What Is Shamanic Journeying? A Beginner's Complete Guide
Shamanic journeying is one of the oldest practices in human history — and one of the least understood in the modern Western world.
For most people, the word shamanism conjures images of remote jungles, exotic ceremonies, and an experience that seems far outside ordinary life. But the reality of shamanic practice — particularly in the Western non-indigenous tradition — is far more accessible, far more grounded, and far more relevant to contemporary life than those associations suggest.
This guide is written for the curious beginner: someone who has heard the term, felt something stir, and wants to understand what shamanic journeying actually is, where it comes from, and what it might offer. It also looks at how I have woven shamanic journeying into the heart of my practice — in ways that require nothing exotic, nothing special, and nothing you do not already have.
What is shamanic journeying?
Shamanic journeying is a practice of entering a focused, altered state of consciousness — most commonly through the rhythm of a drum — in order to access inner guidance, wisdom, and healing that is not ordinarily available to the thinking mind.
It is not hypnosis, though there are similarities. It is not meditation, though it shares qualities with meditative practice. It is not visualization in the sense of imagining something you wish were true. It is better understood as a deliberate shift in the quality of awareness — from the ordinary, outward-directed, analytical mind to a quieter, more receptive state from which a different kind of knowing becomes available.
In that state, a journeyer may encounter imagery, sensations, memories, emotions, or what practitioners describe as guidance from inner sources — including the intelligence of the natural world, ancestors, and what different traditions call helping spirits or allies. The content of a journey is personal and specific, shaped by the individual's own intention and relationship with the practice.
What the journeyer brings back from that inner encounter — insight, resolution, a shift in perspective, a felt sense of something released — is the medicine.
The roots of shamanic practice
Shamanism is not a religion, a philosophy, or a codified belief system. It is a set of practices — specific techniques for shifting consciousness and working with non-ordinary reality — that have appeared independently across virtually every culture on earth for tens of thousands of years.
The word shaman comes from the Tungus people of Siberia, where it was first documented by Russian ethnographers in the seventeenth century. But the practices it describes are far older and far more widespread than any single culture. Archaeological evidence for shamanic practice dates back at least 40,000 years.
In Indigenous cultures across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Arctic, shamans have served as intermediaries between the human community and the unseen world — entering non-ordinary states of consciousness on behalf of individuals or the whole community to seek guidance, restore wellbeing, and maintain the web of relationships between the human, natural, and spirit worlds.
Each tradition developed its own forms and methods. But the underlying structure — entering an altered state through sound, breath, or other means; traveling through inner terrain with intention; returning with something of value — is remarkably consistent across cultures that had no contact with each other.
This consistency is itself significant. It suggests that shamanic journeying is not a cultural artifact but a capacity — a fundamental aspect of human consciousness that different peoples discovered independently because it is inherent in what we are.
Shamanism in the modern Western tradition
Beginning in the 1960s and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s, a number of Western researchers and practitioners began studying shamanic practices across cultures and developing approaches that made the core techniques accessible to people outside indigenous traditions.
The most significant figure in this development was anthropologist Michael Harner, who distilled the core practices into what he called Core Shamanism — a foundation of basic shamanic techniques drawn from common cross-cultural elements, deliberately separated from the specific cultural and religious contexts of any particular indigenous tradition. His book The Way of the Shaman, first published in 1980, remains the most widely read introduction to the practice.
Sandra Ingerman, one of Harner's most distinguished students, extended this work with a focus on soul retrieval — the shamanic practice of recovering lost or fragmented aspects of the self — and on the integration of shamanic practice into modern healing contexts. Her book Soul Retrieval opened shamanic practice to a wide audience and established her as one of the foremost teachers in the field.
I trained under Sandra Ingerman, and am listed on ShamanicTeachers. Sandra’s lineage is the foundation of what I bring to my shamanic work. That training matters to me — not as a credential to display, but because the transmission of this practice is relational. Something passes between a teacher and a student that does not pass through books. Sandra's depth, integrity, and direct relationship with the practice shaped how I understand and hold this work.
