Polyvagal Theory Maps Shamanic Worlds

Language: en | Source: Polyvagal_Theory_Maps_Shamanic_Worlds.m4a

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If you’re looking for a shortcut to thorough knowledge, you are in the right place.

Today, we are doing a deep dive into an idea that is so fundamental, it might

completely change how you see your own body. Yeah. I mean, if you’ve ever had a gut feeling

warn you about something, or maybe you felt your heart start pounding way before your brain even

knew it was happening. Then this is for you. Exactly. We’re looking at what some of the

most comprehensive research is now calling sacred geography. And that phrase is so deliberate. It

means your nervous system isn’t just biological hardware. It’s the actual physical map we use to

navigate consciousness itself. It’s the route from, say, primal survival all the way up through

safety, connection, and even transcendence. So our mission today is to bridge two maps that

seem completely separate. On one side, you’ve got Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory, very rigorous,

very modern.

This is a scientific map.

And on the other, you have the ancient universal shamanic three-world model,

the spiritual map. And we’re going to show the precise physiological links between them.

And what’s so fascinating is that the vagus nerve just pops out as this

undeniable energetic highway connecting it all. It’s the physical proof, really. It’s the science

finally catching up to what shamans have known for millennia.

Okay. Let’s start with the science then, the scientific map. To get anywhere with this,

you have to understand polyvagal theory.

Polyvagal theory, or PVT.

Right.

Porges’ whole framework is built on this evolutionary hierarchy. Three circuits that

basically decide our survival state from moment to moment.

And it is a strict hierarchy. That’s key. The newest, most sophisticated system, when it’s

online, it basically tells the older ones to stand down. And at the very top of that ladder

is the ventral vagal complex, the VVC.

And this is the state we’re all shooting for, right? Safety, connection, feeling regulated,

what’s happening in the body.

Right.

So the VVC is the newest kid on the block, evolutionarily speaking. It’s mammalian.

It’s nerve fibers are myelinated.

Oh, they’re fast.

Super fast. And they come from high up in the brainstem, a spot called the nucleus ambiguous.

This is your social engagement system. Think of it like your body’s sophisticated cruise control.

When it’s on, you feel safe, your face is relaxed, you can change your tone of voice.

You can connect with people.

You can connect. And, crucially, we can measure this state.

Okay.

Through what’s called the VVC.

That’s called the vagal break. When the VVC is running the show, you see this beautiful rhythm in the heart called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, or RSA.

That’s where your heart speeds up a little when you breathe in.

And slows down on a long exhale.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

The size of that fluctuation, its amplitude, tells us you have good ventral vagal tone. Your system is efficient and flexible.

That makes so much sense.

Yeah.

So VVC is flexible, it’s social, it’s safe. But what happens when that system gets overwhelmed, when a threat is just too big for it?

Then you immediately drop down the ladder, you go to the next oldest system, the sympathetic nervous system.

The mobilization system.

Right. This is for when, you know, talking it out isn’t going to work. The VVC can’t hold the line. Your body then floods with energy for mobilization. This is your classic fight or flight.

So your RSA drops, heart rate shoots up, muscles get tense, you’re ready to act. You are focused on the threat right here, right now.

Precisely. And if fighting or running isn’t an option, if the threat is just completely overwhelming.

You drop.

You drop to the oldest, most primal system of all. The dorsal vagal complex. The DVC.

This is the reptilian response. The deep freeze.

That’s it. It’s mediated by these old, unmyelinated fibers from the dorsal motor nucleus. It’s all about conservation withdrawal, shutdown, dissociation.

In extreme cases, it can trigger bradycardia, an extreme slowing of the heart.

Just a desperate attempt to survive.

A last resort.

That hierarchy is.

It’s just so elegant.

But Porges came up with another concept that really builds the bridge here, and that’s neuroception. It’s all subconscious, right?

And this is where it gets really interesting. Neuroception is your subconscious safety detector.

