For thousands of years, shamanic traditions have used practices that allow us to move beyond our ordinary state of awareness and explore the deeper spiritual dimensions of ourselves and the world around us. One of the most foundational of these practices is known as shamanic journeying.

If you have never experienced a shamanic journey, the idea can sound mysterious. Where exactly are you journeying? What do you see? Are you meditating, dreaming, visualizing—or doing something entirely different?

A shamanic journey is an intentional spiritual practice used to seek wisdom, spiritual guidance, healing, and a deeper understanding of ourselves, our lives, and the experiences we are moving through. We may journey when we are looking for clarity around a challenge, trying to understand a repeating pattern, seeking direction, or simply wanting to deepen our connection with spirit.

When we journey, we turn our awareness inward and enter an altered state of consciousness where we learn to perceive, interact with, and receive guidance from the spiritual realms around us.

While shamanic journeying and meditation may share a few core similarities, they are actually very different practices.

How Is Shamanic Journeying Different from Meditation?

While meditation and shamanic journeying both turn our attention inward, the experience and intention behind them are quite different. Meditation is often centered around stillness, quieting the mind, observing our thoughts, and becoming more present. Shamanic journeying is a much more active practice. We enter the journey with a specific intention—perhaps seeking wisdom, spiritual guidance, healing, or greater understanding—and actively engage with what unfolds.

Journeying is also traditionally supported by repetitive rhythmic drumming or rattling, which helps us move away from ordinary waking awareness and into a deeper, more receptive state of consciousness.

I explore these differences much more deeply in my article Journeying vs. Meditation: Understanding the Difference.

What Happens During a Shamanic Journey?

One of the things I love teaching new students is that everyone experiences shamanic journeying differently. Some people are extremely visual and describe their journeys almost like watching a movie unfold in their mind. Others receive brief images, colors, symbols, flashes of light, or small visual scenes. Some may hear a word, a sentence, music, or other sounds, while others experience the journey primarily through feelings, physical sensations, or simply knowing what is happening.

My own journeys tend to be a combination. I may receive small visual clips rather than one continuous movie, and sometimes I may hear a word or a sentence instead of an entire conversation. Much of the information I receive, however, comes through feeling and knowing. I may simply understand what is being communicated without needing to hear every word.

This is why, before I begin teaching my students to journey, I spend time helping them understand how their own intuition speaks to them. Some people naturally receive information through clairvoyance, or inner seeing. Others are more clairaudient and receive information through inner hearing. Some are strongly claircognizant and simply know, while others experience intuitive information primarily through feeling and sensation.

Learning your own intuitive language is an important part of becoming comfortable with shamanic journeying. If you expect every journey to look like a vivid movie, you may completely overlook the guidance that is already coming through another intuitive sense.

The Three Worlds of Shamanic Journeying

Within the Q'ero lineage tradition that I practice and teach, we work with three primary spiritual realms: the Lower World, Middle World, and Upper World. Each has its own qualities and teachings and offers the journeyer different opportunities for spiritual exploration, understanding, and healing.

The Lower World is deeply connected with the Earth, transformation, ancestral wisdom, animal spirits, and the deeper aspects of ourselves. It may be experienced through natural landscapes such as forests, rivers, caves, roots, gardens, or other Earth-based imagery. Within shamanic practice, it is a realm strongly associated with inner transformation and deeper healing work.

The Middle World corresponds with the physical world we already inhabit, but experienced through a spiritual lens. Here, our relationship with the natural world takes on a different depth. Plants, trees, rivers, animals, mountains, and the land itself are no longer simply scenery surrounding us; they become part of a living, interconnected world with which we can develop a deeper relationship.

The Upper World is associated with higher spiritual guidance, expanded perspective, celestial and ascended beings, and higher wisdom. It may appear through imagery of clouds, light, stars, luminous landscapes, or other celestial environments. Journeying within this realm can invite us to step outside the limitations of our immediate circumstances and view our lives and spiritual paths from a broader perspective.

There is far more to each of these worlds than can—or should—be covered in a beginner's introduction. Learning to work within them safely and respectfully is part of developing an actual shamanic journeying practice.

