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The Emerging Perinatal Unconscious: Consciousness Evolution or Apocalypse?

Michael D. Adzema
The Journal of Psychohistory V. 25, N. 3, Winter 1998

"Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear." So goes a hugely popular song from the Sixties. Meanwhile Jim Morrison of the rock group The Doors sang "Break on through to the other side." A decade later John Lennon sang "Strange days, indeed - most peculiar, mama!" That was in the late Seventies; not long afterwards he was murdered. Most recently of all, the group R.E.M. enjoyed enormous success singing "It's the end of the world, as we know it"; and then, parenthetically singing, "and I feel fine."

My point is that there is something happening hereÉsomething unprecedented in the entire history of this planet, as far as we are able to know. There are powerful factors and influences at work in our world now that have the capacity to change us and our world in radical waysÉfor good or ill. My point also is that this unprecedented situation, as the "break on through to the other side" lyric indicates, has something to do with birth feelings, birth traumaÉan emerging perinatal unconscious.

What I have in mind in this article is to attempt to reawaken you to the unique character of our times. Then I expect to persuade you that this unprecedented time is rife with perinatal symbolism, elements, evidence, behavior, rituals, and situations - in other words, that the events of theese "strange days" are being sculpted by an emerging perinatal unconscious. Finally, I intend to say a few words about what might be the outcome of these emerging perinatal trends - consciousness evolution or apocalypse.

The Perinatal Unconscious

How are we to characterize these strangest of days and the current unprecedented global condition? As I have said, they are driven by what I call an "emerging perinatal unconscious."

Why "perinatal"? First, let us remind ourselves that perinatal means, literally, "surrounding birth." As a one-time college instructor of pre- and perinatal psychology and as an editor of a professional journal concerned with perinatal psychology1 - as well as a fledgling psychohistorian - let me explain what might be considered elements of a perinatal unconscious. The elements I will describe are near universally accepted among perinatal psychologists as unconscious forces, factors, matrices that exist in us all as a result of a human birth that is unique, by comparison to all other species, in its degree of trauma and hence of its impact or imprint on what we might call - dare I say the word - our "human nature."

Let us look at some of the elements, in general, that characterize this perinatal unconscious. Stanislav Grof2 describes basic perinatal matrices (BPMs)Ñin other words, typical experiential constellations related to our births, which happen to be very much akin to deMause's perinatal schema, with some slight differences in emphasis, and more elaboration on the part of Grof. So let us use Grof's schema as a basis.

Grof's Basic Perinatal Matrix I, or BPM I, involves the experiences and feelings related to the sometimes, or at least relatively, undisturbed prenatal periodÑthat time in the womb sometimes characterized by feelings of peace, complete relaxation, a feeling of all needs met, or "oceanic bliss." Since the time in the womb may also be disturbed by toxic substances that the mother ingests - drugs, chemical additives, and so on - as well as by disturbing emotions that the mother experiences, which release stress hormones into the mother's bloodstream, which then cross the placental barrier and affect the fetus, BPM I is also sometimes characterized as feelings of being surrounded by a polluted environment and being forced to ingest noxious substances, toxins, and poisons, which sickens the fetus.

In Grof's schema, BPM I is followed by BPM II, which are experiences and feelings related to the time of "no exit" and claustrophobic-like feelings occurring to nearly all humans in the late stages of pregnancy and especially with the onset of labor, when the cervix is not yet dilated. Since there does not seem to be any "light at the end of the tunnel" - metaphorically speaking - it is characterized by feelings of depression, guilt, despair, and blame, and a characterization of oneself as being in the position of "the victim." It is very much like deMause's period of collective feelings of entrapment, strangulation, suffocation, and poisonous placenta, which he has found to precede the actual outbreak of war or other violence.3

This of course is followed by BPM III, which involves feelings and experiences of all-encompassing struggle and is related to the time of one's actual birth. Characterized also by intense feelings of aggression and sexual excessÑin the position, now, of "the aggressor" - it is related directly, in deMause's schema, to the time of the actual period of warring.

