The dynamic between separation and unity is part and parcel of life, inevitable as the existence of all that is. I can go far and wide here, from the event that began everything, the Big Bang, the story of Genesis, the quantum theory of entanglement, or the spiritual path of oneness. But in this writing, I'm not going there. I want to remain anchored in my personal journey. It is characterized by differentiation through separation and integration through linkage, leading to growth and increased complexity, the result of the development trajectory. In this text, I am exploring my birth, partly imagined and partly recorded as a recollection of my mother in 2004.
A miracle of life
Let us begin with the separateness of the spermatozoid and the egg whose destiny was a faithful unity into a new entity, the single-cell organism. This event marked the creative act, a miracle of life that became a nascent me, who in the nine-month period completed the first stage of existence and became a new human. All this was happening in the warmth of my mother's womb, in the symbiotic oneness. I don’t know if the metaphor “oceanic feeling” in any way is related to this pre-birth experience, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is, as some of the mystics claim (1). I imagine my pre-natal self, swimming in the amniotic fluid without fear of drowning, connected by the umbilical cord to the source, perfectly united.
Birth
This blissful existence lasted until I was prompted to make a leap of fate into a new reality. Not an easy task to initiate this “hero’s journey,” to use the term codified in our collective consciousness by Joseph Campbell (2). There was a problem that needed to be solved, my birth. How did I, "hero" address it? Cleverly, I think. In the middle of the night, when the call to adventure could be heard loudly and clearly. There were no distractions when I woke up my mother with the abdominal pain. This alarmed her. She at once summoned her helpers to take her to the right place, the hospital, because the time had come. She was calm, well prepared, ready for her own heroine’s journey, for a second time.
On this occasion, her path was my path too. We worked as a team to be able to get from point A (uterus) to point B (outside the body). I was moving along her birth canal without much struggle until I reached the light at the end of the tunnel. My senses were unaccustomed to what followed and became overwhelmed. I replied with a scream, perhaps similar to the one that inspired Janov for the title of his book (3). Mine had a purpose to open my lungs for the first time and fill them with air, creating a new pathway for oxygen to get into my bloodstream. From this very first moment, the breath of fresh air became my faithful companion in life.
In the preceding paragraphs, I described the fictional dramatization of my birth experience. You know, I have no conscious recollection of it, just the curiosity. I was inspired to satisfy it during conversations with my mother, relying on her memories. Even though, her description indicated that the delivery process went well, and that it was easier than the first one she had 3 years before, I still had to ask myself, was I traumatized by that experience? Was there any trace of it recorded in the deep recesses of my mind or my body? Something not accessible to ordinary states of consciousness, but still present and influential.
The trauma of birth
To answer these nagging questions, I had to turn to scholarly writing on the topic. The notion that birth could lead to psychological trauma was first elaborated by the psychoanalyst Otto Rank. In 1924, he published the book The Trauma of Birth (4). Rank dedicated his book to Freud who originally believed that birth was the first experience of anxiety and therefore the source and basis of all anxiety experiences later in life. Throughout the book, Rank makes a case based on his clinical work that the transition from a state of contentment and union with the mother in the womb to a sudden separation by birth creates a trauma that causes enduring anxiety.
I did not study Otto Rank’s theory of birth trauma much. Actually, my first introduction to this topic stems back to 1970s when during my psychology days I encountered Arthur Janov through his book The Primal Scream (3). There was a book club, the extra-curricular activity, organized by the admirer of this book and Janov’s work that galvanized the world because of celebrities like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who were briefly treated by Janov. I dutifully attended and read the book that claimed that all mental health related issues derive from repressed memories of childhood traumas, particularly the trauma of being born. In so called primal therapy the patient is slowly regressed to childhood. Through this process, unconscious memories of incidents that the individual suffered as a very young child begin to emerge followed by the memories of real birth. Janov says the illness to which the person is subjected is a "silent scream." When patients recover their lost memories of early traumas, especially the trauma of birth, they often twist on the ground, sobbing and shouting with rage at what was done to them. The benefits of this “abreaction” and the gradual recovery of traumatic memories result in perfect and permanent health. It just takes between 15 to 18 months of intense therapy, and a lot of money. The admirer I mentioned earlier, the one who organized the book club, decided to sell his house, and go to California. There he met Janov, spent all his money, not achieving what he was hoping for. I learned of his misadventure 10 years later when this kind of therapy had lost its luster for him and for the world.
