In the worst situations, life in the womb can be exceedingly uncomfortable. The infant's existence might be affected by the mother's suffering a serious infection, an endocrinal or metabolic disease, or severe toxicosis. We can even talk about "toxic emotions," such as intense anxiety, tension, or violent outbursts of anger. The quality of pregnancy can be influenced by work stress, chronic intoxications, addiction, or by the cruel treatment of the mother. The situation can be so bad that spontaneous miscarriage is imminent. In deep experiential work, people have even discovered wellkept family secrets, such as the fact that they were unwanted and that the mother had tried to abort them in the earliest stages of their lives.
In modern obstetrics our negative experiences during the fetal period are considered important only from a physical point of view, that is, only as a potential source of biological damage to the body. If there are effects on the psychological development of the child, it is held that these came about only as the result of some organic impairment of the brain. However, experiences described by people who are able to re-experience this level in non-ordinary states of consciousness leave little doubt that the child's consciousness may be affected by a wide range of noxious influences even in the earliest stages of the embryonal life. If this is the case, we would have to assume that just as there is a "good" or "bad breast," so there is also a "good" or "bad womb." In this respect, positive experiences in the womb seem to play a role in the child's development that is at least as important as a positive nursing experience.
During non-ordinary states of consciousness, many people report their intrauterine experiences in extremely vivid terms. They experience themselves as very small, with a characteristically large head in relationship to their body. They can feel the surrounding amniotic fluid and sometimes even the presence of the umbilical cord. If one connects with the periods of fetal life where there were no disturbances, the experiences are associated with a blissful state of consciousness where there is no sense of duality between subject and object. It is an "oceanic" state without any boundaries where we do not differentiate between ourselves and the maternal organism or ourselves and the external world.
This fetal experience can develop in several different directions. The oceanic aspect of embryonal life can foster an identification with various aquatic life forms such as whales, dolphins, fish, jelly-fish, or even kelp. The sense of being without boundaries that we experience in the womb can also mediate a sense of being "at one" with the cosmos. One may identify with interstellar space, various celestial bodies, an entire galaxy, or the universe in its totality. Some people also identify with the experience of astronauts floating weightlessly in space, attached to the "mother ship" with the life-giving umbilical pipeline.
The fact that a good womb fulfills the fetus's needs unconditionally is the basis for symbolism such as the endless bounties of "Mother Nature"—an entity that is beautiful, safe, and nourishing. When we are reliving fetal experiences in non-ordinary states, those experiences can suddenly change into gorgeous sceneries portraying luscious tropical islands, fruit-bearing orchards, fields of ripening corn, or the opulent vegetable gardens of the Andean terraces. Another possibility is that the fetal experience opens into
the archetypal realms of the collective unconscious and instead of the heavens of the astronomers or the nature of the biologists we encounter celestial realms and Gardens of Paradise from the mythologies of a variety of the world's cultures. The symbolism of BPM I thus weaves together, in an intimate and logical way, various fetal, oceanic, cosmic, natural, paradisean, and celestial elements.
The State of Ecstasy and Cosmic Unity
The experiences of BPM I typically have strong mystical overtones; they feel sacred or holy. More precise, perhaps, would be the term
numinous,
which C. G. Jung used to avoid religious jargon. When we have experiences of this kind, we feel that we have encountered dimensions of reality that belong to a superior order. There is an important spiritual aspect of BPM I, often described as a profound feeling of cosmic unity and ecstasy, closely associated with experiences we might have in a good womb—peace, tranquillity, serenity, joy, and bliss. Our everyday perceptions of space and time seem to fade away and we become "pure being." Language fails to convey the essence of this state, prompting most to remark only that it is "indescribable" or "ineffable."
