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Science-Based Models:
Consciousness Restructuring Process of Natural Healing

The way we first experience most people and their consciousness is through their actions or behavior and their physical presentation. This is the most superficial level at which the deeper consciousness structures appear or manifest. Freud suggested that behavior is driven by deeper consciousness patterns in the id and subconscious. The CRP model also suggests that deeper self-images manifest in this way, but also includes somatic presentation and symptoms. Each and every disease symptom experienced and all our behavioral patterns are superficial manifestations of a deeper bound-consciousness pattern.

Several healing systems treat people entirely at this behavioral or symptomatic level. For example, Behavioral psychology, one of the broadest based practices in clinical psychology, maintains the belief that by changing the behavior, the problem will be alleviated. It clinically treats people by modifying their faulty behaviors through a system of reward and punishment, to change the stimulus-response patterns, much like animal training.

In fact, much of the education for a behavioral psychologist comes through training animals, for example, teaching rats to get through a maze or perform other tasks for food. There is little evidence that this actually relates to the complexity of human behavior and activity, or indeed even relates to a rat's behavior in rat society or its natural habitants. It does often succeed in changing behavior, and the alleviation of the negative feedback from the faulty behavior is more pleasant for the client, but there is little or no evidence that it changes the roots of disease that manifest as the behavior.

This approach is similar to, and in fact is based on the allopathic or medical approach to healing in which the premise is that treating or alleviating the somatic symptom cures the disease. This notion seems to be treated as axiomatic in these models. The term axiom comes from mathematics, and is applied to truths that are considered so basic that they don't need to be proven. I think this is an unjustified position with reference to this axiom of allopathic healing.

It is my personal notion that in some proportion of the time, the removal of the stress caused by the symptom or the behavior allows the body or psyche to exert homeostasis and naturally heal itself at deeper levels. This creates the illusion that the allopathic treatment caused the healing. In these specific instances it might even seem true. Otherwise, there is no scientific evidence of which I am aware that clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that treating the symptom actually heals the deeper condition. It is not a fundamental principle of natural healing and I suspect that studies of this axiom would not confirm its universal veracity.

In fact, it would appear that other practices in medical practice are based on this acceptance of unproven notions. In an interview in Discovery, August 1999 an internal medicine specialist Dr. Karen Keffler noted “The notion that everything allopathic medicine does is backed up by evidence is absurd . . . People would be surprised to realize how much allopathic medicine is just folklore that's been handed down. We believe that it has been studied along the way but when you go back and really look, you find that it hasn't.”

This level of consciousness activity or dynamics is also addressed in other forms of psychology. In Transactional Analysis, this is the level at which the game, racket and script patterns that people keep unconsciously repeating in their daily interactions are acted out. In other Freudian based psychology it is the level of acting out the neurosis behaviorally and the level where transference is projected on to and acted out with the therapist and significant others. In the above therapies, these patterns are identified and analyzed to open the way to deeper understanding of the underlying consciousness patterns causing the symptoms, and they lead to more in-depth therapies for healing.

In dreams this zone presents itself in the dream's surface manifestation, that is the dream that we remember as we wake up. It is the symbols, story and action of the dream. In Rebecca's case, her dream directly reflects her real life dramas. Her father's leaving left her with feelings of unfinished business and insecurity. The old boy friend's ineffectiveness at explaining “where he had disappeared to” reflects the existential view of men she adopted from her mother and her experience: that men are ineffective and abandon you. This was the deep perception she had of her husband and the proof or payoff to which her game and script patterns were leading and confirming about him.

In Rebecca's dream, it was her psychological symptoms the dream presented rather than the somatic, which implies that her organism has chosen this doorway to reveal the deeper disease pattern. This is not always the case, often somatic symptoms are presented in the dream. Reliance on what the client presents and only working with that, as opposed to the therapist's analysis, diagnosis, decision about, and implementation of a treatment plan, is one of the characteristics of the journey and mentoring process that makes it different from more conventional psychotherapy or allopathic treatment.

The mentor in the CRP does not work at this level, nor focus on, nor analyze these patterns other than to notice that there are patterns. He or she does not interpret or analyze the dream, since he knows that the primal sensory patterns and consciousness structure of the disease can be found at its deeper levels and that this level only reflects or recreates a superficial form of it.

What the mentor seeks is the deeper level and experience of the disease. He wants to find the weed's root rather than plucking the leaves. As can be seen in this journey, when Rebecca's tenuous feelings of safety brought about by her control are stripped away, insecurity, and a hollow feeling in the abdomen reveals the next deeper layer. The principle of seeking the deep primary existential sensory self-image that holds the disease in its dynamics is what is kept in mind as the journey progresses to the next level.

It is not always easy to pass beyond this level as the mind and ego are still very much involved and active and will often utilize the defense mechanisms that have been developed to keep the pain at bay. Since it is the deeper pain we seek to metamorphose, a common strategy is to begin the journey to this pain by engaging the most discomforting symbol or activity in the dream since it will lead to the deeper pain. This is not always the case because of the resistance referred to above, but it is a useful rule of thumb and the first route we tried with Rebecca.

We invited her to re-experience the part of the dream in which she was asking the Question “Where have you disappeared to?” She was invited to recreate that portion of the dream in her imagination and to notice what went on inside as she did so, and her reactions as he was unable to answer her question. She reported feeling deep, painful, hollow emptiness in her abdomen.

 “Let go into that sensation.  Imagine merging into it. Enter into this empty place in your abdomen,” I invited.

Her mind resisted. Several suggestions to help her imagine the descent into her pain were offered, but none seemed to work. After about fifteen minutes of this she was becoming discouraged, disappointed and wanted to give up.

We saw this wanting to give up as part of her overall pattern, and a re-experiencing of her childhood reactions of giving up and adapting to her mother's injunctions, the Adaptive Child ego state as defined in Transactional Analysis. It was a way of avoiding the pain, which was being held in the deeper consciousness structure.

This might also have been defined as resistance on Rebecca's part. The mentor views such resistance as a gift. It is an expression of and reveals from another perspective the deeper disease structure. A mentor would not confront or label the client as resistant. Such action would do little to further a journey and would create guilt, anger or deeper resistance in the client, and create a rift in the co-consciousness. When the mentor is in essence one with the client in a co-consciousness state, they too experience the resistance as protective.  It is honored as another presentation of the disease and explored in that light

Several options were available at this juncture, and I suspected that continued pressure to go into the emptiness would be too threatening to her ego and that her defense systems would continue to block that avenue more and more strongly.

“Return to the surface of the dream,” I invited. “Rest there a minute and let me know what's going on in the dream when you're able.”

Soon she reported re-experiencing the scene in which she was asking her former boyfriend “Where have you disappeared to?”

This time I invited her to imagine becoming the boyfriend in her dream. ‘Imagine what it would be like to be him and have this woman asking you this question.’ I suggested.

This is a common strategy that a mentor may use. The purpose of the journey is not to try to work anything out at this level, nor is it to make a point with the client about some issue in their psychology, but instead it is to open the door to a deeper sensory experience of the disease state. In this instance becoming the male figure was less threatening, something with which her ego could not readily personally identify, thus freeing her imaginative process to create a deepening experience. Yet, at the same time it represented the source of her pain as presented in the surface manifestation of her dream, the symbol of a deeper, and more general and archaic formative experience.

Becoming the man, Rebecca reported feeling very free. “I have no responsibility or need to explain anything to anyone. I can go where I like and do what I want to do and I do not need to account for myself or my actions, or be anywhere unless I choose to.”

This experience represents a fantasy loop, which is a superficial attempt to “fix things”, and make herself feel better. Fantasy loops are the base structure of game patterns and represent an ego strategy of how to alleviate or protect one's-self from the pain. It is quite probably how she perceived her father after he left the very controlling mother. It represents her archaic fantasy of finding freedom from her overly restrictive mother, and is counterpoint to the internal part of herself that is very controlling.

It also is a fantasy that manifests in her contemporary life as: “If only my husband could provide enough financial security and dependability, I could be free.” It was also to some degree how she viewed her husband, as a free soul incapable of responsibility. Again on the superficial level, her control of him is designed to eliminate that freedom since it is the deep cause of her pain (as with her father). These fantasy loops are expressed as game patterns on the behavioral level and are played out of awareness.

Imagination is a different dynamic and is the vehicle through which the journey progresses. Imagination is the voice of our creative processes speaking to us. Healing is seen in our model as a creative process. Imagination is unpredictable, often disruptive and confusing, and appears seemingly out of nowhere. It is creative rather than predictable, a bifurcation in the fractal-hologram of our mind. In the journeys, the mentor is constantly encouraging the mentored to engage it, and using it himself. From a spiritual perspective, imagination is the voice of creative spirit. It leads us to it and it is in this place of the creative spirit, or god-self that we create our healing

The fantasy loop is quite different from the imaginative process. It is an ego process, more or less logical or rational within its context and more or less a chain of events that one might predict or expect. It usually follows a linear and cause-effect sequence, and if pursued to its end, usually loops back on itself. For example, with Rebecca the loop would probably lead back to feeling alone and unsupported.

All this is interesting, and explains much of the psychology involved with Rebecca, however to the mentor, neither the fantasy nor its analysis lead into the deeper consciousness pattern of the disease. Instead, the fantasy is seen as an attempt to escape that is forever doomed to loop back on itself and continually re-create the pain, psychic or somatic, that is being avoided. It is mentoring custom to avoid re-enforcing such fantasy loops when identified, and instead to encourage the imaginative process. The goal is to go deeper and seek the source, rather than treat the surface manifestations.

Fantasy loops can appear at any level in the journey but most often occur in the more superficial and ego involved levels. In Rebecca's case, this fantasy loop was beginning to dip into Zone 2 of conscious dynamics.