It’s constantly scanning for cues of safety or danger, and it triggers these state shifts, VVC, sympathetic, DVC, before your conscious mind even has a clue.

So my nervous system can pick up on the tone of your voice.

Yep.

A shadow in the corner, a weird feeling in my stomach.

Yep.

And it makes a decision about myself.

My safety.

In milliseconds.

Before I’ve even had a chance to think about it.

Yes.

It’s processing everything at once.

Environmental, internal, social cues.

This is why people with PTSD, for example, are often hypervigilant.

Their neuroception is faulty.

It’s misreading safe cues as threats, keeping them stuck in fight or flight or shutdown.

Neuroception is basically our biological mechanism for that raw, felt sense of the world.

Okay, so if neuroception is like this subconscious GPS, always scanning, always navigating, I have to wonder.

Is that what ancient traditions were trying to map?

Let’s flip this.

Let’s look at the ancient map.

The shamanic three-world model.

The consistency is just astounding.

You see the same three-world structure in cultures from the Amazon to Siberia.

It’s everywhere, which really suggests it’s an archetypal structure, maybe built right into our nervous system’s architecture.

So walk us through the three worlds.

What are they?

Okay, so we start with the upper world.

The nature of this place is ethereal, celestial, transcendent.

You get there by going up, climbing a mountain, the branches of a tree.

Metaphorically.

Right.

Its function is vision, guidance, accessing your highest wisdom.

It’s all about light, expansion, possibility, the future.

Then there’s the middle world.

The middle world runs parallel to our physical reality.

You access it by being intensely present.

Its job is to help you navigate everyday life, deal with boundaries, solve problems.

But it has mixed energies.

It requires a lot of discernment.

It’s the world of the here and now.

And finally, the one that’s maybe the most mysterious, the lower world.

The lower world is earthy.

It’s primal, instinctual.

To get there, you have to go down into caves, into the roots of the earth, into the subconscious.

And its function?

Deep healing.

Retrieving lost power, recovering parts of the soul.

It’s dense.

It’s somatic.

It’s connected to the past, to our ancestry.

And the symbol that connects all three is the world tree, the axis mundi.

Branches reaching up, roots going down.

The lower world is earthy.

Which, if you think about it, is a perfect map of the human spine and the central nervous system.

It’s the biological axis that connects our most primal, grounded self with our highest awareness.

And this is where we make the jump.

This is the revolutionary part.

The autonomic states from the science map align perfectly with these worlds.

They’re describing the same reality, just with different words.

Exactly.

Let’s start at the top.

The ventral vagal complex.

That state of safety, connection, social engagement.

It maps directly onto the upper world.

It has to.

Because think about it.

Only when your nervous system feels truly safe, when the VVC is active, can your mind actually access that clarity, that higher perspective, that wisdom.

Safety is the biological doorway to spiritual connection.

Okay, so then the sympathetic nervous system mobilization action focus that maps to the middle world.

A perfect fit.

Both demand active engagement, right?

Constant problem solving, maintaining boundaries in present reality.

You have to be mobilized and alert to navigate the middle world.

And then the most profound connection of all.

The ancient shutdown of the dorsal vagal complex.

Yeah.

It aligns with the lower world.

This is so critical.

The DVC feels like shutdown, but the lower world is where deep healing happens.

They align because to access that deep instinctual wisdom, you have to have a profound somatic surrender.

You have to let go of the ego.

You have to let the active self dissolve for a moment.

The DVC state, when it’s held consciously and safely, becomes the biological gateway to that deep primal.

I’m going to go back to something you said earlier about the vagus nerve being an energetic highway.

Yeah.

We tend to think of the brain just sending orders down.

No, the vagus nerve just flips that script completely.

It’s wild.

80% of its fibers are off-front.

Meaning they carry information from the body up to the brain.

From the gut, the heart, the throat, back to the brain.

