One of the most significant contributions of modern consciousness research to the emerging scientific world view has been an entirely new image of the human psyche. While the traditional model of
psychiatry and psychoanalysis is strictly personalistic and biographical, modern consciousness research has added new levels, realms, and dimensions and shows the human psyche as being essentially
commensurate with the whole universe and all of existence. A comprehensive presentation of this new model, beyond the scope of this book, can be found in a separate publication (Grof 1975). Here, I will briefly outline its essential features with special emphasis on its relationship to the emerging paradigm in science.
Although there are no clear boundaries and demarcations in the realm of consciousness, it seems useful for didactic purposes to distinguish four distinct levels or realms of the human psyche
and the corresponding experiences: (1) the sensory barrier, (2) the individual unconscious, (3) the level of birth and death, and (4) the transpersonal domain. The experiences of all these categories are quite readily available for most people. They can be observed in sessions with psychedelic drugs and in various modern approaches of experiential psychotherapy using breathing, music, dance, and body work. Laboratory mind-altering techniques, such as biofeedback, sleep deprivation, sensory isolation or sensory overload, and various kinaesthetic devices can also induce many of these phenomena. A wide spectrum of ancient and Oriental spiritual practices are specifically designed to facilitate their
occurrence. Many experiences of this kind can also occur during spontaneous episodes of nonordinary states of consciousness. The entire experiential spectrum related to the four realms has also been described by historians and anthropologists with respect to various shamanic procedures, aboriginal rites of passage and healing ceremonies, death-rebirth mysteries, and trance dancing in ecstatic religions.
The Sensory Barrier and the Individual Unconscious
Techniques that make it possible to enter experientially the realms of the unconscious mind tend
initially to activate the sensory organs. Thus, for many individuals experimenting with such techniques, deep self-exploration starts with a variety of sensory experiences. These are of a more or less abstract nature and have no personal symbolic meaning; they can be aesthetically pleasing, but do not lead to increased self-understanding.
Changes of this kind can occur in any sensory area, although optical phenomena are by far the most frequent. The visual field behind closed eyelids becomes rich in color and animated, and the individual can see a variety of geometrical or architectural forms dynamic kaleidoscopic patterns, mandalalike configurations, arabesques, naves of Gothic cathedrals, ceilings of Moslem mosques, and intricate designs resembling beautiful medieval illuminations or Oriental rugs. Visions of this kind can occur during any type of deep self-exploration; however, they are particularly dramatic after ingestion of psychedelics. The changes in the acoustic area
Fig. 7.
Drawings of a Czech painter from one of the early. LSD experiments conducted by Dr. J. Roubicek *
in Prague, representing dramatic unspecific distortions of the body image.
can take the form of ringing in the ears, chirping of crickets, buzzing, chimes, or continuous sounds of high frequency. This can be accompanied by a variety of unusual tactile sensations in various parts of the body. Also, smells and tastes can appear at this stage, but they are far less common.
Sensory experiences of this kind have little significance for the process of self-exploration and self- understanding. They seem to represent a barrier that one must pass through before the journey into one's unconscious psyche can begin. Some aspects of such sensory experiences can be explained from certain anatomical and physiological characteristics of the sense organs. Thus, for example, the geometrical visions seem to reflect the inner architecture of the retina and other parts of the optical system.
Fig. 8.
Drawings of a Czech painter from one of the early LSD experiments conducted by Dr. J. Roubicek * in Prague. Picture a. represents a combined vision of a hospital nurse with a vial of a revulsive medicine
and an emetic basin and a waiter with a bottle of red wine. Picture b. shows an illusive transformation of a traffic policeman as the subject saw him when he was driven home after the experiment.