BPM IV follows this; it corresponds to the time of emergence from the womb during the birth process and is characterized by feelings of victory, release, exultation, but also sometimes, after that initial relief, of depression - when the struggle does not bring the expected rewards, as when, during modern obstetrical births, the neonate is harshly treated and then taken away from the mother, disallowing the bonding which should occur, naturally, immediately after birth.

In summary, we have euphoric, oceanic, blissful feelings, sometimes feelings of being poisoned or being in a toxic or polluted environment; followed by crushing, no-exit, depression, claustrophobia, compression, strangulation, suffocation, and being force-fed by a poisonous placenta; followed by struggle, violence, war scenarios, birth/death fantasies, sexual excess; and finally release, triumph, feeling of renewal or rebirth and a new golden age, but also possibly of being abandoned, tortured, ritually sacrificed, probed medically, and assaulted by sensations. These are some of the elements that characterize the experience of the perinatal unconscious.

Strange Days

With these in mind, now, let us look at some of the forces and elements, unprecedented and otherwise, that characterize our times. In these strange days, movies, TV shows, and books are rife with perinatal themes: From the famous ending image of the movie "2001," where the fetus is pictured against the blackness of space as a newborn star - to some of the most popular and lucrative movies of our time - "Jaws," for example, with its huge vagina dentate shark mouth lurking in the depths of the unconscious, signifying the trauma we have around the mother's vagina, ringed with teeth, symbolizing both the pain and death quality of birth.

Other perinatal elements manifesting in the contemporary media include:

1. Being in life and death situations from which one is saved in "the nick of time";

2. Explosions galore - symbolizing the quality of finally being born, but also the immediate assault of sensation upon coming out of the sensorially "muffled" womb;

3. High degree of sexual explicitness and, especially, sexual perversity - indicating BPM III influence;

4. Recurring themes of monsters that eat one (e.g., the "Alien" movie series), indicating the feelings of fear of death in the mother's womb - the vagina dentate mouth. One most obvious portrayal of this was Steven King's 1995 miniseries, "The Longoliers." The monsters, shown at the end, turned out to be flying ball-shaped vagina dentates, complete with hair covering, as in pubic hair.4 Though meant to be frightening, from the perinatal perspective, these flying, attacking vaginas are absolutely hilarious. The perinatal roots of these movies are indicated in other ways, e.g., the baby alien, in "Alien," being "born" out of the abdomen.5

5. The frequency of scenes of death by suffocation, in water or otherwise. Very interestingly, a more recent addition to this complex has something being forced aggressively down the throat of the victim. I have noticed an increasing frequency of this version of suffocation in the visual media ever since I first remember seeing it in a scene from "Alien" where a rolled-up magazine is used as a murder weapon by being forced into the victim's mouth. It seems to be becoming a writer/director's fad, as increasingly creative ways are being imagined to play it out in scripts. Another common variation is when the suffocating item comes out of the person's mouth, e.g., the victim is "infected" with some kind of alien spore which grows inside of him or her and comes thrusting up from inside of the person's body and out of the mouth, lodging itself there; frequently looking like some huge asparagus emerging. This always happens suddenly and climactically, almost always resulting in death. Scenes like this I have observed in the movie "Jacob's Ladder," several times on the hit show "The X Files," and in many, many other shows. This version of suffocation probably has its roots in the force-feeding of toxic elements to the fetus in the womb through the umbilical cord, and is more definitely related (the symbol is probably an amalgamation of both feelings) to the ungentle clearing of the fluids from the neonate's mouth by the attendants immediately after birth. This latter connection I can personally validate through my own primal experiences, but apparently I was not alone in being treated this way as a newborn in the 1940s and 1950s in AmericaÉhence the fascination with this type of trauma in film.

The point of bringing out the occurrence of these media images is that the projective systems of our culture - our art - are reflecting our collective changes in consciousness: Specifically, the evolution of our consciousness as it is confronted by this unconscious pre- and perinatal materialÉor, as some psychohistorians would have it, the "collapsing" of our "ego strength" as we are "threatened" by these "dangerous" perinatal elements.

