shamanism, facing death, and rationality

How shamanism makes one more rational and original – by confronting one's cognitive dissonance about power relations, through facing death. This cognitive dissonance is normative (and likely controlled by the brain part geared to survival -- lizard brain). It involves an aspect of unquestioning conformity in us since we are all inducted into systems of power that pre-existed our birth, and which we needed to adapt to regardless of our individual proclivities or will. Facing absolute loss, as an existential fact, however, enables us to overcome the superego prohibition against seeing reality more as it is, less as we hope it might be.