Spirals have been found in the form of pictographs or petroglyphs in most countries and cultures throughout the world. A simple design, it’s possibly the most common rock art motif in Colombia, appearing more times in the form of a petroglyph than a pictograph. Colombian petroglyph spirals tend to be curvilinear while pictograph spirals are generally angular and painted in red; however there are many exceptions (Marriner 2002:5). Easy to engrave or paint, they may have been used for both exoteric (for the general public) and esoteric (only for the initiated) purposes in pre-historic Colombian rock art. Identification of the Colombian rock artist and the interpretation of rock art motifs has been the theme of much controversy during the past decade. The computer age and the internet have enabled researchers to disseminate their studies and documentation of rock art sites to a wider audience of interested persons. This has created a much larger and easier-to-access data base of rock art investigations than has been previously possible. As a result, it’s now apparent that more rock art specialists accept the idea that shamans, the religious leaders of most hunter-gatherer societies, were responsible for making most rock art either directly or indirectly. This study examines spirals and their identified uses in different cultures. It also investigates the possibility of a common underlying shamanic theme in many spiral motifs. Please note, that for purposes of this paper, counterclockwise spirals are defined as those starting at the center and increasing to the outer limit in a counterclockwise direction. Many times counterclockwise spirals relate to rising or flying upwards. A clockwise spiral is defined as one that starts at the center and increases to the outer limit in a clockwise direction. Clockwise spirals are many times related to the concept of descending. This paper suggests one logical explanation for the widespread use of the spiral as a common Colombian rock art motif. It may have been used to represent a shaman’s portal to enter the spirit world. The theory is based on a universal experience of passing through a spiral or vortex tunnel shared by all shamans during the Transition between phases 2 and 3 of a trance. World-wide, sensory deprivation (isolation, fasting, or lack of sleep) is the most common way to enter a trance state but, in Colombia, it appears that plants (seeds, leaves, flowers or roots) were the most common way shamans entered their altered-reality trances. Examples from various cultures have been presented to support the suggested use of the Colombian rock art spiral motif. One researcher studying the imagery of hallucinogenic intoxication wrote that “….possibly no other artistic motif conveys the concept of the journey through a tunnel as effectively as concentric circles and spirals (Benson and Sehgal 1987:3-4).”