leads the process to the perinatal and transpersonal levels of the psyche, transbiographical domains not recognized and acknowledged in academic psychiatry and psychology. The phenomena originating in these deep recesses of the psyche were well-known to ancient and pre-industrial cultures of all ages and greatly honored by them. In the Western world they have been erroneously attributed to pathology of unknown origin and considered to be meaningless and erratic products of cerebral dysfunction. 5.2 The perinatal level of the unconscious The domain of the psyche that lies immediately beyond (or beneath) the recollective-biographical realm has close connections with the beginning of life and its end, with birth and death. Many people identify the experiences that originate on this level as the reliving of their biological birth trauma. This is reflected in the name “perinatal” that I have suggested for this level of the psyche. It is a Greek-Latin composite word where the prefixperi, means “near” or “around,” and the root natalis, “pertaining to childbirth”. This word is commonly used in medicine to describe various biological processes occurring shortly before, during, and immediately after birth. Thus the obstetricians talk, for example, about perinatal hemorrhage, infection, or brain damage. However, since traditional medicine denies that the child can consciously experience birth and claims that the event is not recorded in memory, one does not ever hear about perinatal experiences. The use of the term perinatal in connection with consciousness reflects my own findings and is entirely new (Grof 1975). Academic psychiatry generally denies the possibility of a psychotraumatic impact of biological birth, unless the trauma is so serious that it causes irreversible damage to the brain cells. This is usually attributed to the fact that the cerebral cortex of the newborn is not myelinized, which means its neurons are not fully protected by sheaths of fatty substance called myelin. The assumption that the child does not experience anything during all the hours of this extremely painful and stressful event and that the birth process does not leave any record in the brain is astonishing, since it is known that the capacity for memory exists in many lower life forms that do not have a cerebral cortex at all. However, it is particularly striking in view of the fact that many current theories attribute great significance to nuances of nursing and to the early interaction between the mother and the child, including bonding. Such blatant logical contradiction appearing in rigorous scientific thinking is unbelievable and has to be the result of a profound emotional repression to which the memory of birth is subjected. People, who reach in their inner explorations the perinatal level, start experiencing emotions and physical sensations of extreme intensity, often surpassing anything they consider humanly possible. As I mentioned before, these experiences represent a very strange mixture and combination of two critical aspects of human life – birth and death. They involve a sense of a severe, life-threatening confinement and a desperate and determined struggle to free oneself and survive. The intimate connection between birth and death on the perinatal level reflects the fact that birth is a poten14 Stanislav Grof
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