First snapshot: a picture of a crowded mind quieting enough to get intuitive glimpses of awakening; an inkling, a whiff, a feeling or recognition in the heart, in our core. It's the place of inspiration where spirit first quickens at the prospect of waking from the dream of life in illusion.
At this stage we pop in and out of these experiences. It's like being a tourist with a visa. It's where we start to feel the pull, the attraction of awakening; where we start to trace its borderlines.
At best these posts derive from the territory covered in this 'first snapshot.'
What follows is beyond my ken or experience yet is the scenario that rings most true. I'm venturing these descriptions to point to awakening's larger scope.
Second snapshot: here are the established residents on the conveyor belt of 'higher consciousness.' These veterans have attainment, accomplishment, but eventually want only effacement, to remove themselves from the picture.
They are living in a lesser, more 'real' dream, a more awake state, more intimate with Real Self. They abide in spiritual worlds, the courtyards and gardens of the Beloved. Spirit flourishes while not discounting the physical body.
Third snapshot: what to say, just....Self being. The end of all dreams. No more picture, not even a frame left. Boundless and Boundary-less. The Fully Awakened, no separate self left to attain or accomplish.
This has nothing to do with assertions or affirmations; it's when the ego-mind itself is no more. Here spirit becomes Spirit, the drop becomes the Ocean.