The Scenery of Our Everyday Reality

Beyond the entertainment media, it seems perinatal themes and elements are showing up everywhere else in modern culture and circumstances. Serial rapists and murderers as well as satanic cult abuse and the fascination with death and vampirism (sucking blood themes, akin to fetal malnutrition and the poisonous placenta) are more than just media images. Unfortunately they reflect actual contemporary happenings. The scenery of our everyday reality affecting the masses of us consists of pollution of our air, water, and food; threat of death "at any moment," caused by the knowledge of the power of nuclear weapons; fantasies of apocalypse of all kinds, magnified, perhaps, by the ending of a millennium - including fundamentalist Christian imaginings of an end to human civilization in an apocalyptic "rapture"; New Age fantasies of ecological, spiritual, and social utopias; and so on.

Alien abduction stories, while a relatively recent addition to our cultural landscape, are unusual in the rapidity with which they have gained cultural currency and are telling in the extreme fascination the public has with them. They have catapulted more than one show - "The X Files" being the prime example, of course - to cult-like status. Yet Alvin Lawson has pointed out in this journal how alien abduction stories are replete with perinatal elements: passing through walls, umbilical beams of connection to the "mother ship" (i.e., the placenta), either fetal-looking aliens or aliens whose eyes are most prominent and the lower parts of their faces undistinguished - similar to the way a newborn might see an obstetrician wearing a medical mask; and then of course there are the elements of being medically probed, measured, samples taken from one, and being swooshed from one place to another with no say on one's part - all remarkably like the experience of a newborn, right out of the womb.6

Lawson has also described perinatal elements in rock concerts.7 Keep in mind that rock music popularity and concert rituals are world-wide phenomena; youth from nearly all countries are involved in rock culture. Among other things, Lawson, in his article, refers to placental guitars, umbilical mikes, and youths jumping into mosh pitsÑthis last of which, of course, simulates the crushing in the womb. We could also mention the loud music, fireworks, and flashing and bright explosions of light at these concerts as perinatal in that they re-create the assault of sensation that occurs to the newly emerged fetus - an assault which in one's mind is like unto a bomb exploding.

The rock groups and their lyrics themselves are often blatantly perinatal. The most obvious example of this was the group Nirvana, who came out with a CD titled "In Utero." The fact that the leader of the group, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide is a strong indication of his closeness and access to his perinatal trauma - as I will soon explain.

Turning from rock, we see perinatal BPM III elements in the scenery of our everyday lives evident in the rising incidence of violence by children at ever younger ages.

In Europe, as pointed out by Mayr and Boederl, it appears a collective regression to the perinatal is going on, especially among the youth.8 The forms this "regression" has taken include the surprising popularity of a pop song, sung by a very young child, expressing the difficulties of being a baby; the wearing of baby pacifiers as ornaments as a powerful fashion fad; and being enamored of troll-like dolls, which, according to the authors indicate a "regression to the womb." (I would say a progression to the womb, by the wayÉI will soon explain why.)

Additionally, we see the crushing, no-exit, claustrophobic BPM II elements manifesting in the crushing population densities in major human cities throughout the world.

One overlooked, but hugely pervasive perinatal element is the increasing carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere called "the greenhouse effect," which, combined with decreased oxygen levels, is analogous to the situation of "fetal malnutrition," described by Briend9 and deMause, that occurs prior to birth, and which, as we know, is the basis for deMause's explanation of poisonous placenta symbolism.

At any rate, by this atmospheric rearrangement I mean that, while we reputedly have, and need, an oxygen concentration of twenty percent in our atmosphere, concentrations of oxygen these days, especially in heavily industrial areas, have been measured at much lower levels. For example, an industrial section of Gary, Indiana, was recorded at five percent oxygen concentration.10

Perinatal and Global Situation
Mirroring Each Other

Now, the connections between these physical conditions and symbols and the perinatal unconscious should be obvious and may have already to some extent been spelled out. But let me finish connecting the dots, so to speak:

As Grof put it,

[W]e have exteriorized in the modern world many of the essential themes of the perinatal process that a person involved in deep personal transformation has to face and come to terms with internally. The same elements that we would encounter in the process of psychological death and rebirth in our visionary experiences make today our evening news. This is particularly true in regard to the phenomena that characterize what I call BPM III.

