How do I know if I have felt the Spirit of God?

How do I know if I have felt the Spirit of God?

 It is a unique experience that is impossible to describe. Some people have said that describing it is like trying to describe what salt tastes like. Salt tastes salty... it is its own differentiated flavor that cannot be described without experiencing it. 

So if it is so unique, then why does everyone use emotions to describe it? 

Just as some experiences are accompanied by emotions, (for example going to Disneyland may cause emotions of excitement), the emotions are not the experience itself, though they often accompany it. Another example might be, eating chocolate and describing it as "so good". Is that really a sufficiently descriptive word? "good". Of course not. You cannot understand what chocolate tastes like by me saying it tastes "good". If I said "How was the game last night, and I reply "good", I cant say.... "ahhhh, it was like chocolate". That is nonsense. You have to experience it in order to understand it. And when it comes to spiritual experiences, they are totally unique. People that have not experienced them are INCAPABLE of understanding them and people who have experienced them are INCAPABLE of coming up with adequately descriptive words. That is why there are many of people who have emotional experiences and think it was "the spirit", but in reality they have no idea what they are talking about in the same way as I might say that "the game was super chocolate".

Sometimes spiritual experiences are very faint experiences that I hardly recognize, and other times they are absolutely overwhelming and TOTALLY unmistakable.

I cannot generate a spiritual experience by willing it, but I can generate almost any emotion I want at will. So for me, spiritual experiences and emotions are two completely different things. However, just as thr experience of going to Disneyland makes me feel excited, a spiritual experience often is accompanied by peace, love, joy, warmth, etc. These emotions are not the spirit, just as seeing a wet rock is not a definite assurance that there has been rain. Sometimes rocks get wet because we pour water on them. So how do I know when I have felt the spirit? Similarly as when I know I have tasted salt. It is a unique, indescribable experience, often coupled by numerous emotions, that creates more peace, assurance, and love in my life.

From how I see it, there is some kind of communication from God's Spirit to our Spirit, then from our spirit to our brain, which then registers in our emotional centers and ultimately we detect these emotions and sometimes even physical sensations and interpret them as evidences that we have felt the spirit.

Theoretically, I could put an electrode into someone's brain and activate these same emotional/nervous centers and "recreate" the emotional/sensational experience that their brain has after their spirit has interacted with the Spirit of God. 

This is where it gets sticky... If I put an electrode into your brain and reproduced the sensation of someone touching your arm, does that mean that you have never had anyone touch your arm before? Of course not. Brain sensations and emotions can both be replicated. 

So when someone feels an emotion and is not sure if the emotion was the result of their own thought or from God, this is a really rational and reasonable question. 

"I am feeling emotions, that are often emotions that accompany a spiritual experience... was I just having a spiritual experience-- or was it an emotional experience?"

When spiritual experiences are faint or emotional experiences are VERY strong-- sometimes we can not be sure what kind of experience it was that we had. 

Joseph Smith taught the early Saints that one thing that could help them identify it was when they had a combination of enlightenment and joy. He explained that the the spirit of God teaches or assures us. So when we gain a depth of understanding or assurance of something, our spirit rejoices and this spiritual joy is then conveyed to our brain which then experiences the joy as well. So the combination of enlightenment or "pure intelligence" with joy, are key hallmarks.

I watched a video of lots of people having emotional experiences (pseudo-spiritual) about things that were wrong. High emotion does not equate, "from God", which is what my brother and best friend seemed to thing that I thought. 

It is similar to say-- "I am really happy" and to respond with "Oh then you must have just got married, because that makes people really happy". Yes marriage makes people happy, but happiness is not marriage. Neither is feeling joy the spirit of God. Ultimately, those same things that everyone described about feeling as if you are warm or full of light are the same way that people have been describing the same experience for thousands of years "burning in the bosom", "Enlightenment", "Fire of the Holy Ghost" etc. 

Emotions of joy, love, peace, patience, all fall like fruit from the tree of this experience-- but the fruit is not the tree.