The new branch of psychology
But not completely. The new branch of developmental psychology was born that explores the psychological and psychophysiological effects and implications of the earliest experiences of the individual, before birth (prenatal), as well as during and immediately after childbirth (perinatal). The sense modalities of the fetus develop prenatally and are functioning very well at birth. Many scientific studies demonstrated prenatal learning and memory as evidenced by multiple physiological changes in heart frequency, motor activity, discrimination of music, and even the development of speech (5). We now know that the mother's voice is clearly heard from inside the womb and that the fetus is able to differentiate speech sounds (6).
Originally, it was thought that the newborn's brain is incapable of recording explicit autobiographical memories, even though implicit non-verbal memories are possible in utero. In more recent time, the extensive research of childhood amnesia indicates that encoding of the early life events might not be an issue, but their retrieval (recall) under the ordinary states of consciousness (7). How about during non-ordinary states, such as mystical experiences, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, or with special type of breathing?
The long-lasting effects of birth-related experiences in adult life have been recognized in observational studies by Stanislav Grof using LSD and other psychedelic drugs along with the rapid breathing accompanied by music and energy release work (8). He emphasizes the importance of this period of life through these words:
A radical transition, from an aquatic form of life whose needs are being continually satisfied by the placental circulation to the extreme emotional and physical stress of the birth struggle and then to a radically new existence as an air-breathing organism, is an event of paramount significance that reaches all the way to the cellular level. Even a relatively normal birth without complications is certainly a process of an entirely different order than learning to speak or developing an ego. This is clearly evident from the amount of time it takes in experiential therapy to bring the perinatal material into consciousness and integrate it. And a difficult birth and poor postnatal circumstances can constitute a profound trauma that colors the entire life history of the individual (9).
Grof believes that the memory of birth is a source of negative feelings and physical sensations that may lead to different forms of emotional and psychosomatic disorders. Reliving and integrating the trauma of birth can be very beneficial and can translate into deep healing and psycho-spiritual transformation. A wide variety of techniques are used in somatic psychotherapy including sound, touch, mirroring, movement and breath because of the way how life experiences were recorded in the body during a pre- and nonverbal period. Multiple school of therapies have been utilized for this purpose (10).
The breath of fire
I became interested in holotropic breathing technique, develop by Stanislav Grof and his wife Christina after I first read about it. I still haven't had the opportunity to try its potential to enable the access to early life memories, but I plan to do so in the near future. The closest similar thing I experienced was ten years ago when I had an intensive yoga training with Amy Weintraub in the Bahamas. A small group of us practiced various breathing exercises, including fast breathing known as the breath of fire. When I returned home to Fargo, the following morning I woke up feeling unwell. I had a headache with congestion and sore throat. My ears were still plugged from the flight, and I was slightly feverish. I decided to implement the breathing I learned. Usually, when I have cold-like symptoms, I develop shortness of breath as a result of my chronic pulmonary condition (sarcoidosis), but not this time. The following night, I was unable to sleep at all. I had a great need to breathe deep yogic breaths, and I did that all night. This state of unwellness continued for several more days. During that time, I was preoccupied with yoga, dreamed about it, and "processed" events in the Bahamas. The memories of my early childhood flooded my mind. My wife Tina encouraged me to reach out to Amy to help me understand the deeper meaning of my symptoms. I thought that after an extraordinary experience in the Bahamas, I was not ready to get back to my normal life and routines. My illness and partial sensory deprivation made me turn inward and use the healing power of breath.
I accepted the advice of my wife and sent an email to Amy. I didn’t have to wait a long time for her answer. She wrote:
Thank you for sharing your experience of your return to Fargo. In one week you experienced glimpses of "heaven" and "hell," a lot like life but on steroids! I'm sorry you fell ill. The mind-body connection is profound, isn't it? I find for myself that if I don't process some important emotional state, my immune system takes a hit, or I feel depressed. One theory of your illness might be that we spent 5 days doing practices that stirred up old wounds and hit you physically where you are most vulnerable, or that your body/mind needed more time to process the material that arose, so it gave you this time of sensory deprivation so you could legitimately stay home and take care of yourself. I'm glad you did that, and it sounds like you stayed present for another dive into hell. Sometimes we think we've done all the work we need to do around our early losses and trauma, and then we see there's more to do. I believe we get these opportunities when we're ready. Something inside you decided you were ready to go deeper, but also gave you the fortitude to continue to breathe deeply, so you could see the power of the breath to heal, to unlock emotion, and yet to also self-soothe.