Zone 2: Dancing Thoughts and Emotions

Look beneath any action or behavior on the part of a given individual, or their physical presentation of self, and you will find that it is usually the result of a complex interplay of thoughts and emotions. The exception to this observation is in situations where reflex action is called for. For example, if you poke a finger at someone's eye, their blink is a reflexive action that bypasses thought and emotion. In general, when there is a real and immanent threat to the organism, these reflexes will determine the response. They bypass thoughts and emotions. The case of perceived threat is different in several ways, and will be addressed in some detail later

In general however, how we think and feel about a given situation generally determines our actions or behavior, and also our somatic presentation. For example: we walk into a party and see two people in the corner glance at us and begin talking, it is our thoughts and emotions that determine our reaction. If we think that they are talking about us negatively, and this thought is dancing with fear or paranoia, we are likely to turn around and leave, or hide in a corner where no one will encounter us.

If anger is also a partner in the dance we might go over and confront the two and perhaps provoke an altercation. If on the other hand, we think they are remarking on how glad they are that we came and our emotions are of joy and the anticipation of a fulfilling evening, we will join in the party and engage with many people, perhaps even putting ourselves in the limelight. The two, in actuality, might not even be talking about us. Our behavior, however, enacts the underlying thinking-emotional pattern.

With somatic symptoms, there is also an underlying thinking-emotional pattern associated with the symptom. Few would argue that somatic symptoms such as fibromyalgia or cancer do not have a profound impact on one's emotions and thoughts. They also contribute to the maintenance and or worsening of the symptom. For example knowing one has cancer is stressful, and stress weakens the body and immune system which contributes to the cancer's growth.

Simonton, (referred to earlier), in his work on cancer noted that a there were certain backgrounds of childhood experience that correlated closely with the later development of cancers, and that the emotional state that resulted from these supported its growth. He noticed that many cancers occur within two years of a major loss such as death of a spouse, or retirement from a long held job, a time of maximum stress.

He also noticed that attitude and one's perception of the cancer had direct correlation with its growth or remission. Those with deep positive attitudes and needs to go on living were much more successful at bringing about remission than those who were pessimistic and had little reason or desire to go on living. He also noted that cancer was often the solution to a life problem, for example, the way out of an abusive marriage or a double bind situation, and that those who took on this responsibility and found other solutions to their problem usually went into remission.

Another example is the Type A personality. The thinking pattern “I've got to get more done to succeed and get ahead” coupled with the fear of failure or abandonment if they are not always driving causes a life style of constant high stress. This might include poor eating patterns, high consumption of tobacco, alcohol or stimulating drugs such as coffee or amphetamines and little sleep. These are highly likely to be implicated with cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension or heart failure, or perhaps the uptightness of fibromyalgia. This may have contributed to Rebecca's illness, as she was a typical Type A personality in her behavior and thinking patterns

Our view is that the thinking-emotional pattern, is a mirror of the same deeper consciousness structures that manifest somatically as the cancer. How this fits with Rebrecca's somatic symptoms including her fibromyalgia is illustrated later in this section.

In psychology, there are two common but divergent viewpoints about thinking and emotions: There are those who claim that thinking process is more basic and that emotions arise from, and are the result of how we think. And there are those who claim that emotions are more basic and our thoughts arise from and are shaped by our emotional processes. There are valid arguments to support both sides.

Our notion is neither view is completely correct and, as with the “which comes first, the chicken or the egg,” problem, the error is in the premise underlying the question, the assumption that there is a simple, linear cause-effect relationship between emotions and thoughts. Instead there is a complex interplay and interdependence at this level of consciousness dynamics, and it manifests more like a dance in which one partner often leads, and the lead may on occasion change, but both are involved. The dance is a response to the rhythm of the deeper source of the disease-full primal consciousness pattern. It is the nature of the dance, the pattern of it that defines consciousness dynamics at this level, rather than any specific thought or emotion.

Thoughts and emotions seem to be quite habit-forming. We all know people who seem to be stuck in a given emotion, people who would rather hang on to their anger, or sadness (or any specific emotion for that matter) rather than move on with their lives. They will find any reason to be angry, and if they can't find one they will create one. Similarly with thoughts, some people will remain transfixed on one line of thought, or even one specific thought. Pleasant or unpleasant, they seem to find comfort or solace in the familiarity of a given emotional-thought dance-pattern. They seldom venture any deeper and their conscious awareness remains fixed in the pattern and at this level.

Most cathartic and cognitive psychotherapies operate at this level to bring about change. In cathartic psychology ---  much Humanistic Psychology would fall into this category --- the notion is that by discharging the accumulated and stored emotional and cognitive energies, the deeper issues will be resolved. These emotions and thoughts were never expressed, and were stored in musculature, cellular, and neural memory. They have much energy bound in them and its release frees that energy and releases the trauma.

The theory seems good but in many years practicing these methods, the engineer in me noticed that the strategy usually brought only short-term relief, and on occasion even added to or re-enforced the issues. Even when it did bring relief, it was usually temporary and the client was soon back with the same or similar unresolved issues. This leads to the notion that there are still more fundamental structures that are not being addressed, and that are rekindling the symptoms.

Some forms of forensic psychology and some behavioral approaches also touch on this level to recognize and diagnose “faulty thinking patterns” which underlie the faulty behavior. I encountered this approach working in the field of child sexual abuse. The offenders were required to identify and subsequently refrain from the faulty thinking patterns that rationalized and precipitated the offence.

Rather than being a cure, this approach required constant self-surveillance and control on the part of the client for the rest of their lives. The family was also required to participate in this surveillance to the same ends. Rather than a cure, it created a family constantly suspicious and distrusting of the father and distanced from him. It actually recreated more thoroughly the very dynamics that usually underlay the abuse. Rather than bring families back together in a healthy loving and trust based relationship, in many instances the stress of the surveillance tore the unit apart or caused a re-abuse.

Similarly in many substance abuse treatment programs, an educational phase is included with the hope that data on the health, legal and social risks of the addiction will help to over-ride the compulsion. The ninety-percent recidivism rate in this field confirms the lack of success treating the disease at this level.

Affirmations are another tactic used to try to affect change at this level. Again, changing the thought component does not guarantee that the deeper structure driving the patterns and perceptions will change. Thought only occurs in one half of the cortex of the brain, which is a relatively thin surface layer. By imposing new thoughts as an overlay, we are only adding one more level of defense to protect us from the fundamental structures that must be reached and transformed. We are creating a fantasy loop. Under stress, most often the disease structure reemerges and the symptoms return.

Somatic, or muscle-stored emotions and thoughts are also released by Reichian based and massage type therapies. For example, one of these, Bioenergetics, is based on the therapist's reading of where in the body, and in which specific muscles the emotional or thought memory is stored. A specific body posture (or movement) is suggested, and the client assumes and holds this posture. Trembling eventually begins as the stressed muscle supposedly lets go of the stored tension. The posture is held until the trembling ceases and the muscle is freed of its past.

Another such therapy, Rolfing, uses deep tissue massage therapy, which presumably releases the stored emotion more directly by manipulating the muscles and the fascia tissue surrounding them. However, my observation has been that long term effects seem little better than with cathartic release therapy. The neural pattern is not affected and often reasserts to bring back the problem and emotions.

In Transactional Analysis, this is the level at which Rackets, the emotional patterns and payoffs and the thinking patterns that support Game and Script patterns all play out. The “Racket” is the emotion that is used to cover most situations. It is the emotion that was permitted in the family or the one that family system assigned to the individual. For example, a person with a mad racket will express anger no matter what the occasion and a person with a happy racket will express that no matter how inappropriate it is to the situation. The analyst identifies these rackets and games and various strategies used to change the patterns. Re-decision, gestalt psyche drama, or confrontation, are some of the therapeutic strategies used at this level of its practice.

Supplemental to the journeys, it is sometimes necessary to deal with this level more directly, particularly to help the client see his ego's participation in the disease structure. It is not, however, used for more than as a supportive adjunct to the journey process and following it. For example, if a client is locked in a game structure with their mate and the mate continues to play the game, helping the client see the game moves can help them stay clear of re-involving themselves in it.

The medical profession does not generally deal with the disease pattern at this level. In some instances the physician will note the emotional state of the patient, but rarely treats at this level except with drugs to provide short-term relief and suppress the emotion. They generally remain unaware of the thought components. Yet for anyone who is sick, say with cancer, the thoughts and emotions are often foremost, sometimes eclipsing the symptoms of the disease itself.

In dreams, it is the level at which the emotional undercurrent of the activity and story of the dream is experienced.

In the CRP, the mentor is not interested in trying to modify or change the dynamics at this level. Rather, the patterns are just noted as they appear in the journey, and as they are revealed in talk sessions with the client. It is the pattern itself, the rhythm and interplay of the thoughts and emotions that the mentor “senses.” In this rhythm and dance is the doorway to the deeper levels of the disease pattern.

In her journey and dream, at this level Rebecca was struggling with being trapped and creating a fantasy of freedom. Thoughts such as “I don't have to be anywhere or answer to anyone,” and her feelings of freedom danced to created the fantasy. Her public presentation of self was as a confident, assertive and liberated woman. Yet in this journey just below the surface of the freedom were sensed even deeper emotions and thoughts, a deep fear and rage. It was also a deep somatic sensory experience for me, and it is this sensing, this co-consciousness experience, that is a necessary part of a journey.

The term co-conscious has been borrowed from Milton Erikson.  Acknowledged as a grand master of hypnotherapy, he claimed that his most effective sessions were guided not entirely by his intellect or skill, but that he entered a state of co-consciousness with his clients. It was from this shared state that the stories and interventions he used with such great effectiveness arose.  He observed that these stories and interventions seemed to emerge into his awareness from a deeper source of consciousness, one that he and his client shared. He called it co-consciousness.

This was an experience that began to develop in my own work shortly after my Graywolf experience.  After returning from the wilderness and working with clients, I would drift into the semi-dream, hypnogogic state I associated with my meeting with the wolf. Often from this state an image, a story, a deep felt sense of something, or perhaps even an urge to touch the client would arise.

When I acted on these, they evoked awareness, revelation and changes in the client that would cut months from the usual therapeutic and analysis processes.  My term for the phenomena was neural entrainment or resonance.  I was convinced that if someone were to measure us by EEG in those moments, significant portions of our brain wave patterns would be nearly identical. I still hold to this notion and hope to eventually verify it.

