Trance journeys

Trance journeys - remembering what we already know.

I was 21 when I first consciously learned how to trance journey.

I signed myself up for a four-day shamanic intensive in Belgium with Roel Crabbe from Anam Cara.

At that time, I didn’t fully realize what I was stepping into. I just knew I felt called. Something ancient in me recognized something ancient in the work.

During those four days, I learned how to journey on the guidance of the drum. How to shift consciousness without leaving my body. How to meet spirit animals, guides and inner landscapes, fully present, fully aware, without the use of any plant medicine.

Roel taught us very clearly why this mattered.

When you learn to journey without external substances, you build trust in your own nervous system, intuition and inner guidance. You learn discernment, stay sovereign and you learn how to enter and leave altered states safely, consciously and responsibly.

The power of making a trance journey doesn’t come from something outside of you, it comes from within.

That foundation stayed with me.

Plant medicines are substances that alter consciousness and perception. They have been used traditionally in ceremonial contexts for healing, vision and initiation. Examples are ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, san pedro and kambo.

They can be powerful teachers, but they are not neutral tools.

They amplify what is already present and require deep knowledge, preparation, integration and ethical guidance.

Around the age of 25, my path deepened further when I started working with Pat from Suka Waka. With her, I made my own shamanic drums, learned to work with the medicine wheel and experienced trance journeys guided by her drum. The drum became a living ally with it`s rhythm as a doorway and the sound as a medicine.

After years of practicing shamanism, and at a certain point guiding journeys myself, I did choose to experience trance journeys with plant medicines. I worked with kambo, psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca in ceremonial settings.

Those experiences were profound and confronting, but even after that, my preference remained the same. I prefer journeys without.

Because the body already knows how to open and our nervous system already knows how to shift. Also because consciousness doesn’t need to be forced. Read that again; Consciouness doesn`t need to be forced. Everything comes when you are ready for it.

Giving birth made that even clearer to me.

Birth felt like a trance journey, it was a trance journey.

Time dissolved, the thinking mind disappeared and breath, sound and instinct took over.

I wasn’t “going somewhere else”, I was going deeper into myself. Fully embodied, fully present and literally moving between worlds while staying rooted in my body.

It reminded me that trance is not something mystical and far away. It’s woven into human experience. It`s a gift that belongs to us, to all of us.

And yet, the words "trance journey" carry fear with it.

Fear of losing control, fear of not coming back, fear of seeing something you didn’t ask for.

This fear didn’t arise naturally. Patriarchal systems and Christianity disconnected people from embodied spirituality, intuition and altered states of consciousness.

Practices once held by shamans, healers, midwives and mystics were labeled sinful, dangerous or evil.

What was natural became taboo.

But trance is human. Our brain moves through different brainwaves every day.

Beta is our waking, thinking, doing state.

Alpha is relaxed awareness and daydreaming.

Theta is deep meditation, intuition, imagery and inner worlds.

Delta is deep sleep and restoration.

A trance journey happens mainly in the alpha–theta state. This is the same state you enter when you’re deeply focused while painting, dancing, singing, praying, staring into a fire or listening to repetitive rhythm.

You are conscious, but the mind softens and something deeper takes the lead.

Sound, breath, movement and rhythm are ancient doorways.

Through sound healing, breathwork, meditation, yoga and the steady pulse of the shamanic drum, the nervous system shifts out of survival and into receptivity and he brain follows naturally.

The benefits of trance journeys are wide and layered.

• They reconnect you with intuition and inner guidance.

• They support emotional release and nervous system regulation.

• They bring clarity, creativity and healing.

• They help you meet parts of yourself beyond language.

• They restore trust in your inner world.

  
  

There is nothing to fear when trance is held with knowledge, integrity, grounded presence and in a safe space held by a professional space holder.

But it must be said: unsafe guidance, poor spaceholding or lack of experience can lead to overwhelm, retraumatization or confusion.

Trance is powerful work. Power asks for responsibility.

When held well, trance doesn’t take you away from yourself. It brings you home.

This is why I love trance journeys, and facilitating them, so much. It`s a way home to yourself, and only you know that way. I can hold space and get you on the road but you have to do it yourself. Only you know your medicine, only I know my medicine as well.

I offer sound meditations once a month in Oppdal, Norway, where trance states can naturally be accessed through rhythm, sound and stillness.

I also regularly facilitate women’s circles and seasonal circles, where trance journeys are woven into ritual, embodiment and connection with nature. All in very practical and all-level ways.

You are always welcome to join me for a workshop.

This work is not about escaping reality.

It’s about remembering how deeply we belong within it.