We certainly see the enormous unleashing of the aggressive impulse in the many wars and revolutionary upheavals in the world, in the rising criminality, terrorism, and racial riots. Sexual experiences and behaviors are taking unprecedented forms, as manifested in sexual freedom of youngsters, promiscuity, open marriages, overtly sexual books, plays, and movies, gay liberation, sadomasochistic experimentation, and many others. The demonic element is also becoming increasingly manifest in the modern world. A renaissance of satanic cults and witchcraft, the popularity of books and horror movies with occult themes, and crimes with satanic motivations attest to that fact. The scatological dimension is evident in the progressive industrial pollution, accumulation of waste products on a global scale, and rapidly deteriorating hygienic conditions in large cities.11

Grof is saying, then, that we have manifested an external modern world that mirrors and re-creates some of the hellacious circumstances surrounding our traumatic human births.

In addition to the myriad of ways that Grof has detailed (and there are many more he could have mentioned), I would like to add a few obvious commonplace examples. We re-create on a daily basis in major cities the no-exit frustration/depression/rage prior to birth in the traffic jams and gridlock of commuter traffic. Another one: the population explosion. Simple overpopulation of the globe sets up scenarios exactly analogous to the negative conditions that existed toward the end of pregnancy when we grew/expanded too much to be any longer comfortable in the womb. The way this global overpopulation impacts us: the overpopulation and frenzy in a big city - New York the perfect example - manifesting the situation of a crushing womb.

I've already mentioned reduced oxygen in the atmosphere and its relation to fetal "malnutrition." However, there is an interesting sidelight to this. For both Arthur Janov and Stanislav Grof, at one time early on, experimented with a technique of carbon dioxide ingestion for getting people into primal and perinatal states. In fact, at the time - in the late Sixties, early Seventies - though not on a large scale, a number of professionals were experimenting with this procedure and even offering it as a means of "expanding consciousness." The point is that increased carbon dioxide and decreased oxygen naturally stimulate perinatal feelings. Lucky us, as we continue to turn the entire atmosphere of the Earth into such a "therapeutic" carbon-dioxide chamber.

After all this, if you still don't believe that a perinatal unconscious is emerging at this time in history, I ask you how else to explain how the simple act of being "cut off" in traffic can trigger so much perinatal "no exit" frustration as to enrage an "otherwise normal" person to pull out a gun and blow another's life away.

The upshot of it all is that somehow or other we have managed to create a world situation that mirrors in a way unlike any other time in history our perinatal imprints and thus triggers the emergence of this perinatal unconscious. Or, you might reverse that and say that an emerging perinatal unconscious - brought about by other factors, improved "child-caring" methods perhapsÉmore about that later - has resulted in our creating a world situation manifesting or acting out those unconscious perinatal elements, which are having increasing influence on our consciousness and on our behavior. I suspect both of these processes are occurring - each one augmenting the other.

What Does This Portend?

The question remaining is, What does this all mean? What does this portend? What might be the outcome of this emerging perinatal unconscious? In other words, consciousness evolution or apocalypse?

What we have learned from the experiential modalities - Holotropic Breathworkª, primal therapy, and others like them - is that unerringly people need to get "sicker" before they can get well. This should not be news to psychoanalysts either. Basically, the underlying repressed material must come to the "surface," must become more consciousÉand obviously when it becomes more conscious its accompanying symptoms are exacerbated. This can be called a healing crisis in that the symptoms get worse, more obvious, more blatant, and there is a period of acting them out before integration and resolution happens. When Grof talks about birth/death scenarios in the perinatal unconscious, he is including these sorts of healings, where one must "die" to one's sickness before one can be "reborn" into another way of being, without those sick patterns or symptoms.