Intuition is in many ways an expression of co-consciousness.  Neither co-consciousness nor intuition is accurately experienced through thought, emotion or by discreet visual imagery, but rather comes from deeper somatic experience.  Many years working with guided imagery suggests that discrete visual imagery along with mental processes are easily manipulated and much more susceptible to ego distortion and therefore more reflective of ego-self.

Discriminatory hearing (words and thoughts) and vision (specific visual images) don't develop until we are several months old and displace other sensory phenomena as we focus on the world with our mind, ears and eyes. These are among the last senses and characteristics to fully develop. Prior to their development (and what they replace) is a dream-like experience of shifting colors, shapes, sounds and somatic sensations, and a sense of oneness, a deep symbiotic connection with mother. In fact, at this time we do not experience our self as a separate being from her.

We are in total somatic connection beginning in early prenatal form and continuing some months past birth. This is probably taking place in REM consciousness as noted earlier. During this period our extra sensory abilities are acute. In psychic experiences such as co-consciousness, intuition is presented more accurately as deep somatic input of this nature. In the process, it takes place in REM consciousness, as the mentor and mentored are both in this state during a journey. It is a more accurate, less ego involved presentation of the shared consciousness.

Co-consciousness is an important element in the process, in many ways similar to a deep state of empathy, but it involves more than just emotional resonance. It is, as noted, an even deeper experience of sensory resonance. Since the mentoring in the journey process is non-invasive and stresses non-intervention, the mentor most often uses the client's own imaginative process as a means of identifying the doorways into deeper levels. He accesses this through co-consciousness with the client. However on occasions when the resistance is very strong and the mentor's intuition urges it, he or she may risk a more direct suggestion. This was the case in our journey with Rebecca.

“Rebecca, I sense that the need to be free is in response to a deeper sense of being trapped,” I observed. “I can feel this trapped as a sensation, do you also feel it?”

“Yes,” she said and her whole demeanor began to change, her face and body tightening and tensing.

“Will you go there with me?” I invited,  “Let go into the trapped sensations. I'm familiar with this place and will be there with you. Use your breath, the out breath, the letting go breath to help you merge into it.  Where and how do you experience it, in what part of your body?”

“I feel it in my solar plexus and in my chest.” She reported almost immediately.

Recognizing this as the earlier image that had stopped her I once again invited her to “Let go even deeper into these sensations in your chest and solar plexus. Imagine becoming this feeling and tell me what you notice about it.”

This time we were successful, probably because it was now more in the context of the journey and, as a second presentation, more familiar and compelling to her.

“I'm getting a visual image, it's an animal and it's in a cage, a big animal in a small cage with heavy steel bars.” She began to shake and then continued, “It’s a giant ape and its trapped in this small steel cage.”

She was now sobbing and her body was tensing as she writhed and tossed on the pad.

“Lets go even deeper,” I invited, “Become the ape. Use your imagination to sense and feel what the ape is experiencing. Take on the essence of being this giant ape trapped in the iron cage.”

“It's rage, a terrible rage!” she cried, and then continued, “I'm terrified to touch this. It has come out before and hurt people. I badly hurt my brother with this! I can't let it out. It is very dangerous, I think I destroyed my brother with it.”

This is the deeper level of the dance of her thoughts and emotions, and in Rebecca's case it is a dance in which one partner tightly controls the other. It begins entry into the zone of the belief system. Her deep sensory experience of this rage was defined by the words and thought that “It is dangerous,” and leads to the conclusion on the thinking-emotional plane that “it must be controlled.” Control then becomes the important idea or thought, and in the dance it has become the dominant partner. So much so that it quite literally shapes her outer life and physiology as well as this inner dance.

Control of fear and rage at this level of intensity affects the brain stem, and subsequently her hormonal excretions prepare the body, muscles and cells for fight or flight. The senses are sharpened, but it is all held back and in check. The muscles are tightened and cramped. In actual fact, the muscles are ready to fight or flee and are calling for increased blood flow to them. The belief that this anger is dangerous, however, tends to restrict the blood vessels to the muscles to restrict their movement and this reduced blood supply may result in the cramps and pain of Rebecca's Fibromyalgia symptoms

The resulting stress depletes her immune system and tightens her muscles creating pain and stiffness. This is the reality of Rebecca's perceived world. It shapes her mind and body. But this is still only the shadow of deeper pain and dis-ease. The ape is the mere phantom of a deeper and even more primal sense of self.  It is these consciousness dynamics that are keeping her confined, and beyond which she does not dare to pass. This rage and her fear of it also define her beliefs about self and the world. Beyond it lies the destruction of the world; beyond it lies the unknown.

Zone 3: The Dynamics of our Belief System

Our intellectual and emotional response to any situation, which in turn shapes our action or behavior, is in turn itself shaped by our belief system. By belief system I do not mean the mere intellectual statement or recognition of beliefs or values, but a much deeper experience. At its deepest experience the belief system is a sensory experience. It is a knowing that is beyond questioning. It defines our deep felt sense of what is good and evil, right and wrong, of what is possible and impossible. It manifests more superficially as symbols or ideas and words that reflect the deeper felt consciousness structure, but at these deeper level it is purely sensory. We feel it in our gut.  This is wrong, or this is right.

Our intellectual beliefs are sometimes in contradiction to this deeper sensed belief, and this can produce hypocrisy and psychic tension. An example of this is the so-called ecologist who throws trash on the highway, or who drives an atmosphere polluting type of car. His intellectual belief of ecological preservation is not deep enough to change his behavior. Another is the woman who has intellectually become liberated, but maneuvers to get men to take care of her from the deeper sensed belief system.

Rebecca believed and sensed that she was trapped, and was full of rage because of it. It shaped her inner perception of the world. Intellectually she was afraid of the rage because she believed it was destructive enough to destroy the world and that she needed to control it. That had been her experience of it.

The consciousness structures at this level act as a filter to limit and shape our perceptions. For example, if we do not believe in something we can be sitting in a room with that something and not see, hear or perceive it although others can. Early European explorers reported that west-coast Indians could not see their larger ships anchored off shore but were only capable of perceiving the small boats which were of similar size to their own canoes. Given time and exposure the natives were eventually able to incorporate the idea of large ships into their beliefs and eventually were able to perceive them through somatic experience of them.

Sometimes we distort reality experience in other ways to conform what we perceive to match our beliefs. For example, I had a paranoid client who believed that there was a plot by a large and secret group of people to control and ultimately harm him. He was at times an itinerant, and often took off unexpectedly to hitch hike across the country. On his return from these expeditions he would report to me the messages given to him on his trip. He would watch the writing on the sides of the trucks that passed him because he believed that this group had organized the trucker's schedules in order to send him the messages. By selecting from the words on each of several trucks that passed him, he was able to piece together a message from this cabal.

The above is an extreme example of distortion and is labeled paranoid schizophrenia. Another broader example occurred frequently up to the 1950's, and has popped up unexpectedly even as recently as the 1980's. There was, and in some quarters may still be, a racist belief that non-whites have inferior intelligence compared to the whites. Some otherwise intelligent scientists, who have this bias, were able to devise and design tests to prove this contention to be true.

In general, our beliefs shape our perception of the world and ultimately establish the behaviors to confirm them. We act as though our beliefs at this level are true because we cannot see beyond them. They represent the edge of the known universe. Perception is also shaped by much deeper and more primal consciousness structures, but it manifests here as a controlled form to confirm our existential beliefs.

Freud's concept of the superego touches this level of consciousness organization. Freud, in his explorations of human consciousness, identified this structure as the super-ego, a consciousness structure, which provides a conscience, guide or value system to program the ego to conform to its higher ideals. The belief system in many ways represents this consciousness function, except the “higher ideals” are very personalized and subjective.

We will, in zone four, be looking at the deeper structures of consciousness that form the belief system and define these ideals. At that level they are survival-oriented issues. At this level they represent the limits of the known universe and determine how we think and feel about most things.

Internally, our beliefs represent the greater good, but to outsiders they may appear quite different, and from another belief systems may appear immoral or evil. For example the philosophy of “Manifest Destiny” represents a belief commonly shared by many people in western civilization. It comes from the Bible in which man is instructed to take dominion over all the creatures on earth. It may indeed have provided the fuel that caused Christians to explore and settle or control most of the available world. It is based on the belief that we are a supreme and superior species and favored by god, and it is our destiny to rule and exploit the entire planet. This is not a mere intellectual notion but a deep felt sense.

Yet not all share that belief. Many of those who don't see it as an immoral process of greed that is pushing the planet into a state of imbalance and endangering our survival as a species. It is an archetypal principle, for example, to the Amerindians. Their belief is that we are stewards who must be caretakers of the planet and all the creatures on it. Their belief led them to act as caretakers rather than exploiters.

When belief systems come into conflict, violence and war often erupt. Evidence of this may be seen in the Pacific Northwest Timber disputes where the logging and timber companies follow the doctrine of manifest destiny and are eradicating the old growth forests. They philosophically believe they have the right and destiny to exploit all of timber resources of the planet in the service of mankind. To them, it is a higher good that they do. To the protesters, who view themselves more in the care-taking role, it is pure and simple exploitation for greed and profit. Trees are seen as conscious beings and brothers and sisters in the family of earth. The greater effect on the overall ecology of the planet is dangerous, and such shortsighted exploitation endangers our ability to survive.

These two belief systems in conflict create the outer conflict, the state of war that exists between the environmentalists and the timber interests. In this example lies the evidence of the strong hold our belief system has on our being and definition of the world. For many the existence of other belief systems is intolerable and their lives are devoted to converting or eradicating all others. This is particularly true for many of the fundamentalist spiritual, economic or political belief systems.

Our physical dis-ease structures are also present and held at this level. Herein lies a built in sensory message about our somatic state, a pattern of sensory dynamics that creates our self-perception of body. It is from this level that we create our body language and its conformation to the disease pattern on both mechanical and chemical levels. For example, if our existential belief is that we have to bend our being to fit in with the world, we may end up with a badly contorted spine, scholiosis, as did another of my clients. Or as in Rebecca's case, belief that she needs to tightly control her rage resulted in her tight muscles and her fibromyalgia symptoms. In the CRP, the fibromyaglia is seen as a symptom of a deeper dis-ease and the pain which it holds.

