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               Memories of the Womb
                                       © Richard Stammler, 2008; all rights reserved.

     I’m feeling an incredible pressure, but I’m stuck here. The pressure is bearing down on me. I feel like I’m being crushed, but not moving forward.
I feel tremendous panic. I am caught in the birth canal and can’t get out!The feeling of being closed in is horrible!! My head is aching!
A rush of anger comes from my mother. [Pause.] I’m getting angry! How could she do this to me? I feel anger and panic all mixed together. Am I going to die? Maybe she doesn’t want me. [Jane begins crying intensely here.] - Gabriel, p. 106¹

    Behaviorist Psychology was the dominant psychological school in this country during the 50's and 60's, and its basic premise was that the rightful study for scientific psychology is limited to observable behavior. Its bias was that for psychology grounded in science there was nothing else. There was the classic nature vs. nurture debate, which asked the question, what is more important as a determinant of behavior, the genetic component (DNA) or the experiences in life? The prevailing view among the behaviorists was that of the tabula rasa, that the mind is a blank slate at birth and life writes the story of that person’s existence on that blank slate. Furthermore, the very deterministic viewpoint was to see the individual as part of the machine that is the universe and subject to the same laws of physics as they were understood at that time. Textbooks on learning detailed theoretical formulas that were stimulus-response equations, which expressed the idea that if the behaviorist knew the sum total of the previous stimulus-response events for a person, he could predict with perfect accuracy what that person would do in a given situation.

    In this behaviorist environment the developing fetus was viewed as a non-descript mass of protoplasm with little or no learning, no feelings, no cognition, and very little sensory input. In some medical quarters, even at birth the baby was thought to have no feelings. Additionally, the immature brain did not experience pain resulting in the practice by some physicians of male children being circumcised without anesthetic.

    Gradually the prenatal and neonatal field began to change. Psychologists began to appreciate the implications of research that had been around for some time which demonstrated that the fetus could learn. It was subject to Pavlovian classic conditioning, that physical stimulation to the abdomen of the pregnant mother caused movement of the fetus and when paired with sound it soon generated that response alone. As research on the fetus increased, it was more and more clear that the intra-uterine environment had effects on the fetus and subsequent development of the individual. It was soon learned that some drugs resulted in profound physical deformities. This was the case with pregnant mothers that were prescribed thalidomide, which resulted in a much greater incidence of children with underdeveloped hands and feet or missing those appendages entirely.

    What has been slower in coming is the appreciation of the psychological impact of the fetal environment to the development of the child. However, as an example of a shift in scientific viewpoint, recently a diagnostic category was created called fetal alcohol syndrome. This category describes the sometimes profound developmental and psychological impacts to the child in an alcoholic mother who drinks during the pregnancy. All this newfound awareness in the healing community resulted in the creation in 1971 of the International Society for the Study of Prenatal Psychology and in 1981 of the Pre and Perinatal Psychology Association of North America (PPPANA).

    A growing chorus of voices in the medical and psychological community expressed the idea that not only is the prenatal environment important to the physical and mental health of the child, but it also goes far beyond that. A group of medical practitioners and transpersonal psychologists feel that the fetal environment, both biological and psychological, shapes the very strategies a person uses during the rest of their lives. Among those voices was Thomas Varny, M.D., who highlighted 20 years of research in the book The Secret Life of the Unborn Child,² 1981, following it up ten years later with a therapeutic book called Nurturing the Unborn Child³. What is the logic to this orientation?

    The one time Stanford Medical School cellular biologist, Bruce Lipton, cites the Danish mathematician Tor Norretranders, who calculated that the unconscious mind processes approximately 20,000,000 environmental stimuli per second while the conscious mind processes 40 during the same second. What is he talking about? If you observe your internal and external environmental stimuli at the present moment,there is the level of lighting in your environment, the temperature, noise levels, perhaps vibrations you may feel in a house as various electric equipment turns on and off. I’m referring to the washing machine, the air conditioner, refrigerator, etc. Also direct your attention (that is, bring into conscious awareness) to your socks – are they loose or tight? If you have shoes on one will fit more snugly than the other. If you have glasses, do you feel them pressing on the sides of your head? How about your breathing? Now you are aware of your chest moving in and out. You can become aware of your heart beating and if you are sitting, the pressure against your gluteus maximus.

