…but we already knew that since I wrote about this in 2018*. It was a confirmation of my own experience with drumming in a shamanic setting, but then, I’ve been tapping into the altered state that drumming provides since joining my first rock and roll band at age 14. The takeaway that got my attention from this new study was this:
Shamanic practitioners were significantly different from controls in several domains of altered states of consciousness, with scores comparable to or exceeding that of healthy volunteers under the influence of psychedelics…These findings suggest that psychedelic drug-induced and non-pharmacologic alterations in consciousness have overlapping phenomenal traits but are distinct states of consciousness, as reflected by the unique brain-related changes during shamanic trance compared to previous literature investigating the psychedelic state.
In my article, I advocated for non-pharmacological explorations, accessing altered states without psychedelics, and according to this study:
…shamanic trance, which is an altered state of consciousness anecdotally similar to the psychedelic state, can be achieved with or without the use of psychedelic substances by listening to repetitive drumming.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.610466/full
Some of my favorite sessions have been with clients who’ve experienced shamanic journeys and followed Gail Gulick’s first rule for journeying: Trust the first image. (The 2nd is equally important: Promise to come back!) This study gives evidence for both insightfulness & complex imagery and elementary visual alterations from repetitive drumming. Plus it deals with one of my personal assumptions: that shamanic journeying accesses a distinct state of consciousness that overlaps with that produced by psychedelics. Establishing the reality of a distinct state of consciousness from repetitive drumming gives me hope that someday, someone will study the Past Life journeying experience with this same brain mapping technology, and possibly determine what I believe is also a distinct state of consciousness. Until then, check out this post from 2018: