Understanding the Mind
Birthing Consciousness
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Childbirth can bring intense pain alongside feelings of empowerment, joy, and even pleasure. In the third installment based on Kim Armstrong’s ‘Ships at Sea: Exploring the Mysteries of Self and Consciousness,’ Doug introduces psychologist Orli Dahan’s ‘birthing consciousness’: an adaptive altered state associated with reduced prefrontal activity and pain relief, and possibly rooted in an ancient evolutionary mechanism shared across the animal kingdom.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
The title of this post is identical to the title of a section in Ships at Sea: Exploring the Mysteries of Self and Consciousness by Kim Armsttong in psychological science.org/observer/jan-feb22.
Of course, not all altered states of consciousness require a person to consume a mind-altering substance or even engage in a particular practice. In a 2020 article in Perspectives in Psychological Science, Orli Dahan (Tel-Hai College) proposed the concept of birthing consciousness-a state that allows people to retreat inward in the face of overwhelming pain while giving birth—and suggested that this experience may be most accessible without the use of common medical interventions.
Giving birth, even with access to modern pain management, is often severely painful. But, Dahan explained, it isn’t uncommon for people to also report feelings of empowerment, joy, even pleasure throughout the experience—a contradiction that may be made possible by the power of our prefrontal cortex.
“Birthing consciousness is an example of an adaptive, pain-induced, altered state of consciousness,” she wrote, ‘Because successful natural birth for the mother and for her baby was essential to reproduction throughout most of human history, and because natural birth is an experience of extreme pain…the unique ASCs [altered states of consciousness] that I refer to as birthing consciousness increased the probability for optimal birth outcomes.”
The altered state of consciousness reduces activity in the prefrontal cortex, a process referred to a hyperfrontality, which is associated with pain reduction, Dahan wrote.
Consciousness-altering behavior is common throughout the animal kingdom, she added, so it’s likely this adaption occurred long ago in our shared evolutionary history. “This evolutionary explanation for the ubiquitous phenomenon of ASCs associated with transient hypofrontality can be roughly divided in two: Pain-induced ASCs are adaptive, whereas ASCs that are not pain-induced benefit from this brain mechanism because of its therapeutic effects.” Although this theory requires further study, it suggests that altered states during labor may have played an essential role in successful reproduction before modern medical interventions, laying the groundwork for other altered states of consciousness—such as dreaming, daydreaming runner’s high, and hypnosis—that allows humans to “retreat into an inner world where time seemed to be suspended.” The effects of certain drugs may also result in part from this adaption.
“Perhaps we are hardwired to desire reaching states linked with transient hypofrontality because this brain mechanism once conferred a crucial evolutionary benefit in situations of acute pain.” Dahan suggested. “If so, it is possible that natural birth and pain-induced ASCs benefit from a much more ancient and broader adaption.”
These and other altered states of consciousness challenge some of our most basic assumptions about what constitutes an individual, stilling our perception of time, destabilizing our sense of self, and even extinguishing—if only temporarily—our desire to escape pain. Like the Ship of Theseus, parts of or psyche we take for granted as stable and fixed can be quietly replaced, becoming a new mind by the same name.