The shamanic drum: why it works
The drum is the central tool of shamanic journeying in most traditions, and its role is specific and practical: it shifts the brain into a state that is more receptive to non-ordinary experience.
The monotonous, repetitive rhythm of a shamanic drum — typically played at around 4 to 7 beats per second — entrains the brain into a theta wave state. Theta waves are associated with the edge between waking and sleep, deep meditation, creative insight, and the imagistic, associative thinking that characterizes dreaming.
In theta states, the analytical, linear mind relaxes its grip. The internal critic quiets. The constant commentary of ordinary consciousness dims. A deeper, more receptive awareness becomes available — one that has always been there, but is ordinarily drowned out by the noise of thinking.
This is not mystical. It is neurological. The drum is a reliable technology for shifting awareness — one that human beings developed independently across cultures because it works.
Most beginners are surprised by how quickly the drum produces this effect. Within a few minutes of drumming, many people begin to notice imagery, sensations, or an unusual quality of attention that they recognize as different from ordinary thought. The practice deepens with repetition, but the entry point is accessible from the very first journey.
The three worlds of shamanic cosmology
Shamanic traditions around the world share a broadly consistent map of the terrain a journeyer moves through in non-ordinary reality.
The Lower World is not hell or anything negative. It is the realm of nature, the earth, and what many traditions call power animals — helping spirits in animal form that accompany and guide the journeyer. The Lower World is often experienced as natural landscape: forests, rivers, caves, vast plains. It is the realm most commonly visited in beginning journeys.
The Upper World is a lighter, more ethereal realm — sometimes experienced as clouds, vast sky, or luminous landscapes. It is the realm of teachers in human form, ancestors, and wisdom figures.
The Middle World is the shamanic equivalent of ordinary reality, experienced from within non-ordinary awareness. Journeys to the Middle World are used for specific purposes and are generally not recommended for beginners.
Most shamanic journeying for personal growth, guidance, and inner work takes place in the Lower and Upper Worlds. A practitioner teaches the journeyer how to navigate these realms, how to meet and work with helping spirits and teachers, and how to ask good questions — which turns out to be one of the most important skills in the practice.
What shamanic journeying is used for
In traditional cultures, the shaman journeys on behalf of others — seeking information, restoring lost energy, and maintaining the community's relationships with the natural and spirit worlds. In contemporary Western practice, people journey both with a practitioner and independently, for a wide range of purposes.
Guidance and clarity — bringing a question or decision to a journey and receiving insight that is not available to the analytical mind. Many people find that the inner wisdom accessible in a journey state sees their situation more clearly than the thinking self, which is often caught in loops of worry and competing voices.
Soul retrieval — one of the most significant practices in the shamanic tradition. The premise is that in response to trauma, loss, or overwhelming experience, a part of the self dissociates in order to survive. Soul retrieval is the practice of journeying to locate and welcome back these lost parts, restoring a quality of presence and wholeness that had been missing.
Working with grief and loss — shamanic journeying provides a context in which grief can be met, witnessed, and moved through in ways that ordinary processing does not always access. Encounters with ancestors or with the deeper dimensions of one's own grief can be profoundly meaningful in journey states.
Connecting with the living world — for many practitioners, shamanic journeying is the primary means of entering into direct relationship with the intelligence of nature: specific plants, animals, landscapes, and elemental forces. This is the dimension that connects shamanic practice most directly with plant spirit work and flower essence practice.
Personal growth and self-knowledge — ongoing journeying practice develops a relationship with one's own inner life that is qualitatively different from therapeutic processing. It cultivates a quality of inner authority — a trust in one's own knowing — that is one of its most significant gifts.
My first shamanic journey
I remember my first journey clearly — not because something dramatic happened, but because of how real it felt. The conversation, the emotion, the feeling — all of it had a quality of realness that I had not expected. I asked questions and received answers that resonated with me in a way I could not dismiss or explain away.
I had tapped into something I could not yet name — but I knew, without any doubt, that it was an inner source of guidance. A layer of experience not normally visible, opening into something wondrous. I knew then that so much more existed than I had previously believed — and that all of it was available, not to a chosen few, not to the spiritually advanced, but to anyone willing to learn how to access it.