    This is, in part, what Lipton is talking about. There are millions of stimuli each second, which, if your conscious awareness lies in another focus, such as the images on a television or intense discussion with another person, are all unconscious. When he gives presentations, Lipton likes to show an image of a scene outside. It may have a building of some kind in the foreground and other natural and manmade features in the background. He will state that this represents a momentary aggregate of external stimuli on your senses that are taken in unconsciously all the time. He then advances the screen to show the smallest black spot in the middle of the scene. He then points out that this is what is in conscious awareness of all the stimuli present. He then adds that he had to significantly enlarge that spot beyond what it actually is or it would not be visible.

    So what happens to all these stimuli that are there but unconscious? Many in the psychological community would say that that they are all recorded in the unconscious. Not only are they recorded in the unconscious but, many, perhaps all, are available through hypnotic regression or other non-ordinary states of consciousness.

    To carry this point a bit further, the self is composed of many layers, which includes an unconscious that is also composed of many layers. The significance of this is brought home when we note the many reports by patients in surgery or some other crisis where they have lost consciousness intentionally through anesthesia or unintentionally through medical crisis. There are many reports of people in this state of obvious unconsciousness regaining some kind of conscious awareness, often from the vantage point of the ceiling. In these instances the descriptions of these patients accurately detail the events in the operating room or emergency facility much to the surprise of the attending staff. In my own family, my father-in-law, a man close to the soil, conservative and the furthest from new age ideas, had a medical crisis where a large opening in a hiatal hernia caused his stomach to press on the heart so severely that it went into fibrillation (as reported to him by the medical staff). At the time he was on a table in the emergency room and found himself looking down at the scene from a vantage point immediately above his body near the ceiling. His eldest daughter was close to his physical body and he told me, “I tried to wave to Janet to get her attention.” This occurred during the time of his cardiac arrest. These are occurrences of obviously unconscious material made conscious when, according to conventional models of the mind, it should not be available at all.

    These experiences are called near death experiences (NDE) by Raymond Moody⁴, psychologist and medical doctor; and by psychologist and professor emeritusat the University of Connecticut, Kenneth Ring⁵. There are countless instances that consistently describe similar events for which there is no other explanation than there was some kind of awareness of events and circumstances when, under current medical paradigms, this should not be possible. For the transpersonal therapist these normally unconscious inputs are recorded in the mind and can be retrieved. In extraordinary instances like NDEs they become conscious spontaneously. But, what about fetal memories?

    It was Freud who was one of the first to point to childhood memories as sources of psychological and/or physical trauma that shape persistent life strategies. They also form the basis for phobias, neurosis, or other less than optimum ways of dealing with life events. The memories are largely unconscious until uncovered during age regression of some type. Often the first approach for the traditional psychotherapist, or other mental health professional, is to seek out these significant traumas.

    Many transpersonal therapists believe that one layer of the unconscious records a kind of cellular memory during the pre-natal and perinatal period where consciousness is not yet present but the unconscious is. Even in later life when consciousness leaves the body during periods of extreme stress and trauma, memory of those events can be retrieved from that layer of the unconscious.

    David Cheek, M.D., was an obstetrician who learned medical hypnosis when it first gained some popularity for medical application. He pioneered work on recovering birth and prenatal memories to achieve therapeutic healing. He discovered that they were easy to recover and contained many memories that could not have been known by other means.

    One of the more recent adherents and a founder of transpersonal psychology is Stanislav Grof, a Czechoslovakian psychiatrist, famous for his comprehensive scientific investigation of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He created an extensive map of the prenatal and perinatal stages of development and associated psychopathologies. Grof writes,
    I can no longer deny that the evidence that we have the capacity to relive the emotions and physical sensations we had during our passage through the birth canal and that we can re-experience episodes that took place when we are fetuses in our mothers’ wombs. In non-ordinary states of consciousness, our psyches can reproduce these situations in vivid detail. Grof, p. 18⁶.

    Two additional members of the group who believe that pre-natal and perinatal memories are key to resolving trauma and other life issues (both physical and psychological) are Morris Netherton and Michael Gabriel. Netherton states, “In Past Lives Therapy we reach back to this crucial nine months, and there we find the roots of every patient’s behavior.” They are transpersonal therapists and between the two of them, like Grof, have written and lectured extensively on uncovering these memories and resolving life problems.