Descriptions of cosmic unity are often filled with paradoxes that violate Aristotelian logic. For example, in everyday life, we assume that things we encounter cannot simultaneously be themselves and not be themselves, or that they cannot be something other than what they are. "A" cannot be "non-A" or "B." Yet, an experience of cosmic unity might be "without content, yet embracing all there is." Or we might feel that we are "without ego" at the same time that our consciousness has expanded to include the entire universe. We can feel humbled and awed by our own insignificance, yet simultaneously have a sense of enormous achievement and importance, sometimes to the extent of identifying ourselves with God. We can perceive ourselves as existing and yet not existing and see all material objects as being empty while emptiness itself appears filled with form.
In this state of cosmic unity, we feel that we have direct, immediate, and unlimited access to knowledge and wisdom of universal significance. This usually does not mean concrete information with technical details that could be practically applied; rather, it involves complex revelatory insights into the nature of existence. These are typically accompanied by a sense of certainty that this knowledge is ultimately more relevant and "real" than the perceptions and beliefs we share in everyday life. The
ancient Indian Upanishads talk about this profound insight into the ultimate secrets of existence as "knowing That, the knowledge of which gives the knowledge of everything."
The rapture associated with BPM I can be referred to as "oceanic ecstasy." Later in this book, in the section on BPM III, we will encounter a very different form of rapture associated with the death-rebirth process. I have coined for it the term
volcanic ecstasy.
It is wild, Dionysian, with seemingly insatiable amounts of explosive energy and a strong drive toward hectic activity. In contrast, the oceanic energy of BPM I could be called Apollonian; it involves a peaceful melting of all boundaries, along with serenity, and tranquillity. With our eyes closed and the rest of the world shut out, it manifests as an independent inner experience that has the features I have already described. When we open our eyes, it changes into a sense of merging, or "becoming one with" everything that we perceive around us.
In the oceanic state, the world appears to manifest indescribable radiance and beauty. The need for reasoning is dramatically reduced and the universe becomes "a mystery to be experienced, not a riddle to be solved." It becomes virtually impossible to find anything negative about existence; everything seems absolutely perfect. This sense of perfection has a built-in contradiction, one that Ram Dass once captured very succinctly by a statement he had heard from his Himalayan guru: "The world is absolutely perfect, including your own dissatisfaction with it, and everything you are trying to do to change it." While experiencing the oceanic ecstasy, the entire world appears as a friendly place where we can safely and securely assume a childlike, passive-dependent attitude. In this state, evil seems ephemeral, irrelevant, or even non-existent.
The feelings of oceanic ecstasy are closely related to Abraham Maslow's "peak experience." He characterized it as: feeling whole, unified, and integrated; effortless and at ease; completely yourself; utilizing your capacities to the fullest; free of blocks, inhibitions, and fears; spontaneous and expressive; in the here and now; being pure psyche and spirit; with no wants and needs; simultaneously childlike and mature; and graced in a way that is beyond words. While my observations of oceanic ecstasy grew primarily out of the experiences encountered in regressive experiential work, Maslow's descriptions reflect his study of spontaneous peak experiences in adult life. The strong parallels between these two areas suggest that the roots of some of our most powerful motivating forces reach much further back in our lives than psychologists originally considered possible.
The Agonies of the "Bad Womb"
So far we have explored the complex symbolism that is associated with the "good womb" or undisturbed intrauterine experiences. Prenatal disturbances have their own distinct experiential characteristics; unless they are extreme, such as imminent miscarriage, attempted abortion, or severe toxic states, their symptoms are relatively subtle. They can usually be easily differentiated from the more dramatic unpleasant manifestations associated with the birth process, such as images of wars, sadomasochistic scenes, feelings of suffocation, agonizing pains and pressures, violent shaking, and spastic contractions of large muscles. Since most of the intrauterine assaults are based on chemical changes, the predominant themes are polluted or dangerous nature, poisoning, and insidious evil influences.
The clear oceanic atmosphere can become dark, murky, and ominous and may seem to be filled with hidden aquatic dangers. Some of these dangers might seem to be grotesque creatures of nature, others creepy, treacherous, and malevolent demonic presences. One can identify with fish and other aquatic life forms threatened by industrial pollution of rivers and oceans or chicken embryos before hatching threatened by their own waste products. Similarly, the vision of a star-filled sky, characteristic for good womb experiences, can suddenly become blurred with an ugly film or fog. The visual disturbances resemble distorted pictures of malfunctioning television sets.
