Well, I just had my first official lesson in shamanic drumming. A nice lady taught three of us how it works. You lay back and allow your mind to drift into a "journey" while a guide drums a steady rhythm that's supposed to put your brain into a certain state. She said it's supposed to alter your state of mind, and can be used as a substitute for the drugs that traditional shamans typically use. I didn't really feel anything like the "altered states" that I'd experience on psychedelics, but it was interesting nonetheless. It's basically like going through a day dream, letting whatever images and scenery flow through your mind, and then you come out of it, write down your experiences, and divulge it to the group. Very mind soothing and enjoyable. Great way to get deep and personal with others too. But I'm wonder something - I didn't feel there was anything "altered" about my consciousness. Could this be something that comes with practice? Like, could I go "deeper" the more familiar I get with this exercise, maybe enter something like a waking dream state (as opposed to a day dream)? Anybody know?
ive done it as welkll and i think you expected a drugged out haze and not a spiritual journey altered conceisness doesnt have to mean feeling drugged or having wild halucinations but if you want to explore conceisness alteration without drug induction id suggest also looking into stuff like rebirthing ( a breath technique that induces a deep trance state and very heavy exploration of the self) and maybe trying the shamanic drukm journey a few more times and maybe other shamanistic ways keep in mind that although some psychodelic plants maybe used in shamanism the trip is not the purpose of shamanism but is more ;like a tool in certain healing practices what im trying to make clear here is you should seek enlightenment not highness thru the shamanic journey maybe ya didnt feel altered but did u discover any truths?
Yes. In fact there are many practices for meditation... shamanic drumming is just one out of a million...
Hey gib, I was just telling edenfield a bit about shamanic journeying the other day ...i'll just paste it again. Well this shamanic journey for me was done by a guy called Richard in my town who set up the natural healing center here. He's half cherokee and he's been a practicing shaman and spiritual coucellor for over 25 years. Strangely two nights before my first session with him i had a dream My sister and i (i have a twin sister) were drifting downstream in a very large canoe and we had no paddle (hey remember what i was saying about having a paddle in the water?) ... the term, 'up shit creek without a paddle' comes to mind as there is indeed a shitty creek downstream from where i was in the dream in real life.Suddenly i was on land standing in front of a very centered, serious looking native american guy, and a big guy too. He wore a short eagle feather headdress which i believe denotes a chief. He just looked right through me for a while and didn't say anything. He was gonna help me out though. ... I wonder if it was Richard? Meeting richard was strange because i saw myself in him ...the kind of people we are, way we talk and express. And he also said that i reminded him of himself when he was my age. He introduced me to my white horse, a power animal we shared, and also a chinese 'martial arts type guy' with a staff (i think i met him in a dream once ...mmm a chinese element there). He had already done a shamanic journey for me ... on my behalf, that morning and he told me about it. He said that when he journeys he takes the form of ...well a native american, and travels through his usual entrance into the earth and goes down his tunnel, he was surprised to find feathers falling on his way and that he'd never encountered that before, so he travels further and further through darkness and eventually arrives at a shore of light and there's just light there and he didn't feel pure enough to enter but asked for power on my behalf, ... after a while a radiant woman with red golden hair blue eyes emerged and said, ok, tell him i'll return but he's got to listen to me and sort out his ideas and habits' , stern words but he felt that deep down she really loved me. With that she went back into the light, emerging again with dark hair and green or even purple eyes. That about the whole journey. Richard said that this woman he met was my teacher but also a part of me and that in that sense i was a teacher to myself. Actually i think i may have already met both women, the first, my ex i was talking about and the second, a girl i worked with a couple of years ago and had a bit of friction with at work ..a power struggle, i was her co supervisor until she clamoured for assistant managers job i didn't wan't and then started bossing myself and everyone about big time, i told her she couldn't behave like that and she was just fixed on the issue. The boss went on holiday and she turned dictator on everyone, another girl and myself resighned. She started having fainting fits and left due to that a few weeks later. I met her again briefly shortly afterwards and she seemed happy and was nice to me, i felt compassion for her about her fainting and everything and actually there was a warm feeling between us. Looking back she was so mutch like my ex in both character and appearance, both very attractive and lively, moody, bossy, playful, big mouthed, control freaks, but a part of the control and 'center of attentionness' is born of simple personal insecurity and ego, and simply understanding that allows it to be ok. I learnt a little late again this time to understand and have compassion, but this time there was no love lost and i actually feel i did the right thing in making a stand for myself when i thought things had gone too far. In fact it would be really nice to see her again. But all this isn't just limited to them because they are a mirror for things going on inside myself, and i thing it's all about learning balance, temperance, discipline and compassion and humility. ... not alot then. And lessons for me about control and letting go too. They however have their own issues also and thats another story. ...their stuff, and for ALL of us it's about learning to balance and harmonise our masculine and feminine viewpoints. It's as if i have always had opposing beliefs or thoughts about how i should live my life and what kind of morals or outlook i believe in. And now i think i'm learning that 'I' am parhaps neither and it's up to me to weigh these almost opposites and come to a mutually agreeable outcome and keep a balance. - You were asking about shamanic journeying ... I learned how to do shamanic journeying with richard at workshops also and found an aptidude for it but not mutch trust or belief in my experiences so i actually stopped after a year or more because i was needlessly going about analysing everything, symbology ect and it was doing my head in a bit. But i'm over doing that now, that was years ago and i think if i were to take it up again i could learn after mutch journeying not to get the mind involved and step back and just experience and observe. I think i'd like to. So a shamanic journey is a way to visit parts of our inner world through eyes closed visualisation of our sub concious, unconcious and super concious being, usually using a technique of choosing some kind of entrance into the earth or sky to explore and see what happens. This could be anything really from a hole in a tree or a cave or a pond or lake ... a rope falling from the sky or a cloud or bird carrying you upwards, perhaps climing a great tree. And so the journey begins and the rest takes care of itself with practice. Keep the mind free and unattached and dream, in time it'll become a bit like lucid dreaming, and on small doses of mushrooms sometimes i've had journeys literally and spontaniously take me out of normal reality and into a vivid lucid trance of a vibrant 'other world'. ...powerful journeys and after a good time of practicing journeying normally this is the kind of desired and obtainable journey ... more of a trance than a visualised meditation or state where you are perhaps more connected to the ordinary reality. Journeys in my experience seem to turn out like rather symbolic dreams often do basically, and i have found exact themes and characters, objects, words and meanings ect from journeys, cropping up in my dreams and the two become the same thing in essence and you realise it's the same basic ballpark world as dreaming. I guess this is what the Australian aborigonals call the dreamtime. Another thing about journeying is that over time it helps build a bridge, if you like, between your unconcious and concious mind. When unconcious things emerge it also brings about change, perhaps good and exciting or difficult and unsettling so one needs to stay grounded and not get carried away with it all. The person doing the journey is nearly always aided by repetitive or rhythmic drumming rattles, singing or chanting to help the concious mind let go of the normal reality. I've heard that drumming and rattles help induce our brainwave pattern to change. I actually prefer the crisp and sharp sound of a bead rattle. So thats 'shamanic journeying'. But i try not to get hung up on the 'shamanic' bit too mutch ... it's just a natural ability.
That shamanic drumming seems to be very much like a psychoanalytic technique - like dream interpretation or word association or hypnosis, etc. Kind of like what liquidlight said about the bridge between my unconscious and conscious minds being formed. One invents an imaginary world to journey through and the elements that appear in that world can be interpreted as symbols emerging from your unconscious. How you interpret them could also be guided by your unconscious - i.e. how you want to interpret them. QUESTION: could the same technique be done without the drumming?
gib ... i think you've got the concept sussed. Sure it can be done without drumming, if one can let go of the mind to some extent and just relax. However after a while the drumming/rattle/singing/chanting acts as a kind of trigger for the journey to begin so it's more than just helping to change the brainwave pattern. One can buy drumming tapes (tibetan bowls and all sorts) from hippy bookshops and use a sony walkman with headphones if you don't have anyone to drum for ya.
hey good thread! LL gotten me into this...I wouldnt mind doing this with drums it sounds good! but there dosen't seem to be many shamans with drums around my end!(sigh) maybe there is a cd I could buy that does the same job? many years ago i had a go at accessing deeper parts of the mind, not with shamanic drumming but with waking trance. and its funny but the place i 'travelled' to whilst in these waking journeys ended up....well, in my dreaming reality years later through other mystical phenomenom.
Hi edenfield.....Shamanic Journeying by Sandra Ingerman. A beginners guide. The book and drumming cd come as a set, and she explains it very clearly. Cheers!
many meditation centers hippie shops and the like may have guided shamanic journeys on occassion just look around even local co-ops or health food stores may have something or at least postings on a buliten board type thing ive seen em all over but u can certainly get cd's or tapes or i bet u can even download some mp3s its been years since ive done 1 though..i think it was held at a budhisty center.. also did 1 at this thing he called it a sound healing chamkber this shaman painted turtle think it was cheif john painted turtle if i remember right created these chambers all over the world after a vission he had theres 1 not far from me you should be able to finf a place that offers an intro to the journy though no matter where in the world u call hme gib 1 thing you said one invents this imaginary world...well concider this you may not be inventing an imaginary world at all, just walking through a world that exists as an unseen part of you..the guides you meet were always there you didnt pull tyhem out oif thin air you just had to take a step in the right direction to meet them
Maybe you're right, but even our guide said it was inventing stuff in our imagination. She said it was just like children who invent their own fantasy worlds without a care in the world - without worrying about whether it was "reality" or not - and that's the way we should approach it. Mind you, she also said there would be parts where "spirit" would intervene and insert its own elements, and I experienced this a few times during the journey. Odd images and scenarios would pop in seemingly out of my control (that's when it felt like a real dream). I would suspect this is the unconscious element - that is, the contents of my unconscious symbolically presenting themselves to my conscious mind. It may be this realm of my mind that is the unseen part of myself that I'm walking through, as you say.
