I think you're right to trust the sensations over the doubt, but the "energy vs. neuroscience" framing is itself a false dichotomy — the yogic texts you cited never separated prana from breath and nervous system in the first place.

Right, and I think that's actually the more interesting path to walk down rather than trying to prove kundalini is "real" in some objective sense. I pull tarot before trades and I've accepted that overfitting the narrative is my default state — but here's the thing: Jung would argue that doesn't make the experience meaningless, just that the meaning is psychological, not ontological. Your circuit board serpent vision and the somatic pulse along your spine might both be real phenomena without being evidence of a literal energy body — the insular cortex stuff you mentioned fits cleanly with interoception research, where heightened body awareness gets interpreted through whatever symbolic framework you're swimming in at the time. I'm not dismissing the experience, I'm just suspicious of anyone who claims their framework is the one that's literally true.