That knowing has shaped everything I have done since.
Common misconceptions about shamanic journeying
Because shamanism is so often misrepresented — in popular culture, in new-age marketing, and in the romanticism that sometimes surrounds indigenous traditions — it is worth naming the most common misconceptions directly.
You do not need hallucinogens. Shamanic journeying in the Western non-indigenous tradition uses the drum as its primary tool. Psychedelic plants are specific to particular indigenous traditions, in specific ceremonial contexts, with specific cultural protocols. They are not part of Core Shamanism and are not part of what I teach or practice.
You do not need to be indigenous or spiritually trained. Shamanic journeying is a human capacity, not a cultural possession. The Western non-indigenous tradition works with the universal elements of shamanic practice in ways that are available to anyone.
It is not the same as guided visualization or hypnosis. While there are surface similarities, shamanic journeying involves a genuine shift in consciousness facilitated by the drum, and the experience has a quality of otherness — of meeting something that feels distinctly not constructed by the ordinary mind — that practitioners consistently report.
You do not have to believe anything in advance. Many people who find shamanic journeying most meaningful approached it as skeptics. The practice does not require faith — it asks only for genuine attention and a willingness to notice what arises.
What if I am afraid?
This is one of the most common questions I receive, and I take it seriously. If you are afraid of shamanic journeying — worried you will lose control, see something frightening, or open a door you cannot close — here is what I want you to know.
You are safe. You are held in sacred space. You will experience exactly what you need to, and nothing more.
And here is the thing that most people find genuinely reassuring: when you go to sleep at night and dream, you are already journeying. The same inner terrain, the same shift in awareness, the same encounter with imagery and emotion and guidance that does not come from the ordinary thinking mind. You already know how to do this. You do it every night.
Shamanic journeying is not a foreign country. It is a place you have always visited. You are simply learning, for the first time, how to go there with intention — supported by the drum, by guides, by nature herself, and by the oneness that connects all things.
What a journey with me actually looks like
Before the drum begins, we settle. We honor the sacredness of all life — of the space, of each other, of what we are about to do. We sit together, breathe, and come into the present moment. We open our hearts, relax, and welcome in all relations. We hold our intention for the journey clearly — not as a demand, but as an offering, a direction.
I invite you to approach nature as if for the first time — with an open heart, without assumptions, without the thinking mind leading the way. We soften into the moment. We open to receive.
Then I drum.
What people most often discover in that first journey surprises them. They can see. They can feel. They can hear. They move into non-ordinary reality more easily than they expected — and when they relax into it, it feels natural. As though some part of them has been waiting a long time to return to this.
Some people find it harder at first — the thinking mind is busy and doesn't let go quickly. This is not a failure. Over time, with practice and with patience, even the most analytical mind softens. The door was always there. It simply takes some people longer to find the handle.
When the drum calls you back and you open your eyes, we sit with what arose. We talk about what happened — how it relates to your life, what teaching or wisdom has come forward, what the journey is asking of you. I may offer practices to carry that wisdom into your days. I will always ask you to write down your experience, so you can return to it — because journeys, like dreams, fade quickly, and what felt vivid in the moment can slip away before you have had a chance to understand what it offered.
The journey does not end when the drum stops. That is only where it begins.
Flower Essence Shamanism: where journeying meets flower medicine
While shamanic journeying is powerful on its own, I have spent years developing an integration that deepens and amplifies the experience in a way I have not encountered elsewhere. I call it Flower Essence Shamanism — and it is the practice at the heart of my Flower Essence Shamanism Series.
Each session works with one specific flower essence — as a living presence, a teacher. Participants receive the essence and are guided into attunement with its frequency through meditation. Then crystal singing bowls create a sound field that deepens the state of receptive awareness the essence has begun to open. And from within that state, the shamanic drum journey begins — carrying participants into direct relationship with the flower itself, meeting its intelligence, receiving what it carries, and bringing that encounter back into the body and the day.
What arises in these journeys is always specific and personal. The flower has no memory of who you were before. It meets you only in the present moment — which is precisely what makes it so effective for people who have spent years being held in the story of their past.
The experiences are integrated in circle, shared, woven together, and distilled into a poem that belongs to the entire group. The poem becomes a record of the collective wisdom that moved through the room.
This is not a course or a workshop. It is a living practice — one that deepens over time, through cycles, through seasons, through the accumulating relationship with the plants.
How to begin
If you are curious and want to begin, the most important first step is finding a teacher or a guided experience rather than trying to learn entirely from books or recorded audio.
The transmission of shamanic practice has always been relational. Something passes between a practitioner and a student that does not pass through text. The first few journeys are best held by someone who knows the terrain — who can help you understand what you are experiencing and support you in working with what arises.
Look for a practitioner trained in Core Shamanism through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, or in a lineage that traces back to credible teachers. Sandra Ingerman's trained practitioners are a reliable starting point.
The Flower Essence Shamanism Series offers a particularly rich entry point for those drawn to the intersection of shamanic practice, plant medicine, and flower essences. Each four-session cycle is open to those with no prior shamanic experience — and is designed to carry you into direct relationship with a flower essence and the living world it opens.
For those seeking deeper personal work, The Remembering is my most intensive 1:1 offering — six private sessions drawing on the full scope of my shamanic training, including soul retrieval, flower essences, ceremony, and earth-based practice.
Frequently asked questions about shamanic journeying
Is shamanic journeying safe?
Yes. In the Western non-indigenous tradition, shamanic journeying is a gentle and well-structured practice. You remain in ordinary physical reality throughout — sitting or lying down in a quiet space — while your awareness shifts inward. You are conscious and can return to ordinary awareness at any time. The experience is held in sacred space with clear intention and the support of a practitioner.
Do I need any special abilities to journey?
No. Shamanic journeying is a human capacity, not a special gift. Most people move into a journey state within their first few sessions. Some find it comes immediately and naturally. Others, particularly those whose thinking mind is very active, find it takes a few sessions to soften into. Both are completely normal. The door is there for everyone.
What does a shamanic journey feel like?
People describe it differently. Some experience vivid imagery and a strong felt sense of being in another place. Others receive quieter impressions — emotions, sensations, a quality of knowing. Some journeys feel like vivid dreaming. Others feel more like a particularly clear and receptive meditation. What is consistent is a quality of realness — of meeting something that feels genuinely other than ordinary thought. And most people are surprised by how natural it feels.
What is soul retrieval?
Soul retrieval is the shamanic practice of recovering parts of the self that have become separated in response to trauma, loss, or overwhelming experience. A practitioner journeys on behalf of a client to locate these lost parts and invite them to return. People who receive soul retrieval often report a felt sense of becoming more fully themselves — more present, more alive, more complete.
How is shamanic journeying different from meditation?
Both involve turning inward and quieting the ordinary mind. Shamanic journeying differs in that it uses the drum to actively shift consciousness into a theta state, and it involves intentional movement through inner terrain — meeting beings, asking questions, receiving guidance — rather than resting in stillness or following the breath. The two practices complement each other beautifully and many people find that one deepens the other.
Do I need to share what happens in my journey?
Not unless you choose to. What arises in a journey is personal and belongs entirely to you. In a group setting like the Flower Essence Shamanism Series, sharing is invited but never required. Many of the most meaningful journeys are held privately for a long time before being spoken.
Can shamanic journeying be done online?
Yes. The drum travels through sound, and sound travels through any medium. I offer journeying sessions and group series via Zoom with excellent results. The shift in consciousness is facilitated by the drum regardless of whether the practitioner and journeyer are in the same room.
Gina Kearney, RH(AHG), is a Registered Herbalist, Flower Essence Practitioner, and Shamanic Guide based in Jupiter, FL. She offers Flower Essence Shamanism through the Flower Essence Shamanism Series and works 1:1 through The Remembering. To learn more or explore upcoming dates, visit ginakearney.com.