Few therapies work at this level, and in fact most therapists wisely choose not to confront or call into question the fundamental beliefs of their clients. It is generally an unsuccessful endeavor, at least as it manifests intellectually and emotionally. Jungian therapist when, for example, encouraging their clients to work with the shadow side, may often be addressing this level of consciousness. To a large degree it is our beliefs that create our personal shadow. We believe it is an evil or immature part of us and so ban it to the shadows of our psyche.

The consciousness dynamics of the belief system are most often very rigid and stable; and not changeable through emotional or intellectual approaches. Yet it is the belief system that holds us prisoner and keeps us trapped in the dis-ease states of our body and mind. They need to be changed for healing and freeing of the self.  In defining the limits of our reality it limits our possibilities for personal evolution.

The imagery at this level is distinctive. Since the beliefs define the edge of the known world, the words the ancient cartographers used to put on their maps, “beyond this place be dragons”, aptly apply in this zone. It is at this level of the journey that the most frightening or discouraging imagery occurs. To protect its boundaries and keep us confined to known territory, the ego-psyche creates imagery designed to turn us back. It is at this level the mentor requires the courage to go on, often into the unthinkable.

One client we worked with found her way barred by huge letters of flame saying “Danger, do not pass” It is here that monsters wait to consume the client, or the jaws of a giant machine that will grind them to pieces. Or perhaps a hub of sharpened flashing blades. It is room 101 from George Orwell's novel “1984”, the room in which what each of us fears most is located and the room to which Winston is finally delivered to break his spirit. Often it seems that this is what is at stake in this segment of the journey . . . the breaking or freeing of the spirit. It is this fear that holds us captive, and freezes our diseases into solid, often somatic forms.

In dreams, this manifests in the nightmare. In nightmares, we face our greatest fears right on the surface of the dream. Nightmares rapidly open direct doorways into the deeper levels of our ill-at-ease condition. They seem to occur when the ego is prepared to more directly face our deeper fears and disease states. At these times the ego relaxes its censoring role enough to allow us to face directly the primordial fears that keep us frozen and locked into our disease patterns. They recreate our personal room 101 or sharpened knives, and present the crisis that we can use to free our spirit. By ignoring them, we condemn ourselves to continued imprisonment.

Although in many instances the imagery in this zone seems to have personal meaning, it is not the imagery itself with which the mentor deals. The journey is to deeper levels so, as with the thoughts and emotions described in the preceding zone, the image itself is of lesser importance than what these dynamics reveal about the deeper patterns, the sensing of the dis-ease pattern, and how to navigate to it.

For Rebecca, the sense of her rage destroying her brother and the world, and the attempts to bury and disown it suggested that we were entering into this zone of the belief system. In words, her belief was that this rage was so destructive that it would literally destroy her world. This notion that the world “will disappear or be destroyed if I move beyond” is in fact characteristic of the belief system. It is absolute and defines a barrier to her, beyond which is unknown territory.

It is at this level that the mentored is most likely to get stuck, but not because they feel it as an assault to their beliefs, because they seldom are, if ever, aware that this is what's at stake. They are dealing with it at a sensory level rather than an ego level. There are three basic reasons that make the transition from this zone to the next deeper one, a difficult transition:

1. The imagery itself inspires fear, often terror, and they must get through this terror to reach the deeper levels of the dis-ease source.

2. They are nearing levels of consciousness dis-ease structure and sensory memories with which they are only vaguely familiar. They have been avoiding these for all or most of their lives, and all their defense mechanisms and avoidance tactics are on full alert.

3. They are nearing the edge of what is for them known and familiar territory and about to step into the unknown, the place where “beyond here be dragons.” This is not an intellectual assessment on their part, but a deep knowing at the organismic level.

To flow beyond this zone, the relationship and trust the client has found with the mentor is critical, as is the sense of shared consciousness. It is here too that the mentor's integrity is critical, and the mentor's own courage to face whatever the imagination presents is an important factor. Many times the places we have needed to go, the experiences I have invited my client's to enter have gone against my all my therapeutic training and dogma and pushed my own personal fear and superstition buttons. These departures require the mentor's trust in the imaginative spirit of the client, that it will not present images her organism is not ready to deal with and that it will light a way through the terror of them.

For Rebecca, entering into the rage heralded her battle with her personal demon and her engagement in zone three. We had to pass beyond this barrier of her beliefs to find the even deeper patterns of her dis-ease.

“I know this is terrifying,” I said “but in spite of the fear, let go and enter into the rage. Become it. Imagine that experience. I'm going to touch your shoulder so that you can feel me with you physically. I'll go into it with you. Will you come into it with me?  Let go now, deeper . . . deeper . . . deeper”

She was experiencing great resistance but willing to continue. Her eyes beneath her lids were moving erratically and rapidly. She was fully engaged in the awakened side of REM. “Do you notice the source of the rage, the pain that is beneath it?” I asked. “Is it a color or a sound, or does it have a body sense that you can notice?”

“Yes,” she said, “I think I can sense that.”

That seemed to relax her, seeing the pain and with this opportunity she was invited to “Notice the sensation of your out breath, the sensation of letting go. Follow that falling sensation into the image and sensations your imagination presents you of the rage.”

“It's a yellow core surrounded by orange,” she reported, “and its hot, it's burning hot! It's flames.”

She was encouraged to let go into the flames. “They are so powerful and dangerous that they could destroy the earth. They have done it before!” she sobbed.

“Stay with it. Be the flames and let your imagination help you explore the beingness of the flames.” What passed through my mind at this point was that this consciousness structure probably manifested as the symptom of her night sweats. But again we pushed even deeper. “Can you sense the source of the flames, the rage?” I asked.

After a few moments she responded “Yes, I feel a male presence and it's absolutely evil and it's going to take me over. It's going to en-gulf me.” She was terrified. Her body was writhing on the pad and her face drawn, a mask of terror. Her head was shaking back and forth as though trying to not confront this wraith or perhaps somehow escape it.

In this image she was encountering the transition into the next zone of consciousness structure and dynamics, the zone of personal mythology.

Zone 4, Personal Mythology

Our beliefs are shaped by and rest on even deeper patterns of consciousness structure and dynamics.  We could put several names to this primal zone, but, in brief, it is an archaic and archetypal level and the consciousness structures that fill it were adopted and integrated very early in life.  Often they go back to fetal experience and even seem to reach right back to the moment of our conception.

These experiences bypass the intellect and emotions and are directly programmed into the deepest levels of the sensory cortex of our brain and even deeper into the mid-brain and brain-stem. Sometimes senses are involved that seem to go beyond the ordinary senses and clients seem to be directly sensing the holographic wave patterns that define our reality. It is a zone in which the personal and transpersonal begin to merge.  It is archetypal in that it generally reflects on a sensory level the pattern of some archetypal story, myth or protagonist.

  David Feinstein and Stanley Krippner (1988, 1997) have identified this level of consciousness as the Personal Mythology that shapes one's life. Feinstein describes this zone as follows.

“A personal mythology is an internalized model of reality that is composed of postulates about oneself, one's world and the relationship between the two. These postulate, which address immediate as well as eternal concerns, are both descriptive (furnishing explanations) and instructive (generating motivation). A comprehensive theory of human development that is based on the individual's evolving mythology integrates the biological, psycho-dynamic, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of experience. . . .[We] suggest that personal myths function not only as biochemically coded models of reality but also as fields of information . . . natural though nonvisible elements of the physical universe . . . that affect consciousness and behavior. Just as some neurologists have proposed that 'mental fields' compliment brain activity in unifying experience and some biologists have proposed that 'morphic fields' compliment the action of the gene in giving form to the organism, {we propose} that mythic fields compliment the physiological basis of consciousness in storing symbolic content and maintaining psychological habits.”

We in turn propose that these mental, mythic or morphic fields may indeed give rise the waves that create the neural firing patterns and the existential holographic interference patterns that shape our perceived reality of self and the world and the relationship between the two. On the subjective level, these personal myths, and the sensory patterns that they incorporate and manifest in our lives seem to have about them a deep sense of inevitability, perhaps even a feeling that there is no other possible path or outcome.

It could be argued that this is really just an aspect of the belief system zone, defining the same limits and boundaries as it does; but it is our notion that this zone is indeed deeper and more elemental.  For one thing, in this zone, the concepts and polarities of right and wrong, good and evil are not in evidence.  In this zone the sense is more of what is inevitable.  There is less fear, which seems to have yielded to that same sense of inevitability.  There is almost a calm acceptance of the sensory imagery experienced at this level, perhaps even a supreme sense of helplessness and acceptance of one's fate.  What emotions may be evoked are very basic and are more sense than emotion. In it are woven the inevitability and archetypal patterns of a Greek tragedy, comedy or myth. In this sense it also includes conviction and intention and hence leads to action and the drama of life.

This is the zone of the “primal existential sensory self-image”(PESSI) referred to earlier, and the deepest level of consciousness dynamics in which there is a defined self and not self. We postulate that this PESSI image may indeed be the holographic pattern (consciousness structure) and image that creates our model of reality and that defines self and universe to us. It shapes our perceptions from the input of our senses.

The archetypal images defined by Jung are also evident here, and thus elements of the collective consciousness But the archetype images and stories are experienced as sensory patterns rather than as discrete images, stories or concepts. For example, the myth of Sisyphus is a common one encountered at this level in journeys. In the archetypal Greek myth, Tartarus punishes the trickster Sisyphus to a purgatory of eternally pushing a heavy rock up a slope, the stone escaping and falling back on him just as he reaches the top. At the consciousness level of the personal mythology this may be experienced as sensations of great exertion against a great heaviness followed by a falling back on one's self. These sensations may be accompanied by an even deeper felt sense of everlasting repetition, inevitability, or helplessness.