Now, many have proclaimed, in these strange days, that it is our Western estrangement from Mother Nature, our particular need to control, which is at the core of the threats to the end of life on this planet. In such a case, one needs to regain harmony with Nature and acquire a consciousness of cooperation, not control. As Grof has claimed - and my personal experience attests - such a cooperative human nature is inddeed our most fundamental human nature - in contrast to the "me versus them," aggressive, and competitive imprint that is derived from our traumatic and premature human births - this more fundamental human nature is the result of a more fundamental imprint of symbiosis with the Other, as was the case in the womb surround during the relatively blissful prenatal period. The relation of the fetus to the mother at that time is one of cooperation, all needs met, flow in - flow out, and synergy of intents and is manifested in adults in that same kind of reciprocal relationship with Society and Nature (which represents "the Other" for an adult).

And as Grof and I and many others have discovered, such a more positive human nature occurs naturally in a person when they have faced, reexperienced, and integrated their perinatal unconscious (as opposed to what is usually done, i.e., completely denying it, projecting it on a scapegoat or enemy and engaging in wars and social violence). So it is the recovery of this sort of human nature that would remove us from the brink of extinction.

To put it another way, if we were to concoct a world situation in which we could take a step in consciousness evolution by healing the nefarious elements of our perinatal unconscious, would not that world situation look something like what we see around us today? Would it not be a world rife with obvious perinatal elements (and influences) with some people resolving and thus being healed of them; while others would act them out and self-destruct because of them (not to mention contributing to our collective global self-destruction, as mentioned earlier). In other words, the situation today, as it looks, could as easily be seen as a prologue to an apocalypse and just as easily be seen as a healing crisis preceding a massive consciousness transformation. Put another way, this same situation can be seen by one person as the "eve of destruction" and another as the "scenery of healing on the pathway to peace."

Conclusion: A Race Against Time

So what will be the result? Only time will tell of course. But just as Lloyd deMause12 - in his article, "Restaging Early Traumas in War and Social Violence" - calls for kinder and gentler birthing and child-caring practices to help us mitigate an otherwise inevitable disaster, I would like to call for a larger awareness of and efforts in the direction of healing these perinatal elements in the consciousness and unconscious of those already alive right now - through, at this point, thoroughly tested and effective techniques of experiential regression and emotional release. For unless we act to heal the people currently inhabiting this planet, we might not leave a planet that babies can be born into! Let alone people to conceive and give birth to them.

Contrary to what many believe, the evidence from the experiential modalities involving the perinatal concludes that the dangers of not accessing the perinatal unconscious are much greater than the ones of attempting to access them. For the perinatal unconscious influences us one way or the other. If we deny it, we can be deluded into acting it out, completely unconsciously, without an insight or a clue, in a "fetal trance state," in the form of war, social violence, spouse abuse, sexual promiscuity resulting in the contraction of AIDS, and a myriad of other destructive and self-destructive ways. Whereas if we turn to face this supposed "monster," with only a tad of insight into these forces that direct our life, we are at least able to avoid the most horrific of the destructive acts that keeping it unconscious can cause us to participate in. And then, on the more positive side, fully working through these seemingly hellish inner traumas can result in a transformation of the person and a lightness, peace, beauty, and fulfillment of life unlike anything that can be imagined beforehand.

Of course, I do not expect that this sort of application of experiential techniques can occur on the massive scale that would seem to be necessary to avoid apocalypse in the short period of time that we have left. Yet it might be that we would be lucky enough for that not to be necessary. It is possible that simply a significant fraction of the world's population - like the "leaven in the dough" - can make all the difference in the world, literally, by tipping our course one way as opposed to another, especially if these people - because of their healing and their awareness of the crisis - are motivated to place themselves in positions of influence and education, or to put their efforts toward healing, on individual and collective levels, in larger numbers than the average populace would. In other words, not just the leaven in the dough but as persons, standing in the right place and with the lever big enough, who can move the world.