The next most easily available experiential realm is the domain of the individual unconscious. Although phenomena belonging to this category are of considerable theoretical and practical relevance, it is not necessary to spend much time on their description, because most of the traditional psychotherapeutic approaches are limited to this level of the psyche. There is abundant, though highly contradictory, literature on the nuances of psychodynamics in the biographical realm. Experiences belonging to this category are related to significant biographical events and circumstances of the life of the individual, from birth to the present moment, which have a strong emotional charge attached to them. On this level of self-exploration, anything from the life of the person involved that is an unresolved conflict, a
repressed traumatic memory that has not been integrated, or an incomplete psychological gestalt of some kind, can emerge from the unconscious and become the content of the experience.
There is only one condition for its occurrence: the issue must be of sufficient emotional relevance. Herein lies a tremendous advantage of experiential psychotherapy in comparison with predominantly verbal approaches. Techniques that directly activate the unconscious seem to reinforce selectively the most relevant emotional material and facilitate its emergence into consciousness. They thus provide a kind of inner radar that scans the system and detects contents with the strongest emotional charge. This not only saves the therapist the effort of sorting the relevant from the irrelevant, but protects him or her from having to make such decisions, which would of necessity be biased by the therapist's own
conceptual framework and many other factors. 1
By and large, biographical material that emerges in experiential work is in agreement with the Freudian theory or one of its derivatives. However, there are several major differences. In deep experiential psychotherapy, biographical material is not remembered or reconstructed; it can be actually fully
relived. This involves not only emotions but also physical sensations, pictorial elements of the material involved, as well as data from other senses. This happens typically in complete age regression to the stage of development when the event happened.
Another important distinction is that the relevant memories and other biographical elements do not emerge separately, but form distinct dynamic constellations, for which I have coined the
term COEX systems, or systems of condensed experience. A COEX system is a dynamic constellation of memories (and associated fantasy material) from different periods of the individual's life, with the
common denominator of a strong emotional charge of the same quality, intense physical sensation of the same kind, or the fact that they share some other important elements. I first became aware of COEX systems as principles governing the dynamics of the individual unconscious and realized that
knowledge of them was essential for understanding the inner process on this level. However, later it became obvious that the systems of condensed experience represent a general principle operating on all the levels of the psyche, rather than being limited to the biographical domain.
Most biographical COEX systems are dynamically connected with specific facets of the birth process. Perinatal themes and their elements, then, have specific associations with related experiential material in the transpersonal domain. It is not uncommon for a dynamic constellation to comprise material from several biographical periods, from biological birth, and from certain areas of the transpersonal realm, such as memories of a past incarnation, animal identification, and mythological sequences. Here, the experiential similarity of these themes from different levels of the psyche is more important than the conventional criteria of the Newtonian-Cartesian world view, such as the fact that years or centuries separate the events involved, that ordinarily an abysmal difference appears to exist between the human and animal experience, or that elements of ''objective reality" are combined with archetypal and
mythological ones.
In traditional psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, there is an exclusive focus on psychological traumas. Physical traumas are not thought to have a direct influence on the psychological development of the individual or to participate in the genesis of psychopathology. This contrasts sharply with
observations from deep experiential work, where memories of physical traumas appear to be of
paramount importance. In psychedelic work and other powerful experiential approaches, reliving life- threatening diseases, injuries, operations, or situations of near-drowning are extremely common and their significance clearly far exceeds that of the usual psychotraumas. The residual emotions and physical sensations from situations that threatened survival or the integrity of the organism
appear to have a significant role in the development of various forms of psychopathology, as yet unrecognized by academic science.
Thus, when a child has a serious life-threatening disease, such as diptheria, and almost chokes to death, the experience of vital threat and extreme physical discomfort is not considered to be a trauma of lasting significance. Conventional psychology would focus on the fact that the child, having been separated from the mother at the time of hospitalization, experienced emotional deprivation. Experiential work makes it obvious that traumas involving vital threat leave permanent traces in the system and contribute significantly to the development of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, such as depressions,
anxiety states and phobias, sadomasochistic tendencies, sexual problems, migraine headaches, or asthma.