Scenes of industrial waste polluting the air, chemical warfare, toxic dumps, as well as identification with prisoners dying in the gas chambers of concentration camps, belong to typical experiences of the bad womb. One can also sense the almost tangible presence of malevolent entities, extraterrestrial influences, and astrological fields. The dissolution of boundaries that creates a sense of mystical union with the world during undisturbed episodes of intrauterine life now becomes responsible for a sense of confusion and being threatened. We may feel open and vulnerable to evil attacks; in the extreme this experience leads to paranoid distortion in our perceptions of the world.
Gateway to the Transpersonal Experience
As we saw in the narrative that opened this chapter, the prenatal world of BPM I often serves as a gateway into the transpersonal domain of the psyche, which we will be describing in detail later. While identifying with either the good or bad womb experiences we can also experience specific transpersonal phenomena that share emotions and physical sensations with these states. Sometimes these experiences can reach far back in time, portraying episodes from the lives of our human or animal ancestors; there also may be karmic sequences and flashbacks from other periods of human history. At other times, we may transcend the boundaries that make us feel separate from the rest of the world and have a sense of merging with other people, groups of people, animals and plants, or even inorganic processes.
Of special interest among these experiences are powerful encounters with various archetypal beings, particularly blissful and wrathful deities. The states of oceanic ecstasy are often accompanied by visions of bliss-bestowing deities, such as the Earth Mother Goddess and various other Great Mother Goddesses, the Buddha, Apollo, and others. As mentioned above, intrauterine disturbances are often experienced in conjunction with demons from different cultures. In advanced experiential work, participants have often had revelations that brought about an integration of good womb and bad womb experiences with dramatic insights that allowed them to see the purpose of all deities in the cosmic order.
The integration of good and bad womb experiences can be illustrated through an excerpt from a session in which one man, Ben, while reliving episodes from his intrauterine life, reported encounters with archetypal beings. These experiences led him to some remarkable insights into the deities and demons of the Indian and Tibetan pantheon. He suddenly saw a striking relationship between the state of the Buddha sitting on a lotus in deep meditation and that of an embryo in a good womb. The peace, tranquillity, and satisfaction of the Buddha, although not identical with the embryonal bliss, seemed to share with it some important characteristics, as if it were its "higher octave." The demons surrounding the Buddha and potentially threatening his peace, as depicted in Indian and Tibetan paintings, appeared to Ben as also representing the disturbances associated with BPM I.
Ben was able to distinguish among the demons two different kinds: bloodthirsty, openly aggressive, ferocious demons with fangs, daggers and spears symbolized the pains and dangers of the biological birth process; creepy, insidious, and treacherous ones represented noxious influences of the intrauterine life. On a different level, Ben also experienced what he was convinced were memories from his past incarnations. It seemed to him that elements of his "bad karma" had entered his life in the form of embryonal disturbances, the trauma of birth, and negative experiences associated with nursing. He saw the experiences of the "bad womb," of the trauma of birth, and the "bad breast," as points of transformation through which the karmic influences were entering his present life.
The psychological and spiritual aspects of BPM I are typically accompanied by characteristic physical symptoms. While good womb experiences convey a deep sense of health and physiological well-being, the reliving of intrauterine traumas involves a variety of unpleasant physical manifestations. The most common of these are symptoms that resemble a bad cold or flu—muscular pains and aches, chills, fine tremors, and a sense of general malaise. Equally frequent are symptoms that we associate with a hangover, such as headache, nausea, intestinal rumblings, and gas. This may be accompanied by an unpleasant taste in the mouth that people describe variously as decomposed blood, iodine, metallic flavor, or simply "poison." In our efforts to validate these experiences, we frequently discover that during pregnancy the mother was ill, had poor dietary habits, worked or lived in toxic environments, or was a habitual user of alcohol or other drugs.