    But how can this be? It can only be because the mind is non-local (see articles elsewhere on this website) and as such there is memory (and even cognition) outside the confines and limits of the physical brain. Cheek intimated,
    These are things I've been awakened to. I've found that it isn't just what goes on in the delivery room that is important. It's what's gone on for the previous nine months, and maybe ... even ... longer!⁷

    By this Cheek means that even before conception, there is memory, memory of why that particular mother was chosen (by the child), which, if you are angry with her, can be a healing revelation.

    So let me give you an example. In Michael Gabriel’s book, Voices from the Womb. The client is a 57 year old male who has great distrust of others.⁸

[M: Equals Michael Gabriel. A: Is the client]
M: Let’s move back to the first month. What are you feeling now?
A: Something’s wrong. It feels like they did something weird…like they feel guilty.
M: What do they feel guilty about?
A: [There’s a pause for almost a minute, then:] I’m not sure…My mother feels as though something is not quite right, as though the pattern is not right.
M: How does your father feel?
A: He feels inadequate, as though he is a failure as a husband.
M: And how do their feelings affect you?
A: Things don’t feel quite right…It has to do with my being here.
M: They don’t feel good about having a child?
A: They want to have a child, but there is a sense of wrongness. My mother is angry at her husband. She had to do something she didn’t like because in some way he was inadequate.
M: What do you mean?
A: [There’s a long pause, then] I am getting the sense…It was a plan…they got someone else to donate sperm.
M: Can you describe the plan?
A: I can get it clearer now. My mother wanted a baby badly but she hadn’t conceived after a number of years of marriage. Someone donated sperm. My mother inserted the sperm with her fingers…she didn’t like doing that. But she did get pregnant.
M: And how do they feel about what they have done?
A: They are pleased they can tell everyone they will have a baby. And my mother likes being pregnant. But…[pause].
M: But what?
A: They are ashamed at the same time. They are trying to cover up their feelings. Nothing shows on the outside, but they both feel like they have sinned. It‘s weighing on them., like a dark cloud over everything.
M: So there is not a feeling of joy and love?
A: No. They did not consider how this would affect their relationship. My mother feels that she has sinned and that God will punish her. She always does what’s right. Somehow she feels used.
M: Is she angry at your father?
A: Yes. He should have been able to do it!
M: And how does your father feel?
A: He fears he is not all he should be as a man. He does not claim me as his child.
M: And how do your parents’ feelings affect you?
A: It is all my fault! If I wasn’t here, they wouldn’t be having theses problems. At other times, I am angry at them, picking up what is happening and reacting - at what a price to me!

Following the regression, Adam reflected on some of the feelings he experienced after his birth:
After I was born they really loved me and tried to be good parents, but I was the result of their “sin.” They never mentioned it to each other but neither of them could ever let go of it. I always felt that there was something wrong, something very wrong. It was there when I was growing up and it’s always been there, but I never…I never imagined anything like this.

    Early childhood regression yielded no events to account for this strong personality trait. The material above came after stepping back month-by-month to the first month after conception. How does the therapist know that this is the critical issue? After properly working through this early memory the client’s behavior, in this case his very ingrained personality changed for the better.

    Let me point out here that apparently the mother and father never talked about their guilt and certainly never discussed it with their child. It also seems that they are deeply religious, which accounts for the strong guilt. Remember this was before the advent of artificial insemination as a socially accepted practice. I would also guess that this was a private arrangement with a second man that both of them knew. This appears to be a significant early memory.

    For practitioners such as transpersonal psychologist Alice Givens⁹ there are several working assumptions about the prenatal period:
1. The embryo is an individual person from the moment of conception.
2. The fetus sees, hears, tastes, and feels months before birth.
3. The basic foundation for personality is shaped en utero. The fetus feels Mother’s feelings and records all of Mother’s experiences as its own [Givens lists several other assumptions].