Then, I had this dream.
I had an interesting dream last night that woke me up. I was on a mission to find something. I was in a group of people. There was an older woman who didn't belong there. She was able to grab a girl and was taking her away. Others knew that they shouldn’t allow her to do that, but older woman was goal oriented and determined. I decided to take a baby even though others were surprised. Baby was very tiny and her diapers where not clean. She was very precious to me, so I didn't care. I embraced her and covered her with my coat. I went away. I was trying to find the right path. In that moment I received a phone call on my cell from Dr. S.T. I responded. There was a female voice telling me that she received a threatening call for me. She heard someone making a sound as if firing a gun. She just wanted to let me know. If she gets another call, she will call the authorities. I was not too much alarmed. I was supposed to stay in Dr. S.T. house but didn't. Caller didn't know where I was or how I look like. I continued to walk trying to find my path. There were several roads. I had some difficulties finding the right one. But I know it was a road with lot of cars and I was supposed to hitchhike. At one moment one car stopped. I initially thought that I was supposed to get in that car, but it was a car with 5 teenagers who stopped at the place where they were going to have some fun. I continued to walk with the baby knowing that this road is not the one I was supposed to be on. Then I woke up. It was 3:30 AM. I couldn't go back to sleep. I was thinking about Roger Kamenetz, the dream therapist I heard while in Bahamas who indicated that when a child or baby comes in our dream that it represents our soul.
I shared this dream with Amy. She again quickly responded.
That does sound like a significant dream--the soul speaking. That you were harboring the baby, even in her messy diapers and on what might be the wrong road sounds like you are staying in touch with what matters most. That's just my own uneducated guess! I'm looking forward to reading Roger Kamenetz's book and perhaps doing some dreamwork with someone myself.
I didn’t read his book, but I studied many others. Generally, I am not a good dreamer, but I dreamed a lot in the Bahamas and for a while when I came back to Fargo. Dreaming is another non-ordinary state of consciousness. As real as can be, while we are in it. We dream about things that are relevant for our state of body, mind or spirit. While we sleep the parts of our brain equipped to navigate the outside world go offline, allowing others that speak the language of images, symbols and metaphors to shine during the dream. An important function of dreaming is to reduce or extinguish fear-based memories by allowing fear stimuli to be experienced under new and emotionally diverse circumstances. Dreams achieve this by discovering and reinforcing unexplored associations among previously formed memories.
Did the yogic breathing exercises led to a change in the energy flow in my body, releasing the stored memories of early life trauma manifested by the brief state of unwellness and abundance of dreams? Hard to say with any degree of certainty. What is clear to me is that I lived through something new and transformative. My commitment to the practice of yoga has been with me since those days in the Bahamas. Sometimes with greater intensity and frequency, and at other times with a quieter flow of prana. Over time, I have experienced healing whatever needed to heal through combination of breath work, meditation, and asana movements.
(1) The challenge of the oceanic feeling: Romain Rolland’s mystical critique of psychoanalysis and his call for a ‘new science of the mind’, by Ayon Maharaj, History of European Ideas, 43: 474-93, 2017
(2) The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, New World Library; Third edition, 2008
(3) The Primal Scream, by Arthur Janov, Dell Publishing, 1970
(4) The Trauma of Birth, by Otto Rank, Martino Fine Books, 2010
(6) Fetal memory: Does it exist? What does it do? By PG Hepper, Acta Pediatrica, 416: 16-20
(7) The onset of childhood amnesia in childhood: A prospective investigation of the course and determinants of forgetting of early-life events, by Patricia J. Bauer and Marina Larkina, Memory, 22(8): 907–924, 2014
(8) Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy, by Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof, Excelsior Editions, 2010
(9) Ken Wilber’s Spectrum Psychology: Observations from Clinical Consciousness Research, by Stanislav Grof, Spirituality Studies, 2: 1-19, 2016
(10) https://usabp.org/
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