Traumatic memories of a sperm cell
[A personal experience of deep psychotherapy session with
the psychedelic drug ketamine hydrochloride]
Constantine A. Kafkalides MD ⃰
Key words: Psychedelic drugs. Ketamine hydrochloride. Cellular memory. Cellular consciousness. Albert Hofmann. Frank Lake. Stanislav Grof. Athanassios Kafkalides. Thomas Verny. Graham Farrant.
The term “psychedelic” was used for the first time by the psychotherapist Humphrey Osmond in1957. That is derived by the Greek words psyche=soul and delo=manifest and If you look at the internet, you get the following definition: A psychedelic substance is a psychoactive drug, whose primary action is to alter cognition and perception, typically by agonizing serotonin receptors. Psychedelics are part of a wider class of psychoactive drugs known as hallucinogens.
Through the ages of human existence, contact and use of psychedelic plants, was inevitable, since they were part of nature. We assume that in the beginning they were taken accidentally, when man was in search of his nutrition and later in order to experience something beyond every day life, as a deep spiritual experience.
In ancient societies the role of leader in this effort was played by the shamans. The shamans were the healers of body and soul. Somehow acting in a pre-rational science. With the help of psychedelic plants (like ayahusca, mescaline, peyote and others) they led the subjects undergoing healing, to a new kind of ecstatic experience during which the boundaries between the subject and the environment were repealed.
Among other cultures using psychedelic drugs were the ancient Greeks. The Eleusinian mysteries were the sacred centre of an initiation which was induced through the help of Warren a kind of psychedelic drug. According to Albert Hoffmann, Warren seem to be similar to the famous LSD-25, a toxin, produced from grain contaminated by a fungus named “Claviceps purpurea” well known in Ancient Greece.
When the properties, related to the reactivation of memory of the famous drugs LSD-25 and Psilocybin (composed by Dr Albert Hoffmann) became known to the Psychiatric world, the approach to the unconscious seemed to be possible. Their basic capacity to activate human memory seemed to be a powerful factor in psychotherapy.
____________________________________________________
⃰ Former head of aeromedical section at Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority. First degree in electrical/mechanical engineering. Syrou 9, Glyfada 16674, Athens, Greece. Tel 00302108940579. Mob. 00306972097960. Email: konstantinoskafkalidis@gmail.com
1 Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution. Bantam Books,
New York, 1992. Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann, Plants of the Gods. Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Healing Arts Press Rochester, Vermont, 1992.
2 R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl A.P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis – Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. Harvourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York & London, 1978.
3 Athanassios Kafkalides M.D, Intra – Uterine Security: the Cause of the Oedipus & Electra Complexes in Two Cases Treated with lsd-25. Communiqué at the VI International Congress of Psychotherapy, Wiesbaden, Germany 1967.Causes Of Sexual Conflicts-Effectson Behaviour. Open communication at the VII
Many psychiatrists around the world started using the drug, in the 50s and 60s, but without following any specific methodology, so the majority were soon disappointed abandoning their researches, except very few ones, among them Frank Lake, Stanislav Groff , Athanassios Kafkalides, each one of them developing his own methodology.
The findings of these researches, related, serious psychiatric disorders of adult patients, like depression, neurosis, and psychosomatic reactions, to traumatic intrauterine conditions. These patients, relived emotions, caused by stimuli emanating from the maternal body, during their intrauterine life, emotional stimuli, which set into question the existence of the persons themselves (unwanted/ rejected) or in some cases, opposed the identity of their own gender (rejected for their sex).
Regarding the process of a deep psychotherapy session, I would like to point out the following.
Before a subject undergoes to deep psychotherapy with Psychedelic drugs, a profound trust must be established between the subject and the assistant. Preparation for sessions with Ketalar begins with a questionnaire on the case’s history to which he/she responded in written form. This is followed by two free communication sessions during which the case is informed of the causes of resistance which would very likely occur during and in between the Ketalar sessions, thereby inhibiting the process of the sessions and thwarting emotional-intellectual realizations regarding the content of the unconscious and the motives of behavior.
The selection of cases for a deep session of autopsychognosia with Ketamine is made on the basis of the following criteria:
- The absence of permanent schizoid behavior, bipolar disturbance or psychotic one.
- A certain sensitivity in communicating with their fellow man and with their environment in general.
The following are mandatory conditions and restrictions:
- The assistant must have has his own experience in deep psychotherapy sessions with psychedelic drugs and be able to lead the patient with the appropriate questions to profound states.
- Minimum interference during the session, on behalf of the assistant.
- The patient must not be hypertensive ( ketamine hydrochloride increases blood
pressure)
- The session is undergone in a sound proof room, barely lighted.
- The whole session must be recorded, in order to be heard afterwards several times, by the patient.
