In this paper I address the process of accessing utopian visions in three feminist utopian novels. I argue that in each of the texts discussed, accessing utopia takes place through a specific process of altering states of consciousness. I contend that these altered states, which include dreams, trances, meditations and hallucinations, are intrinsically related to the texts' vision of feminist utopianism as rooted in creating a new consciousness. I also maintain that the texts represent women as having a specific gendered relationship to these altered states, which is relevant to the feminisms that the texts articulate.

Lucy Sargisson claims that feminist utopian texts demand from the reader a 'paradigm shift in consciousness' (Sargisson, 1996 229). If this is so, then the process of activating utopia through altered states explicitly foregrounds the 'paradigm shift' that is necessary for the reader to undergo, both to engage with the utopian text, and also, perhaps, to activate utopia themselves.

Before looking at each of the three texts under discussion, I position these issues within their context. Relevant to both The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You, and The Fifth Sacred Thing, are writings on women's spirituality and ecofeminism. For Woman on the Edge of Time, I briefly look at debates within feminist theories that argue that women's madness can be a means of spiritual vision and transformation.

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