Why Shamanic Journeys still "Work", Even if You Think You're Making it up

If you’re like most people, you did not grow up in a culture with a shamanic worldview. The whole concept of journeying to alternate realties may seem strange and unfamiliar. But the truth is that you don’t have to have some special skill or experience with indigenous traditions to experience a shamanic journey. Frankly, you don’t even have to believe in it – you just have to have an open mind.

The Journey Experience

A journey traditionally occurs in one of three locations: the lower world, middle world, and upper world. The lower world is a place to encounter nature in its power; it is accessed by traveling down a tunnel or path, often at the base of a tree, in a cave, or through a body of water. The upper world, reached by climbing a tree, mountain, etc., is the realm of celestial beings and evolved spiritual guides. The middle world is our visible world, but in its energetic or non-ordinary form; to travel here is to attempt to perceive the spiritual aspect of the material world.

Typically, if you’re new to journeying you will start in the lower world to find a power animal or spirit guide who will be your companion and mentor in subsequent journeys. When you first do this under guidance, it might feel like you’re making it all up. Because in a way, you are! Journeying relies on our creative faculties and our willingness to let go of the rational, logical mind.

The journey facilitator will ask you to see, sense, or feel all sorts of details to make it more concrete. Details such as the time of day, temperature, composition of the roots, the area you drop down into, the surface you find yourself walking on, the colors in the soil, etc. The main thing is not to edit what comes into your imagination. Do you see, sense, or feel Mickey Mouse in area you drop into? OK! Just note it – at some point it will make sense!

This works best when you let go of censoring yourself and allow whatever sensations, feelings, images, or sounds to bubble up in your awareness. As my teenage sons say, “It’s not that deep.” It’s not that serious. Journeying is playful and creative and FUN. If you feel stuck, just wait a beat, and imagine some detail of the place you find yourself in – this is often a doorway into a deeper dimension of your journey.

“Making it All Up”

OK, so great, you say, but if I’m making this all up, what is the purpose of doing this? To which I ask an important question. WHY did these SPECIFIC images, thoughts, feelings, sounds, and sensations come to you? Why did you imagine one thing and not another? Why Mickey Mouse and not Donald Duck? From the shamanic worldview, you are accessing non-ordinary reality in the journey. Even if you don’t buy into this view, at the very least, your unconscious is speaking to you in symbols in a journey. And these symbols always hold a powerful message for you.

My teacher told me repeatedly that “shamans don’t process.” This means that we don’t overanalyze the journey or assign rigid meanings to it. Understanding comes with sitting with the experience and allowing meaning to unfold on its own timetable. Typically, people have immediate insights afterwards that are actionable, while some other aspects of the journey only become clearer over time.

If you make journeying a practice, you will see that what comes to you is no accident. That you are in fact accessing another dimension, and that there is something sacred and profound about it. People have had realizations that changed the course of their lives in journeys. They’ve connected with loving ancestors, received guidance and healing from spiritual beings, and even witnessed past life circumstances affecting their present condition. In the end, does it matter if these experiences are “real” or not? I would argue that they are real, but in the end, what really matters is how the journey experience has changed your life for the better. And in my experience, people always walk away with something.

Rumi wrote that the answers we seek are always within us. Journeying offers us a powerful doorway to our higher selves and the profound wisdom that resides there. Questions? Reach out to us or book a shamanic journey session!