Rooted in this dynamic existential sensory self image or hologram are the dis-easeful dynamic consciousness patterns that shape the more superficial levels of somatic and psychic structures. Krippner and Feinstein point out that it is indeed like a hologram because “you can start with one myth and it connects you to your whole mythology.” The part is the whole. The belief system rests on the shoulders of this system and in turn supports the emotion-thinking dance, which in turn supports and shapes the behavior-somatic symptoms. It is existential in that it defines at a very primal level the nature of self, the world and the relationship between the two. It becomes realized as outer reality. It is the last zone in which a personal self exists.

One's beliefs conform to this dynamic image and by and large these dynamics of the PESSI limit or shape our sensory input. They are a deeply ingrained sensory neural pattern. We ultimately reproduce and confirm this pattern at the behavioral and symptomatic level. In the above example of Sisyphus, a person who never completes what they start, one who always fails at or near the point of success might be a manifestation of the behavioral pattern associated with it. A bowed back and shoulders, high blood pressure from the constant strain, might be a manifestation of the pattern as a somatic symptom. In the emotional thinking zone, it may manifest as depression, tiredness, and involve low self esteem and thoughts of “Why even try? I'll never succeed, or be good enough.”

Few therapies work at this level. In Transactional Analysis, this level is hinted at in script theory. Berne suggested that one way by which a therapist might develop a picture of the client's script and his primal image is through an exploration of the client's favorite fairy tale, myth or hero as a child. His notion was that the child would be seeking outside confirmation of their experiences from birth to the early script decision (usually made prior to age five or six). Since fairy tales do represent fundamental archetypal patterns for life, it suggests that the favorite fairy tale also describes the personal mythology and the primal existential sensory self image that is being imprinted into the neural circuitry of the child's still largely unprogramed brain.

T.A. therapists generally treat the script using two methods. One a more superficial process works at the emotional-thought level and is called the re-decision process. The client is confronted with the knowledge and memory of their early decision as a child to adopt this life plan and given opportunity to re-decide a new one based on their mature knowledge and new life situation. The other treatment is deeper and called re-parenting.

Developed and used by Jackie Schiff, it is used mostly in the treatment of psychosis. The client is encouraged to regress to a very early age, go through a catharsis or release of the bound up emotions and thoughts from their earlier traumas. They then re-experience childhood, with the therapist providing new parent messages and experiences. Thus the primal image is released and reformed based on the new parenting experience. It is however a very time and energy intensive process requiring years of residential treatment for the client, and a profound commitment of time and energy by the therapist.

Stanley Krippner and David Feinstein, in their book THE MYTHIC PATH, (1997) have identified and describe methods of reaching and working with this zone of consciousness. In a twelve-week program of personal rituals, they suggest a number of exercises designed to uncover and change one’s personal myth. Many if not most of these call for use of dreams and imagery or sensory processes to help identify and change one’s personal myth. Implied with this is the notion that REM, Dreams, imagination and the senses are well suited to deal with this level of consciousness, far better than intellectual or emotive process. For example, following each week's course of personal rituals, they suggest incubating a dream to help consolidate and process that week's work. They note “an important goal here and in all the dream incubation instructions that follow is for you to invite new understandings from the deeper levels of your psyche.”

Carl Jung pioneered in exploring this level of consciousness structure. Diverging from Freud's preoccupation with the Oedipal stage of ego development and the subconscious's structures from this, Jung noticed that certain images and stories kept reoccurring in human experience and the myths of all cultures. These went beyond any specific ethnic or geographical origin.  These cultures could not possibly be in contact, nor could have they ever have been in contact with one another, yet the myths and figures were essentially the same. From this he postulated the existence of a collective consciousness from which they emerged.

He identified a number of archetypal images that seem to play an important role in our psychological make up. These were in a sense deep principles such as the animus-anima or male-female principle, the balance that exists within all of us but often gets out of kilter; or the shadow self which contains all that is evil or unacceptable in us. Jungian analysts also use a variety of analytical and dream techniques to work with their clients at this level.

In our view this level is all of the above and even more. The Primal Existential Sensory Self-Image represents the focal point of the self. In many ways it represents the deepest level of self, and at the same time is one of a limited number of images (archetypal images) about which the self organizes. It is the subjective experiencing of the existential hologram that shapes our perceived reality.  As Jung suggests, these images arise from even more fundamental principles of reality.

In CRP, we see these as “Archetypal Strange Attractors”, which will be discussed more fully in the next zone. These are the principles by which reality organizes itself from the field of infinite possibilities, (implicate order or chaos) into the structure of reality. These structures organize both our somatic and personality presentation. They also hold in them the patterns of our physiological, mental and emotional diseases as well as our strengths and wellness.

It is a zone that represents the most fundamental levels of personal consciousness structure there is. It takes its form in large part based on our experiences, but these consciousness structures begin from the moment of conception and continue from there to the present moment for each of us.

There is consciousness involved in the meeting of the sperm and egg. There is consciousness in each parent and the dance which influences their union becomes built into every cell and hence the fundamental structure of our evolving being. This continues throughout our fetal experience as we take in further consciousness experience and dynamics through REM sharing with our parents. These consciousness structures ultimately become the shaper of both our physical and psychological selves.

Rebecca's transition through the belief system into the deeper level of her personal mythology in her journey began with:

“Rebecca, I know this is terrifying for you,” I said and reached out and placed my hand on the crown of her head as reminder of my presence. “In spite of this terror, yield to this presence. Let yourself be possessed by it. It will be OK. I'll be there with you. Feel my hand and presence. I've done this before, I've encountered this before and will go through it with you.

Will you let go of the resistance to it now with your breath. Yield to, or if you can, become this evil male presence. Use your imagination to sense its essence, to become it. We're almost there now, almost to the healing place. Trust your imagination and process. We're doing fine. I'm with you. I know what's happening.”

Rebecca had been raised Catholic and so fear of possession by evil spirits was built deeply into her belief system. So too was the denial of the rage and anger, particularly since its eruption had hurt her brother. These beliefs interwove at this level to maintain the structure of the illnesses she suffered and to shape her emotions, thoughts, behavior and physiology. It was also an element of her personal mythology.

The male figure represented for her the receptacle of her evil being. It is the archetypal bad guy, the psychotic killer, the insane expression of evilness in the world, the shadow archetype. (The male also had manifested in her life. She had adopted the male role in her marriage and had been a tomboy during her adolescence).  It was the most frightening apparition she could encounter, the most terrifying experience imaginable -- her personal room 101. Her soul was at issue here, and her eternal salvation. Yet it was the path we had to follow to reach the core of her disease.

Our co-consciousness was critical to flowing through this part, to overcoming the fear that had held her prisoner. We were at a nexus where her rage and fear of possession had created a prison for her. She was trapped in a existence between control and suppression on the one hand and total destruction and the loss of her soul on the other. Our previous journeys together and her witnessing of her husband's journey, the trust she was developing in herself along with the reassurances and company on this quest were also factors.

She responded to these invitations and I saw a visible relaxing take place with her. “I am big and vast.” she reported, a quietness now to her voice.

“Now become this bigness,” I invited. Time passed, several minutes.

“It's okay,” she finally said. “This bigness is okay.”

“Go deeper,” I invited. “Relax even more deeply into being this bigness. Become it. Experience and explore your self as the bigness.”

My logical mind and rationality were telling me that this was a good place to be, to perhaps stop, particularly after the ordeal we had just experienced. It had the appearance of a healing to my mind but it did not yet feel completed in my spirit. My mind was telling me one thing and our co-consciousness was telling me differently. Another clue was that we had not yet encountered the deeper consciousness dynamics of zones five and six, yet. I was tempted to step back and leave her with this state but instead I waited to see where Rebecca's imagination would take it. Outward appearances to the contrary, the mentor is not the guide, he or she relies on the mentored's imagination for that.

Again some time passed and eventually Rebecca reported feeling lost and a deep sensation of coldness. I invited her, “Stay with that, just be with it and relax into it. Notice how it evolves for you.”

In a few moments she reported, “I'm feeling numb now. The cold is very, very deep and in it is a numbness.” Her right hand reached up to cover her eyes and it began to shake. “This must be what a seizure is like.”

I noticed that it was her right arm she used, the side usually associated with the masculine side of self. “It's okay,” I said, “Let go deeper into the cold and numbness.”

With this, we entered into zone 5 of consciousness dynamics.

Zone 5: The Edges of Creation

The fifth zone or level of consciousness dynamics is a surreal zone of shifting energy patterns beyond ordinary sensation. It is a level of consciousness which on one side is connected to the self, the archetypal personal myth or primal holographic existential sensory self image (zone four) and on the other is connected to pure undifferentiated, unformed or chaotic consciousness field (zone six). It is the transitory zone in which archetypal principles (archetypal strange attractors) operate to form the reality of self and world; the level in which they draw pattern from infinite possibilities, chaos or implicate order and influence the forms of our personal perceptions of reality.

Zone 5 is a level of quantum reality, one in which the stuff of reality has not yet committed to being energy or matter, but somehow like light, is both and neither simultaneously. It is the level of the mind-body. It is the zone in which the wave fronts emerging from infinite possibility interact on one side to create the interference pattern that is the basis of our personal existential holograms. It is the cauldron in which the structures of self and universe are brewed. It is also the path to transforming our rigid dis-eased energy patterns into the flowing consciousness of health.

Another way to picture or understand this zone is as the realization of creative process acting on infinite potential, (the implicate order), to create structure. Termed this way, it hints at the notions of god as the creative force that brings form to the universe out of chaos or darkness. It also conforms to the notion that God is part of everything (a sparrow cannot fall without God knowing of it). Please notice that I say “brings” rather than “brought” since at this level the universe is in a constant process of creation and re-creation. In this sense it brings us to the realms of the spirit, the recognition of self as more than just body or mind, and connected to all creative process. This is the level at which the differences between the scientist and the priest waver and lose coherency. In this zone, the principles of science and spirituality merge, their differences lost in the wonders of creative process.

