It's not where you go but how you get there

The ideas that there are different altered states of consciousness seems only a reasonable conclusion, not only from what we have discussed so far in class, but also from personal experience. Walsh did an excellent job (of course) of outlining the differences between different states with very straight-forward tables. There may be different altered states, but it seems a logical deduction that how you arrive at any altered state would affect how you feel or react to or act in that state. Nearly all of the authors have agreed that a shaman consuming hallucinogenic plants for the purpose of traveling will act differently and bring something back that a recreational user may not be searching for, which leads me to the hypothesis that intention plays a huge part in where the altered state will take the experimenter.
If you decide to take a trip to Florida, let's say you have the option to travel either by plane or by car. Depending on which you choose, your vacation will prove different. If, for example, you choose to take the plane, you may get to the airport in plenty of time and get through security quickly and easily, there may be no turbulence, and the stewardess (oh, I mean, flight attendant) may offer you an extra pillow or blanket without you even having to ask. On the other hand, the taxi may pick you up late, security may need to do a body cavity search, the stewardess (once again, that should be flight attendant) may mess up your drink order while you sit freezing beneath the air ducts, and you may go through so many clouds you forget what color the sky is -- suddenly, you find yourself wishing you had just taken the extra day off to drive.
If you had decided to drive, however, maybe traffic would have been horrendous, with construction the entire route down I-95 (as if that would ever happen...) and eighteen-wheelers threatening to decapitate your beloved sedan if you even drift past their rear view mirrors. As with the flying example, though, it could be a simply lovely experience. Your children are not screaming and carrying on in the backseat, but rather occupying themselves and getting along very pleasantly (even if the younger has to feign sleep to escape the nagging of the older...). Your navigator manages to not get you lost even once, and when you arrive early because traffic flowed so smoothly, the hotel graciously offers to upgrade you to a suite.
That may be over-simplistic, but having experienced each of those examples (of course, I was one of the children, I did not have children), I can honestly say that the trip down had a huge impact on the rest of the vacation, at the very least the beginning of it. When your parents are screaming at each other because one does not like the way the other drives, it puts a bit of a damper on seeing your first palm tree. On the other hand, if you leave early enough in the morning and beat all the rush hour traffic to the airport, you have time for a leisurely cup of coffee (hot chocolate, in my case) and you can hold a pleasant discussion about what the family would like to do when it arrives.
Intention is everything. When I go into a massage, there is a huge difference in my performance if I am feeling positive or negative. Whether they can put a name to it or not, a guest can tell when your energy is negative, and it affects the guest's experience. The same may be true with an altered state of consciousness -- perhaps if we do not plan our dreams, that may explain why some dreams are completely off-the-wall. On the other hand, if a shaman enters an altered state with a specific goal in mind (ie, healing a particular illness), that shaman will most likely be able to identify a solution.