If you see nothing on a shamanic journey, you are not doing it wrong. Most people who journey perceive through more than one sense, and many of them never get clear inner pictures at all. They hear, feel, sense or simply know, and that counts just as much as any vision.
A shamanic journey is a practice in which you travel in awareness, usually to a steady drumbeat of around four to seven beats per second, into what shamanic traditions call non-ordinary reality, to meet helping spirits and bring back guidance. The word “see” is used loosely in this work. In the old traditions, a person who “sees” perceives what is going on in the spirit world through whatever channel opens for them.
Below you will find the most common reasons the inner screen stays dark, what is usually happening instead, and what actually helps.
Is it normal to see nothing on a shamanic journey?
Yes. Seeing nothing is one of the most common experiences in the first months of journeying, and for some people it stays that way for years while their journeys work very well. The expectation of a vivid inner film comes mostly from books and guided meditations, not from how perception actually works for most people.
Michael Harner, who brought core shamanism to a Western audience, wrote in The Way of the Shaman that shamanic seeing includes hearing, feeling and knowing, not only images. Many practitioners in traditional cultures describe their work in terms of hearing the spirits or feeling them in the body far more than watching them.
Why do some people see nothing at all?
The short answer: either the visual channel is not your main way in, or something is getting in the way of the experience you are already having. Usually it is a mix of both.
1. You are a hearer, feeler or knower
Some people take in the world mainly through sound, body sensation or a quiet sense of knowing. On a journey this shows up as a voice, a word, warmth in the chest, pressure on the shoulders, a smell of earth, or the plain certainty that an animal is standing next to you. If you are waiting for a picture, you can miss all of this.
2. You may have little or no visual imagination
Researchers call the absence of voluntary mental images aphantasia. The neurologist Adam Zeman and his colleagues described it in 2015, and it seems to affect a small but real share of people. If you cannot picture an apple when you close your eyes, it makes sense that journeys come through other senses. It is simply a different way of perceiving, and this work does not need pictures.
3. You are trying too hard
Effort tightens the body and keeps the thinking mind in charge. The harder you look, the more your attention stays in ordinary reality, checking whether something is happening yet. Journeying asks for a relaxed kind of attention, closer to listening than to staring.
4. Your intention is vague
“Show me something” gives the spirits very little to answer. A clear, simple question gives the journey a direction and something to respond to. More on this in how to set a clear intention for your shamanic journey.
5. You are dismissing what comes
A lot of people do perceive something, then decide it is “just my imagination” and throw it away within a second. A faint shape, a colour, a feeling of moving downwards: these small things are often the start. If you keep brushing them off, you have nothing left to work with.
6. You are tired, full or distracted
Journeying after a heavy meal, late at night, or with your phone buzzing in the next room makes it much harder to settle into trance. The body needs to feel safe enough to let go a little.
What is actually happening when you see nothing?
Very often more is happening than you notice. When I sit with students after their first journeys, the person who says “nothing happened” will often mention, a few questions later, that they felt cold hands, heard a bird, or had a sudden thought about their grandmother. That is the journey. It just did not arrive as a picture.
This table shows how the same experience can come through different senses:
| Sense | What it can feel like on a journey | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing | Images, colours, shapes, scenes, sometimes faint or brief | A tunnel of roots, a flash of a deer’s eye |
| Hearing | Words, a voice, sounds of nature, music, a name | Hearing “slow down” or the call of a crow |
| Feeling | Body sensations, temperature, movement, touch | Warmth on your back, a sense of falling gently |
| Knowing | A sudden certainty without image or sound | You simply know a bear is with you |
| Smell and taste | Earth, smoke, salt, flowers, a taste in the mouth | The smell of wet moss as you go down |
| Emotion | A wave of grief, relief, joy or calm that has a clear source | Tears that come with a feeling of being met |
How can you perceive more on a shamanic journey?
You perceive more by working with the senses you already have and by giving the journey a little time. These steps help most people within a few weeks:
- Drop the word “see”. Before you start, tell yourself you will notice whatever comes, in any form.
- Ask one simple question. For example: “Please show me my power animal” or “What do I need to know about this week?”
- Begin with a familiar place. Start your journey from a real place in nature you know well. Feel the ground, hear the sounds, smell the air. Memory makes it easier for the imagination to get started.
- Narrate quietly. Some people find it helps to describe under their breath what they sense as it happens. Speaking keeps the experience moving and stops you from judging it.
- Use your body. Let your hands move, sway slightly, or hum. Movement often helps you sense more than lying still does.
- Write it all down straight after. Even the tiny bits. Patterns appear over weeks that you will never see in a single journey. See how to keep a shamanic journal.
- Journey with others. Being drummed for in a group, and hearing how others perceive, often loosens something. Many people get their first clear impressions in a circle.
If the journey keeps stalling in other ways too, for example you cannot find an entrance or you fall asleep, have a look at eight common blocks and fixes.
What should you avoid when you see nothing?
Avoid forcing images, comparing yourself with others, and giving up after three tries. Forcing pictures tends to produce exactly what you expect, which then makes you distrust the whole practice. Comparing turns your journey into a test you can fail. And a handful of journeys is simply not enough to know how you perceive.
- Do not invent scenes to fill the gap. Let it stay empty and notice what comes.
- Do not measure your progress by how cinematic it is. Measure it by whether the answers help you in your life.
- Do not use substances to “boost” visions. The classic drum journey needs nothing added, and it is safer that way.
My experience with students who see nothing
In my circles, the people who see nothing at first are often the ones whose journeys become the most reliable later. Because they cannot lean on pictures, they learn to trust small signals: a word that repeats, a feeling in the belly, a sound that comes back each time. One woman in a recent group never had a single image in her first ten journeys. What she had was a very clear inner voice that answered her questions in two or three words. Those answers turned out to be precise and useful, again and again.
I also notice that the inner screen often brightens once the pressure is gone. When people stop waiting for visions and start taking notes on everything else, images tend to arrive on their own, sometimes months later and sometimes never. Both are fine. The spirits seem to use whatever channel is open.
If you want to practise this in a held space, with drumming and time to share afterwards, you are very welcome to join us in Lightkeepers’ Hearth, our shamanic journey circle.
A note on wellbeing: shamanic journeying is a spiritual practice and complements medical or psychological care, it does not replace it. If journeys bring up strong distress, or if you live with a mental health condition, please speak with a qualified professional as well.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Many experienced practitioners rarely see images. They hear, feel or know what the spirits communicate, and their journeys bring back clear and useful guidance.
No. It only tells you that vision is probably not your main channel. Hearing, feeling and knowing are just as valid ways of perceiving in shamanic work.
It varies a lot. Some people notice something in their first journey, others need several weeks of regular practice. Journeying two or three times a week and writing everything down usually speeds things up.
People with aphantasia can journey. Their experiences tend to come as sensations, sounds, emotions or a sense of knowing. The practice works the same way, the impressions simply arrive through other senses.
Usually not. A steady beat of about four to seven beats per second suits most people. It is more helpful to relax, set a clear intention and let go of expecting pictures than to change the rhythm.
