Why Shamanic Journeys are Possible

I have written before about shamanic journeys and here is a list for quick access to some of them.  I have had a few questions about why it is even possible to journey. 

When we journey we enter into an altered state of consciousness and that makes it possible for us to sense other realities.  We live in a three-dimensional world (four dimensions if you consider time to be a dimension).  However, physicists have developed mathematical models that indicate that we exist in a multi-dimensional universe with at least 11 dimensions.  Here is a link to a Nova page on imagining multiple dimensions.

In any event we seem to live in universe where we are only able to sense three dimensions, and our ability to sense energy within that three-dimensional universe is severely limited.  Image for a minute that we live in a two-dimensional universe; a universe that exists like a page in a book.  In such a universe we wouldn’t know that there were other pages in the book, pages above and below the page that we lived on.  Beings on those other pages could go happily about their lives as oblivious to us as we were to them.  If we were suddenly able to sense and move in three dimensions then we would discover that we had neighbors above and below us and that we could “jump” into their universe.  To them, we would appear to have arrived out of nothingness.  They were alone, content in their universe, and in an instant we suddenly appeared.

The upper and lower worlds may exist as other dimensions that we are only able to access when we enter an altered state of consciousness and are able to traverse dimensions.  A second explanation is that there are vibrational differences between the lower world, our world, and the upper world.

At the most basic level everything is energy.  From time-to-time my boys play a game with my.  One will ask, “Dad, what is bread made out of?”  and I will respond, “Well kido, bread is made out of flour, water, salt and sugar, and yeast.”  One will then ask, “Dad, what is wheat made out of.”  To which I will respond, “Wheat is a complex carbohydrate with some protein molecules.”  Another boy, now knowing where the game is going, will ask, “So, what makes up complex carbohydrates.”  and the response is always, “Carbon and hydrogen atoms.”  Of course we haven’t gone far enough so another boy asks, “What are carbon atoms made from.”  You know, “Carbon atoms are made from a nucleus of protons and neutrons with six electrons arranged in two shells around the nucleus.”  It’s probably hard being my son, don’t you think?  “Well Dad,” another asks, “what are neutrons made out of?”  The answer is always “Subatomic particles, two down quarks and one up quark.”  We final get to the end and I am asked, “What are quarks made out of?” and I say “Whirling fields of energy.”  We are really all well-organized whirling fields of energy.

Unfortunately we are not built to sense all forms of energy, all possible wavelenghts.  Think about the known electromagnetic spectrum.  It ranges from gamma waves that are 0.000001 of a meter long to energy waves that are 100 megameters long and a megameter is about 621 miles long . . . that’s a long wave.  If we could see a megameter it would look, from our vantage point, like a straight line.  The following table shows how little of the total know spectrum we are able to see and hear.

So where is this going.  Well it might be that the lower world exists at a vibrational level that is slightly slower than what we are normally able to sense and that the upperworld is at a slightly higher vibrational level.  When we enter an altered state of consciousness we either slow down or speed up our consciousness so that we are able so sense the other vibrational levels.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether we sense another dimension or sense new vibrational levels when we journey.  What matters to me is that shamanic journeying is possible and that it can be used for good.  If you haven’t tried going on a shamanic journey, give it a try.  You will come back with a new sense of what reality really is and what is truly possible.  You are more than you ever thought.