scoreboard? Were you noting on the cushion, noting off the cushion, doing body scanning, doing samatha jhana, what? What was the experience of getting into the first jñana like for you? Was it a big experience, or did you not even notice it was happening?

Anything at all about your experience in this regard will be helpful for anyone starting out, I think. There's a lot of talk about higher jñanas here, but I haven't seen a ton about what people actually do to get the ball rolling, as it were.

Thanks, everyone!

Noting off cushion, like a dog on a bone.

One Goenka retreat.  Follow directions.  Done Deal.

what you try to achieve? If you want to get same insight like these vipassana nanas i don't know.

If you try to get a handle on this like "1 change per year" and then have that change as a base for next then:

You need to use brains in your contemplative practice, not area of imaginary where you think what you will buy or have to do or daydreaming.

* you can test, if you can daydream then you are in wrong conciousness. But if you can daydream correctly you can do it.
*it is suggested to hold your spine straight, but not explained why? it is that to avoid making conclusions and guesses after the fact. For an example you say somethign then there is a sigh or little pause and you will correct yourself or lower yourself, so it is not requiered to sit with straight spine if you know why. Hence the sitting posture is not important if you know what is degragatory aftrethoughts. But then again if you know how to sit correctly you will not have to do anything else, it is a matter of preference in your part.

*awarenesss practice is removing sensuality from your daily ativity, it makes things boring and dry, but it is requiered for to bring out correct wettedness eventually where things can start growing.

I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed with these answers -- which is not a dig at anyone who answered (thank you!), but mostly my own fault for not being clear enough.

So, what I'm really asking is: tell us everything. What were you doing? How long did you do it? How did you know you'd gotten to M&B? What did it feel like? Was there a moment when you experienced a change, or when realized that something had already changed? Were you sitting, walking, or just going about your business? How did it change your practice and help you move on to the next stages? Did you even notice, or did you not realize you'd gone through the early stages until you started experiencing later ones?

Absolutely anything you can say about your experience would be helpful, but the more the better. I find that a lot of people talk about their experiences first getting into early samatha jhanas, and their experiences with later ñāṇas, but even on this forum there aren't a lot of people talking about getting into the early ñāṇas. By that I mean that there isn't a lot of talk about their personalexperience -- what it was like, and how you knew that it had happened. Some people don't even realize it's happened until later, and that's also very important to share!

So, please, if anyone has any time, I'd really love to know anything you have to say about what it was like to start getting seriously onto the Path. Thanks very much. We all appreciate it.

I remember the 2nd Nana clearly.  I had been meditating for 30 minutes a day, doing anapanasati (at the nostrils) - summer of 2007.  I suddenly had this epiphany about how I was letting my social anxiety control my life.  The anxiety dropped away and did not come back for another 2 years.  What happened is I saw how a deeper cause in my mind was creating a more shallow effect in my mind and body.  I did not realize this was my first time in the second Nana until 2014, after learning the progress of insight well.

Circa 2014, I learned to recognize the differences between the 1st 3 Nana (they were no longer my cutting edge, and each occured within a given sit).  M&B (#1) usually felt like some Jhanic factor would arise.  This was different than access concentration because freestyle noting did not create a continuity and stability of attention, which is what I associate with AC.  Instead, it was basically Vipassanizing reality, alongside some sort of Nimitta (i.e. floaty feeling, expanded mental screen, etc.).  C&E (#2) would always involve some kind of insight into the relationship between things.  As I would note aloud for my coach over Skype, my labels would become more complex, involving trains of physical observations, leading into trains of mental processes, and visa versa.  

I actually don't remember what the 3 C's (#3) were like right now!!  Clearly the 3rd Nana was not as pronounced for me.  I seem to have a faint memory of generally becoming more restless before the kundalini would begin to emerge (which would signal #4 A&P).  So I would say restlessness and a general rise in overall energy, and perhaps a decrease in the discrete clarity associated with the previous Nana, C&E.