The experiences of serious physical traumatization represent a natural transition between the
biographical level and the following realm, which has as its main constituents the twin phenomena of birth and death. They involve events from the individual's life and are thus biographical in nature. Yet the fact that they brought the person close to death and involved extreme discomfort and pain connects them to the birth trauma. For obvious reasons, memories of diseases and traumas that involved
interference with breathing, such as pneumonia, diptheria, whooping cough, or nearly drowning, are particularly significant.
Encounter with Birth and Death: The Dynamics of Perinatal Matrices
As the process of experiential self-exploration deepens, the element of emotional and physical pain can reach such extraordinary intensity that it is usually interpreted as dying. It can become so extreme that the individual involved feels that he or she has transcended the boundaries of individual suffering and is experiencing the pain of entire groups of individuals, all of humanity, or even all of life. Experiential identification with wounded or dying soldiers, prisoners in concentration camps and dungeons,
persecuted Jews or early Christians, mothers and children in childbirth, or animals being attacked and slaughtered by an enemy are typical.
Experiences on this level are usually accompanied by dramatic physiological manifestations, such as various degrees of suffocation, accelerated pulse rate and palpitations, nausea and vomiting, changes in the color of the complexion, oscillations of body temperature, spontaneous skin eruptions or bruises, twitches, tremors, and contortions or other striking motor phenomena.
Whereas on the biographical level only those individuals who have actually had a serious brush with death must deal during their self-exploration with vital threats, on this level of the unconscious the issue of death is universal and entirely dominates the picture. Those persons whose life history has not
involved a serious threat to survival or bodily integrity can enter this experiential realm directly. For others, the reliving of serious traumas, operations or injuries tends to deepen and change into the experience of dying described above.
Experiential confrontation with death at this depth of self-exploration tends to be intimately interwoven with a variety of phenomena related to the birth process. Not only do individuals involved in
experiences of this kind have the feeling of struggling to be born and/or of delivering, but many of the accompanying physiological changes that take place make sense as typical concomitants of birth. Subjects often experience themselves as fetuses and can relive various aspects of their biological birth with very specific and verifiable details. The element of death can be represented by simultaneous or alternating identification with aging, ailing, and dying individuals. Although the entire spectrum of experiences occurring on this level cannot be reduced to a reliving of biological birth, the birth trauma seems to represent an important core of the process. For this reason, I refer to this domain of the
unconscious as perinatal. 2
The connection between biological birth and the experiences of dying and being born as described above is quite deep and specific. This makes it possible to use the stages of biological delivery in constructing a conceptual model that helps to understand the dynamics of the unconscious on the perinatal level. The experiences of the death-rebirth process occur in typical thematic clusters; their basic characteristics can be logically derived from certain anatomical, physiological, and biochemical aspects of the corresponding stages of childbirth with which they are associated. As will be discussed later, thinking in terms of the birth model provides unique
new insights into the dynamic architecture of various forms of psychopathology and offers revolutionary therapeutic possibilities.
In spite of its close connections with birth, the perinatal process transcends biology and has important philosophical and spiritual dimensions. It should not, therefore, be interpreted in a concretistic and reductionistic fashion. To an individual who is totally immersed in the dynamics of this level of the unconscious experientially or as a researcher birth might appear as an all-explanatory principle. In my own understanding, thinking in terms of the birth process is a useful model with an applicability that is limited to phenomena of a specific level of the unconscious. It has to be transcended and replaced by a different approach when the process of self-exploration moves to transpersonal realms.
There are certain important characteristics of the death-rebirth process that clearly indicate that perinatal experiences cannot be reduced to a reliving of biological birth. Experiential sequences of a perinatal nature have distinct emotional and psychosomatic aspects. However, they also produce a profound personality transformation. A deep experiential encounter with birth and death is regularly associated with an existential crisis of extraordinary proportions, during which the individual seriously questions the meaning of existence, as well as his or her basic values and life strategies. This crisis can be
resolved only by connecting with deep, intrinsic spiritual dimensions of the psyche and elements of the collective unconscious. The resulting personality transformation seems to be comparable to the changes that have been described as having come about from participation in ancient temple mysteries, initiation rites, or aboriginal rites of passage. The perinatal level of the unconscious thus represents an important intersection between the individual and the collective unconscious, or between traditional psychology and mysticism or transpersonal psychology.