    It is posited that because no ego is yet formed, the fetus cannot differentiate between itself and the extended uterine environment, including the emotional state of the mother. Therefore, therapy entails cathartic re-experiencing of the birth events and events en utero with all attendant feelings and emotions of the mother. Indeed, for the fetus that intrauterine environment, including the experiences and emotional states of the mother, is considered to be indistinguishable from the fetus itself. Part of the therapeutic process is to achieve understanding (reframing) that the experiences are separate from the client and do not need to be owned by them. Givens (p. 24) says that “With therapeutic help patients can recognize that their pain may have come from others and that they have no obligation to keep it.”

    For the past life regression therapist this chain of causality goes back even further as articulated by Netherton who expanded considerably on Cheek’s pioneering work. Netherton¹⁰ states, “The physical symptoms that are part of a past life death are carried to the next conception and reintroduced as part of the DNA code.”

    He states the situation emphatically,
    It is the longest period in our lives when the unconscious mind reigns supreme, without a conscious mind to analyze or act as a filter. In this embryonic space the rules of the game, so to speak, are set up for us. The issues that will confront us throughout conscious life are introduced, and the “memory” of certain past-life traumas is locked into position. Then, just as this preamble is fully assembled, it is made inaccessible by the entrance of the conscious mind, at birth.¹¹

    These past life memories, in fact, become central to the early and permanent formation of the unconscious and therefore form the core of the personality. “The unresolved issues from past life as continued by the mother’s prenatal experience through birth now form the basis for unconscious beliefs and feelings.”¹² Netherton believes that the birth process is so central to the physical and psychic development of the individual that he concludes, “Most physical problems are found during the pain and stress of the birthing process. The manner in which you experience birth will determine your formula for coping with stress for the rest of your life.”

    What Netherton asserts here is that there is a symbolic restimulation of a previous life, most often a pattern of several lives that is reenergized most often during the prenatal stage, which sets that pattern in the present life. Why does this happen? One view is that we create it in order to solve an issue that has been with us, typically during a number of lives. The transpersonal therapist will call this karma, which has nothing to do with good and evil but everything to do with releasing or neutralizing energy bound up in a past life issue.

    Cambridge trained psychologist Roger Woolger agrees. The past life events become symbolically represented in the intrauterine environment and the experiences of the mother during pregnancy and the birth itself. Thus, for Woolger, problems and negative experiences that occur during the pregnancy and birth are part and parcel to the karmic fallout of past life events.

    Whenever there is severe trauma in the struggle to be born, the form of the trauma commonly proves to be an exact and faithful symbolic mirror of the accumulated past-life death experiences in all their attendant terror and stress.¹³

_______________

¹Gabriel, M. (1992). Voices from the womb: Adults relive their pre-birth experiences-a hypnotherapist’s compelling account. Lower Lake, CA: Aslan Publishing. My thanks to Michael Gabriel for permission to quote from his book.
²Varny, T. (1981). The Secret life of the unborn child. New York: Dell.
³Varny, T. (1991). Nurturing the unborn child. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.
⁴Moody, R. A. Jr. (1973). Life after life. New York: Bantam Books.
⁵Ring, K. (1985). Heading toward omega: In search of the meaning of the near-death experience. New York: William Morrow.
⁶Grof, S. (1993). Holotropic mind; the three levels of human consciousness and how they shape our lives. San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco.
⁷Cheek, D. B. (1992). Fetal Perception and Memory. Retrieved August 8, 2008, from http://www.tir.org/metapsy/DRCHEEK.HTM (1992 IRM Conference plenary address).
⁸Out of the chapter, “The Wrong Father,” pp.33-35.
⁹Givens, A. (1993). Prenatal and birth reprogramming. In W. B. Lucas, (Ed.), Regression Therapy: Volume II: Special Instances of Altered State Work (pp. 20-31). Crest Park, UT: Deep Forest Press, p. 25.
¹⁰Netherton, M. and Shiffrin, N. (1978). Past lives therapy. New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., p. 6.
¹¹Ibid. pp. 131-132
¹²Netherton, M. (1996) Past life awareness & integration: A Teaching manual. Retrieved July 14, 2004 from http://www.aaple.com/bookstore/.
¹³Woolger, R. J. (1993). Tracing the karmic source of prenatal programs. In W. B. Lucas, (Ed.), Regression Therapy: Volume II: Special Instances of Altered State Work (pp. 32-37). Crest Park: Deep Forest Press, p. 33.

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If you want to work on this some more – call me.