Here is where the notions from quantum reality, chaos theory and holographic theory discussed earlier interact to become realized in our personal being and its formation. It is the level of experiencing the very earliest forms of structure manifesting out of infinite probability or the implicate order. We are part of the universe and were formed in the same way all structure is initiated at the quantum level. We hold in our deepest sense of being, these fundamental dynamics that shape reality. We too arose from a quantum level and every atom in our body was formed at this level. In any part is also the whole, as holographic theory teaches. Here as noted the energy waves that come from the infinite potential interact to form the standing wave pattern that become our personal self and perceived structure.

It is at this level or zone that we join in the infinite dance of structure with chaos on the oceans of chaos and infinite complexity. It is the level at which the quantum shift occurs and at which changes at the most fundamental level of beingness can take place. It is the level at which the mind-body (particle-wave) ceases to be separate entities, but is the potential and beingness of both, and from which both manifest; the level at which by asking a particle question, we get a particle answer, or asking a wave question, we get a wave answer.

The notion that we can experience awareness and a sense of self or beingness at this level of reality is a somewhat novel and unorthodox notion in classical science. It is consistent with quantum theory, however, which postulates that consciousness exists even at the level of the electron or subatomic particle, perhaps even deeper. The novelty is that we can bring our awareness and/or intentionality to this level of consciousness dynamics. Yet, we have found ways to uncover the subconscious realms that Freud described, and the collective consciousness Jung noticed.

Shamans, Yogis, Buddhists, Taoists, Mystics and other practitioners of altering consciousness have been describing these consciousness dynamics based on their experiences for centuries. Many of their descriptions of these levels of reality are remarkably similar to the descriptions that the new sciences use to also describe reality at this level. To me the mystery is more, "Why has it taken science so long to accept our ability to subjectivly access to this level of our beingness?"

In early attempts to describe the CRP, it was noticed that when we reached the primal self-image (hologram) that held the dis-ease structure during journeys, (zone four) it led inevitably to an archetypal imagery that seemed to transcend the personal self, yet there was still an experience of beingness. These images were experienced on the edges or periphery of sensation but also seemed to go far beyond ordinary sensation. They led to a deeper state of self/not-self from which a healing transformation seemed to rise out of chaos to produce a new flowing and easeful primal self image.

An example is in our first journey with Jane (Part Two) when she emerged from the place of deep-frozen darkness to become the flowing essence of water, wavelike, boundless and safe. Her whole beingness and sense of self seemed to change with this experience. Her attitudes, behavior and somatic presentation changed from within, very fundamentally.

As more journeys were experienced, it became apparent that this sensory/pre-sensory imagery appeared regularly just beyond the dynamics/imagery of the illness and just beyond the primal existential sensory self-image. Although clients reported these dynamics with slight differences, and at first they all seemed chaotic or without any apparent structure, it was soon noticed that there was a commonality about them, a familiarity and similarity that resonated deeply within.

It was also noticed that these images or dynamics also appeared at many levels of reality organization in the outer world and in many forms of creative abstract artistry. In many ways they also resemble fractal images in both form and dynamics. It soon became apparent that they were indeed principals about which universal reality itself seemed to form.

This is the level of the interference patterns that underlies our personal existential hologram, (Personal Mythology), and it is experienced as shifting energy patterns of sensations and sub-sensations. When the mentored were invited to identify with these patterns, or to submit and yield to them, they inevitably led into chaotic or unformed consciousness (zone 6) wherein the quantum shift to healing process seemed to occur. It is critical that the mentored be “identified with” or in a state of  “being” the disease dynamics/imagery as they enter this zone. That is so that the self or “being” of the disease experiences the change.

This is an important difference between this process and other approaches.  As is true with Gestalt therapy, this whole process yoo is one of being and becoming rather than of doing or fixing. It is more consistent with the Taoist principle of accomplishment without doing. I propose that the best way to change our being is through experiencing its beingness change, and that is a sensory matter.

Chaos theory too describes this phenomenon with a concept known as the attractor.  These are force or energy systems which, when near a complex or chaotic system, attract form or structure out of complexity and limit the form and boundaries of the resultant structures. For example, considering this model, the attractor about which our behavior forms (zone 1) is the thinking-emotional pattern or dance (zone 2). It limits and shapes our behavior out of the infinity of behaviors possible in any situation.

In turn the attractor that limits and shapes our thinking-emotional dance out of the infinity of possibilities is the structure of our belief systems (zone 3). And our belief systems are in turn influenced and shaped by the personal myth or primal existential self image (zone 4) which acts as a attractor for that. Each level is influenced by a deeper structure that acts as an attractor, shaping and limiting us out of the infinite possibilities. All these illustrate how the attractor shapes us, but the function in this fifth zone of consciousness dynamics transcends the personal and seems to be even more fundamental and to draw on “archetypal” principles or attractors.

The images encountered in the journeys at this level lead into chaotic or undifferentiated consciousness field, (zone 6) as well as out of it. Indeed they seem to be archetypal in that they reflect fundamental principals of reality formation and produce forms and sensations with which we are all familiar at all levels of reality. (Remember that the base of Einstein’s relativity theory rested on our sensing of reality).

For example, one of the commonly encountered forms at the root of a disease is that of a vortex, or whirlpool, or a rotating funnel narrowing into a point. As those on journeys yield into this form or become it, inevitably they report feelings of dissolution or being torn and rendered into uncountable small pieces, a chaotic sensation of disbursement or spinning out of control. Going into this plethora of particles or loss of control they find within it, or perhaps beyond it, a freedom or flow which is ease-full and full of life. They experience at sensory and sub-sensory levels the healing dissolution and transformation of the disease-full image and frozen energy into a dynamic and healthful flow.

This vortex or spiral form appears at all levels of reality and seems to inevitably exist on the edges of chaos or at the beginnings of structure. For example, if the theory of the big bang that created the known universe is true, early conditions in that plasma like sea of undefined stuff were chaotic or complex beyond measure. Yet out of that arose the structure and form of the galaxies that make up the universe. Almost all galaxies have a spiral or vortex like shape, and it is postulated that those, which don't, have collided with or passed through other galaxies and the mutual gravity attraction has modified their shapes.

On the edges of whitewater in a river, between slow orderly laminar flow and chaotic conditions of the rapids, water making that transition forms vortices or whirlpools. The molecule that is first present in our organism, the one that tells the random chemicals and cells how to form the living organism that we become is a double helix or double spiral in shape. On the edges of chaotic atmospheric conditions are the hurricanes and twisters that are spiral or vortex in shape. Indeed, perusal of the satellite pictures of our atmosphere seen on the nightly weather will show clouds assuming vast spiral forms as storms come in off the waters of the oceans. They also appear in the clouds covering the land-masses.

This form is usually subjectively experienced during the journey process as images of a vortex, a funnel or as sensations of swirling and rotating often accompanied by dizziness and being pulled down. Beyond being a mere strange attractor, the vortex form seems to be archetypal in nature. It is such a basic consciousness form that it is universal and indeed seems to influence the shape of the universe. Thus we have labeled it as one of the “archetypal strange attractors.” Often as I have listened to and shared the imagery of this level, it has reminded me of a holographic negative, except one in dynamic motion. Energy waves of consciousness emerging from nothingness, interacting to create dancing standing wave patterns. The holograph of reality It is not the only archetypal attractor, however.

There have been about a dozen of these archetypal sensory patterns identified and operating in this zone of consciousness. Not all are visual, but all lead into chaotic consciousness (zone 6) which will be discussed later. A partial listing of these dynamic systems follows.

[Pictures here of satelite weather photos and a holographic negative.]

Another of the archetypal strange attractor encountered on this level is an intense blackness, described as blacker than any blackness ever before encountered. It seems to draw all energy into it, to be a bottomless pit. Nothing escapes from its attraction. It was encountered with Jane in the first journey as the black place of absolute zero. Yet when one becomes it or yields into it, a new perception, a new personal universe is found. This phenomenon also appears on other levels of our reality.

For example, astrophysics postulates that such phenomena exist in our universe and are known as singularities or black holes. One of the thoughts about astronomy's black holes is that they represent doorways into other universes, sucking light and energy from this one to create a new one on its other side. This is what the experience of the black hole is like in the journey. Energy is sucked as the disease consciousness structure goes into the blackness and emerges as new healed and flowing consciousness, a new perceived universe on the other side.

The sensation of stickiness is another experience of archetypal attractors in this zone. It is experienced in many ways from a drawing and attraction like a magnetic pull to being adhered or stuck in a sticky substance. This archetypal attractor seems to represent the fundamental principle of attraction in the space time continuum. It manifests at all levels from the attractive forces holding together atoms and molecules to the attraction that people feel towards one another.

Newtonian science has divided all these forms of attraction into its own categories such as gravitational forces, weak and strong forces, electromagnetic attractive forces (magnetism) etc. It has not addressed such attraction on the personal and subjective level; say towards a particular person of the opposite (or same) sex or a food or substance. This is labeled addiction when it is overwhelming.  Such subjectivity is not permitted in classical science. The opposing sensations of being repulsed or pushed away are also encoutered, a negative attraction, the other side of the coin. Sometimes this is experienced in journeys as floating near an image, but unable to approach.

We propose the argument that the principles of attraction ang repulsion are universal. They are fundamental dynamics of reality at all levels, one of the basic principles shaping reality.  The categorizations of the principle of attraction in classical science are merely a means of reductionism as is characteristic in the Newtonian model of reality. The universality and interrelationship of all attractions as a fundamental principle of reality is much more in keeping with the views of new science.  Similar comments are implied about the following examples of other archetypal strange attractors encountered during journeys. They all are found in this zone of consciousness dynamics and all lead into chaotic consciousness and transformations.

The sensation of folding in on oneself and the opposite of turning inside out are two other relatively commonly encountered sensations at this level. This represents the boundary described in David Bohm's concept of what happens the edge of the implicate order, the edges of quantum reality. His notion is that structures are enfolded to disappear into the implicate order or unfold from it to create the structures of reality we experience. It is his notion of the quantum shift. We also have an archetypal picture of a snake eating its own tail. On a more superficial level we might subjectively experience the sense of folding in on one's-self in a moment of embarrassment or when insulted.