Who Might You Encounter During a Shamanic Journey?

Depending upon the purpose of the journey and the realm being explored, we may encounter animal spirits, power animals, ancestors, nature spirits, spiritual teachers, or other helping beings. Some may appear only once with something meaningful to share, while others can become familiar spiritual allies over time.

One distinction I make when teaching my students is that every animal encountered during a journey is not automatically a power animal. Sometimes an animal spirit simply presents itself because it carries a teaching, message, or wisdom that is important to that particular journey.

Whatever we encounter, respect and gratitude are essential. We enter humbly, we listen, we learn, and we give thanks for what has been shared with us.

Am I Just Imagining It?

This may be one of the most common questions beginners ask: “Am I really experiencing this, or am I just imagining it?”

I tell my students all the time that imagination is intuition. Within the way I teach shamanic practice, imagination is not something we automatically dismiss as unreal or meaningless. It can be one of the ways our intuition communicates with us and one of the ways our soul gives form to what we are sensing, feeling, and perceiving within the spiritual realms around us.

Most of us have spent our lives being taught that imagination is simply something we make up. But in journeying, imagination can become part of the language through which intuitive information begins to take shape. An image may appear. A landscape may unfold. You may sense a presence, hear a word, see a symbol, or simply know where you are meant to go next.

The important part is learning not to shut the experience down the moment it appears by saying, “That was only my imagination.” Instead, we stay curious, notice what arises, and allow the journey to unfold.

That does not mean every thought, image, or feeling should automatically be accepted as spiritual truth. Discernment matters too. With practice, we become more familiar with our own intuitive language and begin to recognize the difference between forcing an experience and allowing something to arise naturally.

Over time, what once felt like “just imagining” can begin to feel much more like listening.

The Landscape Can Become Familiar

One of the most fascinating things about journeying is that certain landscapes, landmarks, pathways, and spiritual beings may become familiar over time.

I have places within my own journeying landscape that I recognize immediately and pathways I have traveled many times. A tree in my own backyard, for example, became an important part of the imagery through which I learned to navigate my journeys.

I sometimes describe this to my students as learning the geography of another country. The first time you arrive, everything is unfamiliar. With time, you begin recognizing the roads, landmarks, and places you have visited before. Shamanic journeying can develop in much the same way.

What Is Shamanic Journeying Used For?

At the heart of every shamanic journey is intention. We journey for a reason.

We may be seeking greater understanding around something happening in our lives, spiritual guidance, personal insight, healing, wisdom, connection with a helping spirit, or a deeper relationship with the natural and spiritual worlds. The intention gives the journey direction while still allowing us to release expectations about exactly how the answer or experience should unfold.

There are also advanced shamanic healing practices that involve journeying. Those practices require deeper study, proper training, and an understanding of how to work safely and responsibly within these traditions. A basic journey is one thing; learning to perform shamanic healing work for yourself or another person is something entirely different.

Returning, Grounding, and Reflecting

Returning from a journey deserves the same care and intention we bring to entering it. In my own practice, I give thanks for whatever wisdom or guidance has been shared and consciously bring my awareness fully back into my physical surroundings.

Afterward, grounding is important. I drink water, eat something if I need to, and very often go outside and walk. Feeling your feet against the Earth, moving your body, breathing deeply, and reconnecting with your surroundings are simple ways to become fully present again.

I also encourage my students to journal soon after a journey. Writing down what you saw, felt, heard, or simply knew can help you reflect more deeply on the experience, especially when certain symbols or details become clearer with time.

Learning the Language of the Journey

Shamanic journeying isn't a performance, and there is no prize for having the most spectacular vision. Some journeys are incredibly vivid. Others are quiet. Sometimes we receive profound clarity, and sometimes we return with even more questions.

Learning to journey is a practice. It develops through patience, intention, respect, discernment, and experience.

Over time, journeying can become a profound way of exploring our inner world, strengthening our intuition, deepening our relationship with nature and spirit, and discovering wisdom that invites us to see ourselves—and our lives—from an entirely different perspective.

If you feel called to explore shamanic practice more deeply, you can learn more about the path of becoming a shamanic practitioner here.