Truth has its own momentum, as one of our participants stated during one of our recent workshops. My wife and I conduct regular workshops in what we call primal breathwork, which is based on the Holotropic Breathworkª of Stanislav Grof. In these workshops, which involve access to all aspects of the unconscious, including the spiritual/transpersonal, the biographical/psychodynamic, and the sensory, as well as the perinatal, it is not unusual for us to witness people being motivated, because of their profound transformative experiences, to commit themselves with all their being, talents, and resources, to aid in the processes of renewal on this planet.

At any rate, we must try. As Stanislav Grof put it in his conclusion to a recent article on this global crisis: For our very survival,

We seem to be involved in a race for time that has no precedent in the entire history of humanity. What is at stake is nothing less than the future of life on this planet. If we continue the old strategies, which in their consequences are extremely destructive and self-destructive, it is unlikely that the human species will survive. However if a sufficient number of people undergoes a process of deep inner transformation; we might reach a level of consciousness evolution that will bring us to the point of deserving the name given to our species, Homo sapiens, i.e., wise humans.13

Michael Derzak Adzema is a free-lance scholar, who has written for a variety of international and regional magazines and journals. He is also a transformational facilitator, offering individual primal process facilitation; and with his wife, Mary Lynn, he conducts regular workshops in primal breathwork (based on the Holotropic Breathworkª of Stanislav Grof). He specializes in writing about psychology and spirituality; but has written extensively on their interrelation with topics such as the environment, consciousness, health and nutrition, and metaphysics, as well as psychohistory. He is the founder of SSILLY God Ventures and AHPPI (Alliance for Holotropic, Primal, Pre/Perinatal, and Psychohistorical Insight and Information). He is the publisher and editor of AHPPI's magazine, Primal Spirit: The Deeper Wave of the New Age, and is webmaster of its site on the Internet (www.primalspirit.com). He also serves as the editor of Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology, published by the International Primal Association. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 1348, Guerneville, CA 95446-1348; phone (707) 869-1177.

1. Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology, published by the International Primal Association, P.O. Box 139, Nyack, NY 10960-0139.

2. Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press, 1975; LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House, 1980; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985; The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988; The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

3. Lloyd deMause, "Restaging Early Traumas in War and Social Violence." The Journal of Psychohistory 23 (1995): 344-391.

4. Interestingly, the appearance of the Longoliers is caused by the characters going back in time. Though King has them going back only fifteen minutes, and not age regressing to birth, I thought the fact of time regression was telling in the extreme.

5. While a "baby" emerging from a person's belly is obviously indicative of birth, the fact that it comes bursting out of the belly, rather than the vagina, might also relate to the ever increasing use of cesarean section as a means of birthing in this century.

6. Alvin H. Lawson, "UFO abductions or birth memories?" Fate, 38(3) March 1985, pp. 68-80; and Alvin H. Lawson, "Perinatal imagery in UFO abduction reports." In T. Verny (ed.): Pre- and Perinatal Psychology: An Introduction. Human Sciences Press, New York, 1987.

7. Alvin H. Lawson, "Placental Guitars, Umbilical Mikes, and the Maternal Rock-Beat: Birth Fantasies and Rock Music Videos." The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (1994): 335-353.

8. Daniela F. Mayr & Artur R. Boelderl, "The Pacifier Craze: Collective Regression in Europe." The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (1993): 143-156.

9. A. Briend, "Fetal Malnutrition: The Price of Upright Posture?" British Medical Journal 2 (1979): 317-319.

10. As reported in the book, O2xygen Therapies by Ed McCabe. 99-RD1 Morrisville, NY 13408: Energy Publications, 1988. Other examples of lowered oxygen levels in various arenas of our lives are given in the book as well, and the book is thoroughly documented. It makes a convincing case for the lowered oxygen levels as they relate to the rise of a number of diseases. The connection of these lowered levels to mental states is my own addition.

11. Stanislav Grof, "Planetary Survival and Consciousness Evolution: Psychological Roots of Human Violence and Greed." Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology 2(1): 3-26, p. 23.

12. deMause, op. cit., 1996.

13. Grof, op. cit., 1996, p. 25.

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