Another, commonly encountered dynamic at this level is a feeling of slickness, slipperiness or velocity. In these instances there is the sensation of speed or slipping, for example having the rug pulled out from beneath one. It is an experience of being out of control or perhaps in chaos but leads one into a new sense of reality. This attractor underlies the universal principle of motion. Another is the sense of weight and density, which underlies the principle of mass or matter.

Still another is the sense of falling which goes on and on and represents the principle of depth and height or space, and perhaps refers also to infinity. Another is the sense of vibration, shaking, or wave like undulation, which underlies the principle of waves and energy forms of all types. It also represents the principle of polarity and opposites. Another is a sensation of tearing or ripping, representing the principle of separation or division. Others are the feeling or sense of fire, burning and intense heat, and its opposite the sense of deep and intense coldness. All these represent fundamental principles by which reality is organized.

They are in keeping with the implications noted earlier from Einstein's development of relativity theory, and also from quantum theory that senses or the observer are integral factors to the existence and formation of reality. We observe through our senses. The case has been presented above that many of the fundamental principles that can account for the formation and operation of reality can be experienced internally as sensory impressions. The observer (sensor) determines whether light manifests as particles or energy waves. We suggest that one interpretation that follows from this data is that as an observer or by sensing and bringing awareness to this level of our consciousness, we can alter our energy and matter configurations.

This is what appears to be the case in the CRP. When the mentored yields to or becomes any of these archetypal, attractor, sensory images, they transform through an experience of chaos and into a new reality or perception of self and universe, most often one of flow, freedom, peace and oneness. There are feelings of belonging, coming home and connectedness. These become the new attractors that lead to the formation of a new self, to self-healing

These notions also suggest that in our earliest formative conditions, while our structures of body and mind are still forming and flexible and while we are in our “initial conditions”, these archetypal attractors are operating to form our existential hologram. They shape our perceptions of reality. They create our personal structures of self and reality out of consciousness field (chaotic consciousness).

The attractors themselves are neutral, but our complex organism, in its quest to develop a sense of self and the world and a survival mechanism to deal with it, attaches charges to them. We tend to more incorporate the experiences that have threatened our survival and well being to form the basis of our survival coping skills. This allows us to automatically be able to identify and deal with similar threats in the future.

These experiences may also come in the form of REM co-consciousness shared with our parents while we are in utero, as our parents deal with and process the threats to their well being in life and during their REM sleep. Recall that the highest complexity or most chaotic neural dynamics are measured in the brain while in REM, and the attractors work on the edge of that complexity to form the existential hologram or primal sensory self image. Incorporated into it are the experiences that shaped it. In turn, this shapes our perceptions. For example, recall Mary, the woman who was beaten by her uncle, the tall skinny bearded uncle, and how this affected her perceptions of her new tall, skinny, bearded boss years later.

This forming all occurs during an “altered consciousness” state, for example, when we are on the edge of or perhaps in REM. Although I haven't personally encountered any research in this area, I suspect that when we are in a threatened position, when the adrenaline is released and flowing, our brains are also operating in a very complex fashion. Subjective reports of things slowing down and senses becoming sharper certainly hint at this.

If this complexity is true then we are forming new neural pathways during the experience, and later re-enforcing these in our dreams, adding to our existential hologram. This is perhaps why we so often relive horrific or particularly intense experiences in our dreams, to re-enforce our abilities to perceive and recognize them and any possible threat without having to think about it. To be able to go onto automatic pilot and deal with it.

This leads to further speculation about many of the common events we all share as we become a being and how they help shape our perceptions.  For example, consider the moments of our conception.  One of the most intense moments of altered consciousness we have is the experience of an orgasm, and likely mother and father are in or near that experience while we're being conceived. The hormones are vibrating and flushing the body, and every cell is involved, including the egg and the sperm. In this time, in this complexity, are incorporated their attitudes towards each other and the world in general and this in turn is incorporated into the egg and sperm when they meet and begin mitosis.

These consciousness dynamics are present and help form the fetus from its very earliest moments. It is not too large a step to speculate that they have effect on which half of Mom's genes and which half of Dad's are selected. Einstein refused to believe in a random universe and I share this view. Chaos theory shows that there is no real randomness, instead there is complexity at the root of all things and events, complexity, which has within it order. We start life as a being with this consciousness structure as fundamental. It is the consciousness associated with the first forming of our organism.

Subsequent experience builds on this fundamental structure, shaping our body, brain and consciousness in the womb, incorporating parental experiences through REM as a fetus and child, incorporating all this with our birth experience which is also shaped by the consciousness structures present in parents, baby and those in attendance. It continues through separation or weaning, toilet training, puberty and every other significant change or developmental step in our lives. (Chaos is the mechanism of change). All are shaped by and contribute to our understanding of world and self. As with the chicken or the egg conundrum, it is not cause and effect but a case of interrelationship.

It is at this level of being that all self-structure is formed. Awareness of this level is not available to us through what we normally call memory, (intellectual memory), but can be reached through accessing the sensory and sub-sensory consciousness structures, which are stored in us and shape us at all levels from neural pathways and cells to personality. This, too, is a form of memory but much more profound and it is best accomplished in the complex consciousness dynamics in which it was formed, REM. In actuality, it is not really recall or memory at all, but a real time phenomenon.  This is the zone where deep natural healing and body-mind restructuring begins.

Rebecca, as she experienced intense shaking from the coldness, was encountering two of these Archetypal Strange Attractors, working in concert, coldness and vibration. Attached to these was the intense pain that had shaped her. Cold and wetness exacerbated her fibromyalgia symptoms, cold weather or coldness from her husband and his mood swings also did so. I invited her to explore them deeply.

After a few moments of exploring the sensations of the coldness she said, “It's like there is an electricity in it.”

“That's fine. Stay with it. Let the electricity take over,” I suggested. “I think you're experiencing and working with your nervous system. There's something happening in your nervous system.” I offered, attempting to help her accept these strange sensations. “Let the electricity do what it wants to do. Yield to it.”

The shaking became very intense but she wasn't reporting any pain or discomfort at this point. Rick, her husband was having trouble. I noticed as he sat watching Rebecca that his head was bowed with his hands pressing his brow. I sensed she was also reflecting back to him his levels of their shared dis-ease.

Rebecca was in the meanwhile shaking even more intensely. “Let go,” I invited her, “Deeper into the shaking and coldness, as deeply as you can.”

As this continued the shaking became more and more sporadic. There were times when there was stillness and eventually she was lying very still. “What do you notice or experience now,” I asked.

“There is a numbness that has taken me over, a nothingness” she replied, and with this I knew that we had entered into zone six.

Zone Six: Chaotic Consciousness

Zone six is entirely transpersonal. It is a pure undifferentiated consciousness field. It is consciousness unstructured and complex, the potential of all possible consciousness structures and the realization of none. It is implicate consciousness, the equivalent of David Bohm's implicate order applied to consciousness field.  This consciousness field extends throughout all known space and time, and is part of every form of energy and matter that exists, indeed is the stuff from which all forms arise. It is a vast ocean of consciousness on which individual waves appear and recede.  It is the dreams from which stuff is made, a fundamental ground state of reality. It is alive, more than alive, it is the very essence and spirit of all beings.

Am I talking about god or am I speaking of a scientific principle? The scientist and mystic meet here and find they are one and the same.

The first glimmerings that the healing state encountered deep in the journeys was a state of chaos came from a serendipitous event. One of my client-students asked me one wintry January day in 1990 to define in more detail this mysterious state of consciousness that she had been entering during her journeys with me, and which seemed to transform her dis-ease states. Perplexed, because this was the very question I myself had been wrestling with for so long,

I retorted, “I don't know, it's all too damned chaotic to tell.”

She returned the next day with a copy of Omni magazine, which she presented, to me. She told me that it had been in her mailbox when she returned home from her session with me, and when she saw the cover story, it had echoed my words. The title was “The Role of Chaos in the Brain” and was about a neurologist-mathematician named Paul Rapp who was studying this. I read the article with great interest.

Many things from it applied to the process I was studying, but one in particular caused many of my collected observations to fall into place. Rapp reported on experiments that he had performed measuring brain waves while people were involved in problem solving. He implied that with simple problems, those requiring the application of past data such as the sum of two simple numbers, the neural firing patterns in the brain became linear and ordered. However with complex problems requiring new perceptions or ways of processing, the brain became more complex and chaotic, and when it returned to more linearity the answer was there in awareness. Form emerging from chaos.

I contemplated what the subjective experience of chaotic or complex firing patterns in the brain would be. One answer was that since a specific firing pattern represents a thought, emotion or image, the lack of any specific firing patterns would in all probability be a blank mind. This is much sought after as a state in meditation.  It also described the imagery some of my clients were experiencing during this process and in this zone. They reported a blank whiteness, a deep  blackness, or some pure color.

They also often reported going into a place of absolute emptiness, the absence of any images or sensations of any type, for example, the numbness as reported by Rebecca. I too was personally familiar with this from past experiences in some of the shamanic states I had attained.  In the first mentored journey, Jane's transformation had taken place in absolute zero, the absence of any motion, movement or sensation, the absence of any structure.

Another possibility for the subjective experience of chaos in the brain that occurred to me was the experience of confusing over stimulation by many images without order or form. I had also experienced this and too my clients often reported this in journeys. For example, one had described going to a space where there were millions of randomly flashing and moving lights of all possible colors and hues. She blended with them into a space of great peace and feeling very powerful. “I am a goddess,” she cried.

When she woke up the next morning she called me and claimed that she had grown an inch and a half from her spine straightening out. (One of her presenting problems had been scoliosis, a curved spine). Later the same day she reported that she had resolved a long-standing and serious conflict with a co-worker. All this she associated with her Journey. I lost contact with her because shortly following this experience, she returned to graduate school in a distant city,  but the short term effects she reported were certainly dramatic.

My own experience of this space, and one shared by many clients, was of coming back from a sense of being “everything that ever was, that ever would be and that was now.” All these experiences could be explained in part by chaotic or extremely complex neural firings. The term chaotic or unstructured consciousness was adopted to describe what underlay these neural consciousness dynamics.

