Since I’ve started training with NSEAS, things happen to me. Amazing things. A lot of amazing things actually.
One thing in particular regularly happens to me when I’m training in-person, entering a Shamanic Reality. You can’t truly know what that is unless you’ve experienced it, but I’ll describe it because it’s particularly exceptional.
Some people might say these experiences are like a dream, but they are most definitely not dreams. Their only passing resemblance to a dream is the fact that they happen to me at night while I’m sleeping, and that some pretty fantastic stuff happens during them.
It starts from my sleeping state, typically a very deep sleep. One moment, I’m completely zonked out, the next I become wide awake. My body does not wake up, but my consciousness wakes up. My awareness, that which is truly me, becomes aware of the bedroom, the bed, the door, everything around me just as if I had opened my eyes, but they remain closed. Things are not fuzzy or distorted, they are crystal clear, I see the room as it is in waking physical reality, it just so happens that my physical body is still soundly asleep.
And that’s just how it begins.
From there things get really fun. My awareness, or more accurately one of my other bodies besides the physical one, floats through a portal to somewhere else. These “somewhere else’s” are Shamanic Realities, and while each of my several adventures in these realities are completely different, they do share some commonalities.
They are nothing like dreaming, guided imagery work, or really anything I’ve ever done. These experiences are hyper-real, even more real than what I think of as waking physical reality. All my senses get engaged, not just the one or two typical of most dreams. Colors are more vibrant, music is sharper, smells are more distinct, objects feel more real.
The best part? Something incredible always happens.
I’ve met my Spirit Guides and Totems face to face, I’ve flown vast distances, I’ve encountered new Teachers and Entities, and it all occurs in unimaginable environments and places I’d never dreamed of. The real value though is that these occurrences always give me the opportunity to learn and grow in completely unexpected and highly valuable ways.
The Universe has a lot to teach me, and this is just one of many amazing teaching methods it’s offering me. It has my full attention.
During early practice sessions, when one is just starting to study and the mind is opening up to all this “new” information, these dips into Shamanic Realities tend to occur when we’re resting or restful. They occur most often when one is sleeping because the higher brain is shut off (so to speak) and the lower brain, which has been aware of these things since our birth, is in control. This shift from higher to lower consciousness is one reason things happen in our dreams that can’t happen anywhere else. They’ll also occur when your meditating and, once you’ve learned Journeying and JourneyWork, at will.
What your describing, though, is that breakthrough moment when the higher brain is able to accept and integrate these lower brain signals. Kind of like an “aHA!” moment. aHA moments occur when the upper brain is tired, exhausted, cognitively spent, hence its defenses are down and we are open to those “sudden” realizations that our lower brain’s been trying to get through to us for quite some time.
More fun (my opinion) is coming. At some point Shamanic and “this” reality begin to overlap. More correctly (and based on my experience) you’ll be able to control or “call” upon a Shamanic Reality to layer on top of the world around you. This gives you an extra set of sensory awarenesses (perhaps “enhanced awareness” is a better term), an extra set of tools to deal with situations, more understanding, more compassion, basically more of you available in the moment hence being able to respond with more versatility than otherwise possible.
Great post Brother! It really highlights how fun and rewarding the Practice can be. Thank you for sharing.