The unawakened account of the awakening would go something like this: it is an abnormal brain state with certain features describable in terms of effects in the communication and inhibition pathways between different brain systems. It can be induced by the action of certain drugs, and extreme physiological practices in the right setting, and its effects on the subsequent life of the individual can be profound, lasting and positive, but can also be quite negative, leading to psychotic or disassociated states. This account can explain many 'spiritual' phenomena and it can also be used as a basis for bringing about certain results in a more or less predictable way. The awakened account of the unawakened is more problematic since its perspective does not ascribe any reality to the unawakened state, and yet (optimally) places awakening at the service of this state. The awakened seeks nothing more than the awakening of the unawakened, and so without acknowledging its existence it must produce a working theory of it. Such a theory will thus be paraconsistent, and there can be many rival versions of diverse consequence. It prescribes some sort of practice whereby the unawakened can realise the reality of awakening and the unreality of unawakening. The truth paradigm for the unawakened is consensus, congruence between theory and results, internal consistency and consistency with other validated theories. Truth in this paradigm always has a margin of error. For the awakened the truth paradigm is self-certainty and self-validation independent of any external experience, and it is impressively unshakable relative to the other, it admits no margin of error, and cannot do so by its nature. Nevertheless the same necessity that accompanies the self-certainty also carries over into the assertion of the unreality or dream-like nature of the unawakened state, so that it unavoidably does depend on the efficacy of its proposed methods, or anti-methods, of bringing the unawakened to its own view. This last represents a fatal flaw in the internal logic of awakening and so we observe every variety of bad faith surrounding the deployment of such methods. Unshakeable self-certainty does have significant consequences for those who encounter it, but its power is generic, is shared with all kinds of irrational enthusiasms, and is not by itself sufficient to ground its claims, or even to abolish its own hidden or repressed doubts.