vision quest

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A period of spiritual seeking among certain Native American peoples, often undertaken as a puberty rite, that typically involves isolation, fasting, and the inducement of a trance state for the purpose of attaining guidance or knowledge from supernatural forces.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A rite of passage in some Native American cultures, representing a turning-point in life before puberty and consisting of a journey alone in the wilderness, sometimes accompanied by fasting, leading to a vision from a spirit.