Bob asked me a question about journeying, meditation and remote viewing which I thought I'd throw out to you all.

"In remote viewing and in meditation, you're asked to ignore or cut off thinking while, in journeying, your asked to use your thoughts to reach the Lower, Middle or Upper World. How do I know I'm not just 'thinking' it up?"

For me, it seems the difference is the intent of the activity. In meditation,one seeks to calm the mind or to observe it. One learns to simply observe thoughts as they arise and pass through the mind or to "cut them off", as it were, as they arise, allow the mind to sit in a clear state. In that clear state, one becomes aware of the illusionary aspect of reality that arises from how we think about the world.

I am not that familiar with remote-viewing, but I believe the technique is to focus on a particular place or person and to allow impressions of the object of the focus to arise in the mind.  Here, there is a total concentration on the object and all other "thoughts" are distractions from the intent.

In journeying, we actively seek entry into an alternate reality through the use of our thoughts, specifically our ability to imagine--that is, think of and in images--that point of entry.  The term "journeying" speaks to this process.  

You're planning a drive to that special waterfall you found several years ago. In your mind's eye, you picture the route to get there, the landmarks along the way, and that first view of the place when you get there.  It's been years since you've been there, but in your mind you can see yourself turning off the mainroad onto the dirt road.  There is an old log cabin just before the sharp left turn onto a smaller, narrow dirt road; you have to be sure to go slow in case someone is coming from the other direction.  There's a dip in the road that sometimes turns into a mud pit, so you need to steer to the high side of it so you don't get stuck in the mud.  The road rises and you have to shift into a lower gear to get up the rise.  At the top, it levels out and comes to an end in an open glade.  To the right of the glade is a footpath that leads down to the top of the falls and further down to the pool below. Once you get there, anything can happen.

In this same way, we see our "launch point in nature" for our journey.  One of the reasons we learn to pick a place that we are familiar with is that we can visualize it more clearly and more easily. In that place, we find either a place to go up into the Upper World or down into the Lower World or out into the Middle World, the alternate reality of our own world.  We send out a call to our Spirit Guides to "meet us there", much like calling a friend or a mentor to meet you to discuss a problem.  What happens when we "get there" is a conversation between ourselves and Spirit about a particular issue; anything can happen and people are often surprised by what Spirit reveals and how Spirit makes that revelation. 

When I find myself saying, "I would have never thought of that" or " I'm not really sure what that means," I'm pretty sure I didn't "make it up" in the same way that I would allow my imagination to unfold in writing a story, where I have a pretty good idea of what the story is and how the characters are going to play it out.  In the journey, I have simply imagined the road to meet my spiritual friends; what they tell me once we meet is not in my control.

Others, please chime in.