The reason why it’s called “nonordinary reality” is that it’s experienced as real. No one ever says, “I thought I saw” or “I imagined.” They simply say that they saw, they heard, and then this other thing happened. The experiences people have had after ingesting psychedelic substances are generally reported the same way, hence, most likely, the term “trip.”
In many traditions, there may also be possession by a known and trusted spiritual being, by invitation. But as the Sufi teacher Shahabuddin Less pointed out to me early in my explorations of shamanic work and Santería, in which spirits are invited to possess their devotees, there’s a difference, if I want to see you, between me going to your house and you coming to mine. Journeying is going to spirit’s house, where there’s a standing invitation, the door is (almost) always open, in both directions, and we are free to come and go as we please.
Sandra Ingerman’s book Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner’s Guide is a blessedly brief, sensible, and down-to-earth introduction to the basics of shamanic work, and it’s also available in digital form. Drumming audio can be found right here, as well as elsewhere on the web, and there’s some listed with the suggested readings. It should be noted, though, that there are a lot of people purporting to be shamans who have offerings on the web—shamanic practices are another of the things that used to be closely held secrets and now are everywhere to be found—and it is the better part of wisdom to use both intuition and common sense when choosing which people to pay attention to. Shamanic work is powerful, and as we have learned to our sorrow time and again, not everyone who is interested in power has the loveliest of ethics. There are people indigenous to all kinds of places claiming to be shamans who are no more the real deal than some of the entirely deracinated non-Indigenous people running around here claiming to be shamans. Another of Joe Miller’s excellent sayings is, “There are three things one needs for the spiritual path—common sense, a sense of humor, and more common sense!”
The first shamanic workshop I attended was led by Michael Harner, one of the people who learned shamanic practices from people who were able to preserve them and have been willing to teach them. At one point, someone attending the workshop asked how he could reconcile “all this” with his religion. Harner replied, “As best you can.” Next day, I was saying a prayer composed by Hazrat Inayat Khan, and when I came to the lines “Lord God of the East and of the West, of the worlds above and below, and of the seen and unseen beings,” I was electrified—it’s all right there! It’s probably all right there in any number of other spiritual traditions, too.
56