Shamanic journey

The clairvoyant colleague invited me to a shamanic journey.

As a matter of coincidence, the night before the journey, one of the cousins visited. He had to stay awake throughout the night for some kind of medical research again. I let him play Factorio (the game's all about optimization), which was very effective - he got so addicted that he couldn't fall asleep.

Knowing that I would also end up with minor sleep deprivation, I tried to optimize as much as I could. Before their arrival, I took 3 hours of deep sleep. The rest of the night I had to spend in dreamless meditation in order not to participate in the zombie apocalypse as the first thing in the morning. It took me a while to get to the state where the mind was all blank, except for the feeling of my own presence. Years ago I found this to be the most efficient way to rest.

Throughout the day, I was still a bit awkward and had trouble communicating. However, I found myself happy and content with my life. My lecture was not the best but I guess it served its purpose. Had to leave early from a meeting in the evening, in order to make it to the shamanic journey on time. Left the meeting a bit too late. Thought of taking a bus but would have had to wait and would've definitely ended up being late for the event. So, took a hike and surprisingly made it exactly on time.

Most people had brought their rolling mattresses and pillows. With a blank mind, I just selected the correct spot and sat on the floor in the lotus pose. There was a pillar on my left, and two candles next to it (a small red, and a larger white candle). Colleague met a friend and took a seat on the other side of the room. Noticed that I was sitting behind an acquaintance. She asked the shaman about her dreams that involved some gray hazy figures asking for her help. The shaman didn't have an answer. I started to wonder if the shaman really was up to his task. However, the more questions he answered, the better the answers were. He had realized things that I had been wondering about for years. Also, he had good techniques for getting into the zone, opening chakras and so on. I was a bit surprised about the way he mentioned one of our good old family friends as the best shaman in the country.

The shaman then gave a short lecture on what the journeys are about and how one prepares for such a journey. I found it interesting how shamans picture the energy body, energetic blockages and thought-forms. Previously I hadn't compared humans to ents, but apparently they're pretty similar. Roots, tree trunk, branches, and thought-forms rustling like leaves in the astral wind.

Some rituals for clearing blockages, opening chakras, lowering shields between the participants, reconstructing a larger bubble around everyone, inviting friendly spirits and so on. He also distributed crystals that everyone would hold in their left palm, and later use as a reference to dream of things related to the journey. An interesting idea.

I tried to picture myself in the place where most of my spiritual dreams have taken place. It didn't work too well. It got dark and it was as if something were rising from the ground, grasping at me and trying to pull me down. I actually felt fear and didn't want to go down there .. levitated on top of the trees. Nothing happened, so I pictured myself in space, instead. Soothing .. with the shaman drums and all kinds of sounds clearing my energy blockages.

With my eyes closed and without turning my head, I saw someone to my right lift out of their body .. a white cloud in the rough form of the person.

Also, some things darted across the hall, while making strange chirping or squeaking noises. Literally, I thought mice and rats had broken loose. Except that in my mind's eye they looked like tiny crystals glowing white. The sound that they made, was very high pitched (close to the ultrasound that bats produce) and varied. They only produced sound when they moved. One of these things flew next to my right shoulder and stopped. When I started to wonder if it was indeed a mouse, then it disappeared. Later I compared the sound with the rattle that the shaman had but failed to find a way how the rattle could produce these sounds. In addition to the spatial effects (could distinguish the place where the rattle was, from all the scatterred sources of the strange sounds), the sound was different. The shaman had mentioned that rattles are pretty efficient in invoking spirits.

Heard the sound of chains as well, once. Thought the shaman made the sound.

At the end of the session, the back of my head started to hurt from lying on the hard floor. I was growing a bit restless as well, since I hadn't really experienced a journey. Moreover, despite the sleep deprivation, I hadn't even fallen asleep. So, why did I even come here, what's the point of the whole thing if I can easily get better results at home anyway? Okay, I got to listen some very inspiring answers from the shaman but still.. ::flash:: ::flash:: ::flash:: images started popping up one after another.

Just some ancient patterns and symbols (traditional clothing, some celtic-looking symbols, etc.) at first.

Then a detailed image of me and at least 2 other people sitting around a bonfire at sunset. Couldn't see their faces, just silhouettes against the red-blue gradient of the sky. The bonfire was in the nature, on a field. By sunset, the bonfire had almost died out (glowing, with some small flames and barely any smoke).

Then a round object with a metallic rim, leaning against something or placed diagonally. No visible background, just the object and its rim with some markings that looked like braille.

The shaman then played the flute to indicate our return. I focused back on the room, then body. Realized that at least partially, my consciousness actually had been away, or at least dissipated.

An interesting technique to accelerate the return of the mind to the body - drumming against different body parts with hands. That's also what we did before embarking on the journey. A simple technique but would have helped me a lot after returning from my own journeys, had it ever occurred to me - would've been less of a zombie during some university classes =D.

Walked back home with the colleague. Holy penguin how cold it was outside. It had been very warm during the day (+5 *C maybe), and during the journey it felt like it had suddenly become -20 *C. Other than that, she told stories of the geisting that she had experienced recently - kitchen utensils and books flying around, doors closing and locking themselves on their own, etc. Totally reminds me of Shy from the psychokinesis forum; I'm glad Shy managed to resolve her geisting problem. While walking past a fabric store, something knocked on the glass window on my left. I looked around and checked if I had accidentally hit one of the fastening belts on my backpack against the window but that was not the case. Street lights also went out as we walked past them.

Curious to see if something had attached itself to me, I observed if there was any geisting around me during the next few days. Besides a small object leaping off a table or a few things crackling here and there, no geisting. I was relieved. Also, dreams were normal, not even special in any way. Just felt good and found it a lot easier to connect to objects around me.

Lunch and commute chat was rather interesting, though. Some other colleagues also expressed their interest in these things. One of them is apparently a lucid dreamer and has also self-studied human psychology and dream dynamics a bit. Interesting.