Firstly, "spirit animal" is a Native American term and I have heard from multiple natives that non-natives shouldn't use it. I don't know your race, but if you aren't native, I'd use "animal guide" or "spirit guide" instead.
You could possibly do a spell to meet your animal guide, but you have to make sure you aren't seeing what you want to see. For example, if you really like bears, and then you do a spell and you dream of bears, you have to determine if it's really Bear, or if you just hoped for Bear so hard that's what your mind came up with. Kinda like chicken and the egg.
I learned mine by looking at my dreams. Throughout my life, I've had 2 animals appear again and again; not "regularly", but enough that they stood out. Plus, the dreams they were in had a certain theme to them. For example, Tiger ONLY appears in dreams centered around me feeling vulnerable or needing to stand up for myself.
I would say to start there; start writing your dreams down and see what animals appear often.
"Firstly, "spirit animal" is a Native American term and I have heard from multiple natives that non-natives shouldn't use it. I don't know your race, but if you aren't native, I'd use "animal guide" or "spirit guide" instead."
I'm a Native American, and for starters we have no universal terminology. We are many different cultures, with many different systems of belief, vocabulary, hierarchies, etc. Anyone can say "spirit animal" if they so choose. English vocabulary tends to borrow phrases and words from other languages and cultures. Besides, plenty of European cultures had totems and the like, each with their own terminology for it. I'm sure "Spirit Animal" isn't exclusive to any particular indigenous American people. That being said, I do prefer the term spirit guide, or totem to spirit animal, simply because you could have a tree or something like that as a guide as well, which means the term "spirit animal" is a bit of a narrow view.
"You could possibly do a spell to meet your animal guide, but you have to make sure you aren't seeing what you want to see. For example, if you really like bears, and then you do a spell and you dream of bears, you have to determine if it's really Bear, or if you just hoped for Bear so hard that's what your mind came up with. Kinda like chicken and the egg.
I learned mine by looking at my dreams. Throughout my life, I've had 2 animals appear again and again; not "regularly", but enough that they stood out. Plus, the dreams they were in had a certain theme to them. For example, Tiger ONLY appears in dreams centered around me feeling vulnerable or needing to stand up for myself."
There are much simpler, much less vague ways of learning what your spirit animal is, that won't leave you wondering if you really met one of your totems. For starters, that bear they saw could still be a messenger guide, or journey guide, regardless of whether or not it's their life guide. Or maybe it was just a dream about a bear that had nothing to do with their totems. Just like maybe that tiger is just a tiger that you dream about when you're feeling vulnerable, or maybe it is a journey guide, there to assist you when you're at that point in your life.
As far as how to find your totem without having to rely so much on guess work, I'd recommend the book 'Animal Spirit Guides' by Steven D Farmer. He outlines a more visualized methodology of finding your spirit guide.
