Separate reality

A Separate Reality, in the context of shamanism, seems to imply a type of dualism, an equal reality from which people in their "normal state of mind" are excluded. The idea goes back to a myth so ancient that it is repeated in the mythologies of peoples all over the world. The basic idea of that myth is that there was once a permanent connection between the world of the gods and the world of human beings. Because of the irresponsible and irritating behavior of the humans, the gods destroyed the link. Thereafter, humans could only communicate with the gods by leaving their "universe" and entering the "universe" of the gods. If one watches a shaman at work, one may see an individual climbing a tall pole set up in the middle of a clearing. That is to describe the shaman's voyage from an everyday point of view. But the shaman's experience is entirely different from ours. He is in a separate reality from ours, he might explain, and his experience involves ascending to heaven, communicating with the gods who are its denizens, securing aid from them (usually in the form of information about remedies to some problem faced by individuals in the community or the entire community), and then returning to earth and the shaman's "home reality." The term "separate reality" was first used by Carlos Castenada in a book by that name his first.

Usage in physics

Main Article: Duality In physics, dualism refers to mediums with properties that can be associated with the mechanics of two different phenomena. Because these two phenomena's mechanics are mutually exclusive, both are needed in order to describe the possible behaviors.