This may sound like a no brainer but the main advantage is you start to see yourself as a part of the earth and not as separate from it spiritually or physically. You experience being at one with all life in the wilderness (which is the best place to do something like this). I wouldn't do this sort of thing in bad weather or in snow for example or in 115 degrees in the desert for example because you might die of hypothermia in the snow and die of dehydration in the desert in 115 degrees. So, day temperatures of 60 to 80 degrees and night temperatures not below about 50 would be ideal for doing this. It rained for a day while I was doing this so I just went under a huge fallen Cedar tree 6 feet through to get out of the rain. Since I was on River Sand at the time I didn't get wet at all because the fallen huge tree shed the rain and the sand absorbed the rain so I never got wet.
However, there is nothing wrong with taking a tent while doing a no water no food vision quest in the wilderness either that has a rain cloth over the top. However, having some matches and candles and sweet grass to burn (that is woven into a braid) can be helpful as an incense while praying. And if you are more traditional a rattle for keeping the rhythm of your prayers as you give them or some kind of prayer beads depending upon the religion or religions you presently are practicing.
So, the main advantage of this is finding what you are praying for through your visions.
What this basically does is to take you back to humanity when they are starving and to how they survived from these near death states. It also answers your prayers from this near or more realistically near starvation and dying of thirst state of being. So, this tradition of vision quests with no water or food helps you not only because of spiritually understanding yourself better, it also helps you understand the starving process too so you become more compassionate towards all the starving masses on earth.
So, what it does is multiple levels of changes within a person. Although, one has to be mature enough to take it all in. And also this 4 day experience was so incredibly profound I'm still writing about this 33 years later. So, this is a profound change in your awareness about life in general to go through if and when you are ready and willing and mentally and physically healthy enough to do something like this.
But, I think what is possible expanded in my mind incredibly through this experience. It brought to me how paradoxical it is to actually be a human being vulnerable there in the wilderness without any weapons. It taught me how much more and also how much less we are than most people think. It showed me just how unrealistic and out of touch most people are that you will meet on the street every day. It taught me to think of these out of touch people more like my children that I have to try to help take care of more than anything else. I came to see the forest and the animals within it the same way as my family that I had to take care of and that would also help take care of me.
My relationship with the Earth and all upon it permanently changed starting with this experience and I feel much stronger and safer ever since in every way physically, mentally and spiritually.
So, it makes sense to me why people have done vision quests of no water and no food in North and South America for at least 15,000 to 20,000 years and before that in Asia and other places around the world where people came from before that.
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