The experiences of death and rebirth reflecting the perinatal level of the unconscious are very rich and complex. They appear in four typical experiential patterns or constellations. There is a deep
correspondence between these thematic clusters and the clinical stages of the biological birth process. It proved very useful for the theory and practice of deep experiential work to postulate the existence of hypothetical dynamic matrices governing the processes related to the perinatal level of the unconscious and to refer to them as Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM).
Fig. 9.
The experience of deep existential despair in a psychedelic session dominated by BPM II. The painting shows human
life as "a trip from nowhere to nowhere in a rainy day."
In addition to having specific emotional and psychosomatic content of their own, these matrices also function as organizing principles for material from other levels of the unconscious. From the
biographical level, elements of important COEX systems dealing with physical abuse and violation, threat, separation, pain, or suffocation are closely related to specific aspects of BPM. The perinatal unfolding is also frequently associated with various transpersonal elements, such as archetypal visions of the Great Mother or the Terrible Mother Goddess, Hell, Purgatory, Paradise or Heaven, mythological or historical scenes, identification with animals, and past incarnation experiences. As in the various layers of COEX systems, the connecting link is the same quality of emotions or physical sensations, and/ or similarity of circumstances. The perinatal matrices also have specific relations to different aspects of the activities in the Freudian erogenous areas the oral, anal, urethral, and phallic zones.
In the following text, I will briefly review the biological basis of the individual BPMs, their experiential characteristics, their function as organizing principles for other types of experience, and their
connection with activities in various erogenous zones. A synopsis is presented in Table 1.
The significance of the perinatal level of the unconscious for a new understanding of psychopathology and specific relations between the individual BPMs and various emotional disorders is discussed in a later section.
First Perinatal Matrix (BPM I)
The biological basis of this matrix is the experience of the original symbiotic unity of the fetus with the maternal organism at the time of intrauterine existence. During episodes of undisturbed life in the womb, the conditions of the child can be close to ideal. However, a variety of factors of physical, chemical, biological, and psychological nature can seriously interfere with this state. Also, during late stages of pregnancy, the situation may become less favorable because of the size of the child, of increasing mechanical constraint, or of the relative insufficiency of the placenta.
Pleasant and unpleasant intrauterine memories can be experienced in their concrete biological form. In addition, subjects tuned in to the first matrix can experience an entire spectrum of images and themes associated with it, according to the laws of deep experiential logic. The undisturbed intrauterine state can be accompanied by other experiences that share with it a lack of boundaries and obstructions, such as consciousness of the ocean, an aquatic life form (whale, fish, jellyfish, anemone, or kelp), or
interstellar space. Also images of nature at its best (Mother Nature), which is beautiful, safe and
unconditionally nourishing, represent characteristic and quite logical concomitants of the blissful fetal state. Archetypal images from the collective unconscious that can be selectively reached in this state involve the heavens or paradises of different cultures of the world. The experience of the first matrix also involves elements of cosmic unity or mystical union.
The disturbances of intrauterine life are associated with images and experiences of underwater dangers, polluted streams, contaminated or inhospitable nature, and insidious demons. The mystical
Table I BASIC PERINATAL MATRICES
BPM I BPM II BPM III BPM IV
RELATED PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL SYNDROMES Schizophrenic psychoses
(paranoid symptomatology, feelings of mystical union, encounter with metaphysical evil forces); hypochondriasis (based on strange and bizarre physical sensations); hysterical hallucinosis and confusing daydreams with reality
Schizophrenic psychoses (elements of hellish