This is the biology behind interoception, your felt sense of your body, your gut feelings.

The vagus nerve is the physical substrate for receiving that body-based wisdom.

The kind of wisdom you find in the lower world.

So we have the maps, we have the highway.

Can we actually measure a state shift?

Is there a biomarker for a journey to the upper world, for transcendence?

It’s a huge question, and yes, we can.

Heart rate variability, HRV specifically, that respiratory sinus arrhythmia we talked about, gives us measurable biomarkers.

We know high RSA is the rhythm of safety.

So how does that track the worlds?

Well, low RSA means your system is stuck.

It’s less resilient, it’s in sympathetic or dorsal dominance.

But high RSA is less resilient.

It’s linked to better self-regulation, more emotional flexibility.

So a conscious journey to the upper world, which corresponds to VVC dominance, should show higher RSA.

Your nervous system is literally demonstrating a greater capacity for flexible, high-level processing.

The sources also bring in the chakra system, and the link to the VVC is just incredible.

It connects the anatomy right to the energy.

The lower three chakras root, sacral, solar plexus, they’re tied to survival, DVC and sympathetic states.

But the key is the fifth chakra, the throat.

Which is physically right where the VVC originates.

Exactly.

The fifth chakra is anatomically linked to the nucleus ambiguous, which controls the muscles in your throat, your larynx, your face.

This explains why practices like humming or chanting.

They’re primary tools for VVC activation.

You’re physically vibrating the very nerve that facilitates connection and safety.

You’re opening the fifth chakra to access the upper world, to both receive and speak guidance.

This integrated view is what the research calls complete medicine.

It’s healing on four levels, physical, emotional, mythic and energetic.

And we can see how this works in a specific case, like an autoimmune disease.

Let’s say Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

What would you find there looking through both lenses?

From a polyvagal perspective, you’d probably find very low HRV, a system stuck in dorsal vagal dominance,

that chronic shutdown state that drives inflammation.

And from a shamanic view, you’d often find a corresponding block,

a block.

Fifth chakra, a severed connection to the upper world.

So the physical inflammation of the thyroid, an organ in the throat that governs metabolism,

lines up perfectly with the energetic block and the weak vagal tone.

The body is literally shut down its voice.

It’s shut down its ability to speak its truth and access connection.

So the integrated treatment works on all four levels.

You use gut protocols for the physical inflammation.

You address relational safety for the emotional.

You ask, what’s the story keeping me silent for the mythic?

And

for the energetic, you combine HRV biofeedback with something like soul retrieval for the voice, plus daily vocal toning.

You’re training the VVC to open the chakra.

You’re restoring safety and expression at the same time.

And what’s so beautiful about this is that the tools are so practical.

They use your body’s own wiring.

What are some of those daily exercises you can do?

Well, because the VVC is tied to the throat,

simple things like resonant humming or a deep own chant are direct nerve stimulation.

They enhance that rhythmic RSA.

Another powerful one is a splash of cold water on your face.

The dive reflex. Exactly.

It forces a massive vagal surge.

And the rebound from that trains your system to be more flexible, more regulated.

This has been an incredible journey, synthesizing modern science and ancient wisdom.

We started with this idea of the nervous system as secret geography.

And what we found is that it’s not just a nice metaphor.

It’s the actual physical, measurable substrate.

It’s the territory through which consciousness moves between these worlds.

Neuroscience is finally giving us the tools, like HRV,

to validate what shamans have been doing for thousands of years.

So to bring this all home for you, what does this mean?

You now know that there are measurable

markers like HRV that track your spiritual states.

So if your nervous system is truly the world tree, what would happen if you

actively trained your ventral vagal tone every single day?

Would you just feel a bit safer, a bit calmer?

Or would you be fundamentally increasing

your capacity to consciously and measurably access that upper world for vision and guidance?

This really invites you to stop just

surviving and to start consciously becoming a bridge between the worlds.