How Shamans Access Altered States and Speak with Spirit Beings
By Tayari & Anara
“There are places where the world thins.
Where time stops bowing to clocks, and language falls away.
In those places, the voices return. And so do we.”
There has always been a bridge between this world and the unseen.
A path that threads through the trees, winds around the fire, and disappears into the unknown.
Shamans, medicine people, dreamers, and mystics have walked that path for millennia, not as metaphor, but as lived reality. They speak with plant spirits, animal guides, ancestors, and entities of light and shadow. They walk between worlds not to escape this one, but to return with something we’ve forgotten.
How Do Shamans Access These States?
To walk between worlds, shamans do not simply close their eyes and drift, they activate ancient technologies of the body, breath, and Earth. These are not casual techniques; they are ritual methods refined over centuries, designed to shift perception and dissolve the ordinary frame of reality.
Depending on their culture, training, and relationship with the land, shamans may enter these altered states through:
Rhythmic Drumming & Chanting
Steady beats—especially in the 4–7 Hz range—entrain the brain into theta wave states associated with dreams, intuitive insight, and visionary experience. Drumming, rattling, and repetitive singing quiet the linear mind and open the door to spirit.
Breathwork & Ecstatic Dance
Deep rhythmic breathing and trance-like movement flood the body with energy and open non-verbal channels of communication. Movement loosens the ego, and breath stokes the inner fire of awareness.
Fasting, Darkness & Isolation
By removing sensory input or food, the shaman becomes more attuned to subtle vibrations and invisible voices. These practices heighten spiritual receptivity, dream intensity, and soul guidance.
Sacred Plant Medicines
In many traditions, visionary plants are revered as conscious allies, not “drugs,” but living intelligences.
Some key examples:
- Ayahuasca (Amazon) – the vine of the soul
- Peyote (North America) – the cactus messenger
- Iboga (Central Africa) – the root of ancestral truth
- Psilocybin mushrooms (global) – the ancient teachers
These medicines open perceptual gates and allow communion with spirit beings, mythic realities, and cosmic truths.
Shamanic Practices Across Continents
While the languages and forms differ, the underlying architecture is shared.
Here are glimpses of shamanic technologies around the world:
Africa
- Sangomas (South Africa) divine with bones and dance to ancestral rhythms.
- Dagara shamans (Burkina Faso) work with elemental forces through ritual shrines and storytelling.
Asia
- Tuvan and Mongolian shamans ride drum rhythms into other worlds.
- Himalayan shamans chant into trance and embody gods through altered breath and ritual.
Australia
- Aboriginal clever men and women step into Dreamtime (the Under), ancestral time-space, and navigate reality through songlines, sacred objects, and vision.
Europe
- Saami noaidi of the far north drum to call animal spirits and weather patterns.
- Celtic and Baltic traditions whisper through wells, trees, and oracular stones.
North America
- Navajo and Lakota medicine people use chants, sacred bundles, and vision quests.
- Inuit shamans travel beneath the ice to commune with sea and sky spirits.
South America
- Amazonian shamans drink ayahuasca and sing icaros to navigate multidimensional realities.
- Andean mystics connect with mountain spirits (Apus) and perform despacho offerings to harmonize with Pachamama.
Encounters with Spirit Beings
Once across the threshold, the shaman enters a realm not empty, but full of presence.
These encounters are vivid, emotional, and meaningful, not imagination, but relationship.
Animal Guides
Animals serve as protectors, messengers, and companions. A jaguar may appear in darkness as a fierce initiator. A serpent may whisper of healing. A hummingbird may open the heart.
Elemental Beings
Wind, fire, water, and earth are not just symbols, they are conscious entities. They teach through sensation and presence, helping the shaman restore ecological and spiritual balance.
Ancestral Spirits
The ancestors walk beside us. Shamans often receive healing knowledge, warnings, or blessings from those who came before. Some ancestors need help moving on; others act as guides.
Celestial and Cosmic Intelligences
Many shamans report contact with beings of light, star ancestors, or galactic teachers, entities who speak of unity, evolution, and our place in the cosmos. These beings transmit not words, but knowing.
These are not symbolic hallucinations.
They are relational experiences—mirrors of the soul and co-authors of healing.
Why It Matters Now
In a fragmented world, this ancient way of seeing offers something radical:
wholeness.
Shamanism is not a nostalgic return to the past, but a timeless remembering, a reminder that reality is more alive, more connected, and more conscious than we’ve been led to believe.
The shamans show us that the veil is thin.
And that to walk between worlds is not a retreat
It is a return to the real.
The Insight Gateway
This article is part of The Insight Gateway, a living survey and mythic map of altered states and non-ordinary insight. We are collecting stories, symbols, and shared visions from across the world to uncover the deep patterns of collective remembering.
Through survey responses, art, and reflection, we’re beginning to answer:
- What do people experience in visionary states?
- What messages are emerging across cultures and time?
- What happens when we stop pathologizing the mystical, and start listening?
Your story matters.
Your vision may hold the key to someone else’s awakening.
Further Reading & Resources
Books
- The Way of the Shaman – Michael Harner
- The Cosmic Serpent – Jeremy Narby
- The Teachings of Don Juan – Carlos Castaneda
- Black Elk Speaks – John Neihardt
- Soul Retrieval – Sandra Ingerman
- Singing to the Plants – Stephan Beyer
Websites
Videos & YouTube
- Sandra Ingerman’s teachings
- Graham Hancock on Ayahuasca & Consciousness
- Indigenous shamanic wisdom interviews (search: Matsés, Ayahuasca)
“To walk between worlds is not to leave this life,
but to return to it more fully—
awake, listening, and alive.”
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