This explanation also corresponded to my personal creative problem solving technique. Emptying my mind after contemplating a difficult problem, soon a solution would literally pop into it that was usually creative and involved a new perspective of the problem, seeing it from a different angle. Although I was not aware of it at the time, that was also what happened when I solved difficult problems in my dreams.

I would enter into REM or chaotic consciousness, (the highest complexity or dimensionality in the brain is measured in REM), and my perceptions would reorganize themselves in this chaos to present me with the solution. This was what the mentored were doing. To solve their problem, we would journey to a level of chaotic or unformed consciousness, and in that state they would reorganize their existential perceptions, their sense of self and world.

Chaos theory also explained how new forms or orders of self could emerge from this confusing or empty space of mind. This is a fundamental characteristic of chaos or complexity, it holds hidden or implicate order in its seeming randomness. I was noticing this take place in journey after journey. I had not been exposed to David Bohm at that time, but in the psychological and physiological equivalents to his work in physics, I determined that this dipping into complexity or implicate order was what happened in the quantum like shift of consciousness structures observed during CRP journeys.

Many notions have been added since these early realizations. Chaotic or complex consciousness is the ground state from which our truly creative moments and insights spring. The journey process is one in which healing is literally created from inner processes, much like the placebo or spontaneous remission healing processes.

A philosophy of reality, and of healing and disease process emerged, which has been named Chaosophy.  It will be outlined in a later publication. Even the foundations of my original profession of chemist became pertinent. The alchemists (prior to chemistry as a Newtonian form of the science) were searching for the plenum or ground state in which matter could be transformed, a universal solvent in which one substance could be completely dissolved, stripped of its integrity and reformed into another.

For example, the notion of lead being transmuted into gold is the way most people have been exposed to alchemy. It was a matter of consciousness to the alchemists whose view of reality was far more akin to native American philosophy, that is: all substances have an essence of life force that define them and their properties. By working with this consciousness or life force, lead could be transmuted into gold.

Rebecca was experiencing these dynamics deep under the electricity and shaking. It was a numbness and nothingness that could only be this state of chaotic consciousness.

“Allow it,” I invited, “Let go deep into the nothingness and numbness and just notice what you experience there, what evolves”

I noticed that she seemed to relax even more and after some time I prompted her and asked what she was experiencing. With an almost smile on her face she reported a “deep, deep stillness andpeacefulness.” And as she described this state her body seemed to become much softer and more flexible. Others in the group that night also reported seeing this softening.

Her arms dropped by her side and she began describing a profound feeling of  peace and ease deep in her abdomen. “It is also in my heart, a warmth that seems to be melting me into a flowing stream of ...” she trailed off. Her face began to relax even more.

“This is a very healing place for you to be,” I observed. “Stay with it and let it continue to affect you. Let it integrate with your cells, with your nervous system,” I invited. “It is you now, deep inside, your core being. Stay with it as long as you need and when you're ready to bring this sense of self back with you, you will just notice your eyes opening.”

The smile on her lips now manifested fully. After about five or ten minutes she spoke up. “I'm back,” she said, “but my eyes don't want to open yet.”

Re-entry

Re-entry the part of the process in which the mentor and the mentored dialogue to find a context for the journey. Briefly it helps the mentored to bring back into waking consciousness the transformational experience they have had by talking about it. As well it invites discussion of and an understanding of some of the symbols and experiences in the journey. It is an opportunity to put these into the context of their past experiences, to see how this has affected their present and to speculate on how to integrate the changed perceptions of self into their future. It is an opportunity to involve the awake consciousness-state, the ego mind, to participate in the process, and for the mentor to share any insights or intuitions that might be helpful.  In group-work, it also provides a forum for feedback and support by other group members.

What was discussed with Rebecca was the trapped feeling, the locked up feeling, which we encountered in the iron cage and as the locked up gorilla. It was suggested that this may be in part responsible for the locked up feeling in her spine of the fibromyalgia symptoms. We also discussed the intense rage she encountered. It was my suggestion that perhaps the tightening up of all her muscles to keep this rage trapped was also an important contributor to her condition. It restricted blood and oxygen flow to the muscles and probably caused the cramping that was felt as pain.

She agreed with this assessment and added that some time during previous therapies she had attended a weeklong anger management workshop and had actually cleared out the room with her anger. It hadn't helped her resolve much but did illustrate to her the enormity of the rage she held inside. She felt that this journey experience had reached deep enough inside that it might be resolving now.

I noted that we had engaged the neural circuitry that held the rage, and that it had released with the intense shaking and the electrical discharge sensations she had encountered. She agreed with this and added that it seemed to have become a flow rather than a locked up thing and the release seemed to have affected her entire nervous system. We then discussed the numbness that was beneath all the shaking and that in my mind was the chaotic consciousness that had allowed the transformation.

We went on to discuss some of the psychological aspects of her journey, and in particular the issues of her husband-father projections, and the affect that her father's leaving had produced in her. We noted that her yearning for freedom and its suppression had setup the tension in her life that was manifested in both her physical condition (the fibromyalgia) and her tension with her husband. She had represented this on the surface of the dream in the symbol of her past boyfriend. Also mentioned was the form her resistance had taken and how it too was another manifestation of her disease. We also discussed the heat and burning encountered and how it may relate to her night sweats.

Other group members gave her their feedback and support for the change that had occurred. I finally suggested that the change had already happened in real time, and that she now notice any further changes in behavior, attitudes, physical symptoms and perceptions that might occur.

Follow-up

This journey happened about a two years ago and we have had that much time to assess the changes. We have seen her twice monthly during this time for a variety of issues in family therapy and couples sessions with her husband as well as some other personal issues. So we have had continuous access to her for follow-up.

Rebecca's Report Two Weeks:

She reported changes in all aspects of her life. On the physical side she felt her fibromyalgia was changing. She described it as “I feel the pain but I have a different relationship with it, it is not part of me. It is no longer as severe or debilitating.” She had not had any night sweats since the journey. Her relationship with her husband was also changing. She felt that she could leave him if he is harmful to her being, no longer feeling trapped. Taking turns being home with the kid flowed; usually pain compels her to strike out but no such impulses occurred during the past two weeks.

Flu had been rampaging through her family for the past week.  She, with autoimmune disease, should be the one sick, yet she did not catch flu. She dealt with the stress of her kids and husband being sick, without ruffle.

She noticed at work: she was not willing to stay in the same department working with a group of, in her mind,  obnoxious people.  She requested a transfer. She was scheduled to give a prepared speech to a group of 500 professionals.  She decided an hour ahead that her planned speech wouldn't work and redid it.  She gave the new speech without self-consciousness or fear; felt comfortable on stage with professionals.  Figured that via the journey she had died, had dealt with hearing a man's voice coming from her mouth rather than her own, so it was no big deal being on stage. Previously she had suffered severe stage fright in similar situations and would never have made last minute changes in a prepared speech, let alone changed it completely.

Her demeanor was of confidence, excitement and calmness.

Rebecca's report Week Three

She is the one with the autoimmune disease, she is the only one not getting the flu.  The children are often in bed with her. She spends a lot of time with them and she isn't getting it.  Even her Mother got it after baby sitting for only a few hours.

It is just as crazy as ever at work.  The team comes up with work plans.  Usually she begins the objections getting vehement and upset at their stupidities.  This time she is quiet.  They look at her asking for her response, expecting the usual contradictions.  She doesn't give them.  She recognizes that they are on their perpetual destructive path, (complaining rather than doing - she looks for and wants to execute solutions), but she is not wanting to get into the drama.  She is hoping rather that they will learn from her attitude and state of mind.  If they do, okay.  If they don't, okay.  She is no longer pouncing.

She remains centered in spite of storms around her.

Her son has been tested and proven to have a learning disability.  She went for a walk, cried a little, came back to simply take the steps necessary to deal effectively with the situation

She expressed desire to go further with the anger issue.  The last journey powerfully addressed it and now she realizes she can possibly dissolve a life-time pattern in an hour journey. (I balked at this some; saw it as part of her "pushing herself" problem and noted it as part of her pattern to be tracked and perhaps worked further.)

She compared her past psychotherapy with the CRP journeywork. The former leaves one feeling better for a week or so and then all the problems and crisis one somehow creates, creep back.  She doesn't want to live from crisis to crisis anymore.  She states that in her experience, in a short time the CRP goes to much deeper levels and evolves rather than regresses with time.

One Month Plus

She is experiencing the re-occurrence of some of her symptoms. After questioning, it becomes apparent that the systems around her, (family and work), have a vested interest in her remaining the same as she was. So on an unconscious level they are upping the ante or level of the games to entrap her again. After discussing this with her she sees how the pattern is working.  She declines to become involved and at the next check in she reports that she is once again in remission and she is not playing into the invitations. She notes that even though in the past she could sometimes see the traps, she was helpless to avoid them. It was like an ingrained habit from which she is now free; no compulsion.

Over the next year she and her husband engaged in family therapy along with their individual work. During this time her fibromyalgia has remained in remission and the psychological changes she reported have held. There have been ups and downs but clearly no major return to her past levels of illness. In fact, one year after the above journey she feels that fibromyalgia is no longer in her life. She recently filled out some forms asking for her medical history and reported feeling angry that she even had to report on this past condition. “It no longer defines me.” She said.

She has sought out and been promoted at work, a situation she would not have considered previously. There are still some serious issues not dealt with such as her recurring migraines, but family issues have taken up most of our bimonthly sessions. She has had one journey of similar depth since, about another issue with similar results in that area.

Two year report:

She still reports being mostly free of pain and other fibromyalia symptoms; feels it is a blessing. Experienced some recurrence after quitting her job, finding a new one and moving to another city in less than a month. I note this as further indication of how much and without her awareness she pushes herself. This will probably be our next issue.

The above is typical of journey's and their results. This one was selected because it illustrates clearly the different zones or levels of consciousness dynamics. It also clearly demonstrates the connections or inter-relatedness of physical and emotional symptoms. Since fibromyalgia seems to be such a mysterious and crippling disease, the following supplemental information is offered about others who have experienced remission through the CRP.