- Ketamine hydrochloride is administrated in subanesthetic doses, 0.8-1.5 mg per kg
________________________________________
Panhellenic Congress of Neurologists and Psychiatrists, Athens 1975. The Effects of Emotional Disturbances in the Pregnant Woman on the Developing Fetus. Paper presented at the International Congress of Preventive Psychiatry, Athens 1979.
4 I was fortunate to have Dr Athanassios Kafkalides as a father and as a tutor and I have assisted with him in dozens of similar sessions, for other patients.
5Athanassios Kafkalides M.D, The Knowledge Of The Womb, Autopsychognosia With Psychedelic Drugs, Authorhouse, USA, 2005
6 Athanassios Kafkalides, Autopsychognosia, Odysseas Editions, 1989
7 Athanassios Kafkalides, The Knowledge of the Womb, 2005
- of body weight, injected intramuscularly and the submitted is not allergic to the substance.
- The patient must be with empty stomach to avoid lung intake in case of vomiting.
Last meal taken 6-8 hours before the session.
My aim is to point out to psychiatrists the extreme importance of the deep psychotherapy sessions with ketamine hydrochloride for the following reasons:
1. The duration of a session which does not exceed 2 hours (compared to LSD 12-16
hours)
2. the profound approach of the unconscious
3. and mainly the fast way of reviling repressed emotions and the content of the
Unconscious.
“Autopsychognosia” it’s a methodology that can be implemented under the supervision of the state which will provide the drug, psychiatric assessment and assistance, and offering the appropriate room within general hospitals.
It is important to mention that before 1992 Ketamine hydrochloride (a general anesthetic used in surgery by the name of Ketalar by Park Davis) was available in Greece with out any restriction. As you would probably know, all research programs with psychedelic substances have been suspended for decades due to the image of psychedelics, severely damaged by the 1960s drug culture, which explains the current lack of knowledge among psychiatrists. Today, though, the academic circles are returning to psychedelic research. There are now at least eight U.S. universities returning to psychedelic projects. It’s Harvard, it’s UCLA, Johns Hopkins, it’s UCSF, NYU, SUNY, the University of Arizona and Stanford University – they all have projects. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy has been in progress at Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute, St.-Petersburg, Russia.
⃰
In this presentation you will witness, for the first time in public hearing, the content of a deep psychotherapy session with the psychedelic drug Ketamine hydrochloride, based upon the methodology of Dr Athanassios Kafkalides, the so called “Autopsycho- gnosia”. (the term comes from auto=self, psyche=soul and gnosis =knowledge). Autopsychognosia with psychedelic drugs is a process where traces of memory and repressed emotions are reactivated from the unconscious.
_________________________________
8 Can psychedelics have a role in psychiatry once again? The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2005 Jun; 186:457-8.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15928353] Jansen, Karl L.R., Ph.D., Ketamine: Dreams and Realities, 2004 Ben Sessa, The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society. Muswell Hill Press, 2012
9 MAPS, http://www.maps.org/
10 Krupitsky EM, Grinenko AY, Ketamine psychedelic therapy (KPT): a review of the results of ten years of research. Journal of psychoactive drugs, 1997 Apr-Jun;29(2):165-83.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9250944]
11 Athanassios Kafkalides M.D, What is A Pharmaceutical Autopsychognosia Session? in The Power of the Womb and
the Subjective Truth, Triklino House, 1987 (ISBN 960-7624-14-9)
That session was undergone 25 years ago, with the assistance of a young physician Dimitri R. who unfortunately two years later was killed in a motorcycle accident. At that time I was in a state of an emotional rejection by a loved one, combined with my monotonous and lifeless engineering duties.
The specific session, took me further back in time reactivating what I will call cellular memory. It is my very personal testimony where I relived a traumatic experience at pre-conception stage, a pre- conception rejection, due to my mother’s fear about being left pregnant risking her life, having already previously an almost deadly labour giving birth to my older brother. The information about my mother’s fears, at preconception stage, was disclosed to me after the session took place.
The session was recorded and lasted more than two hours. It will be heard in a concise form of 20 minutes, neglecting findings of secondary importance plus emotional and physical reactions long lasting, (cries, vomiting ). The hearing of the session is in Greek language, followed simultaneously by subtitles in English, with the exact translation of what is being heard, plus comments in brackets.
⃰
The Session
[ K: my self (Kostas) D: my assistant physician ( Dimitri). Everything in brackets are personal comments. Twenty minutes elapsed since 70mg of Ketamine Hydrochloride have been injected intramuscularly ]
K: Fear ! Oh…. Ah…I don’t know…what kind of a storm is this in my brain? A storm swipes out everything… Why such a deformation ? Why such a distortion (of reality in order to see the truth) ? …Why?. Ah… ah…There is something irrational in here…Faces everywhere! What is happening? What swept through my brain? Kostas… what is happening to you? (addressing to my self). Kostas you have nothing, absolutely nothing! You are alone…I am about to blow out my heart. The heart must always beat softly and in calmness not like
crazy. Something is happening to me!!!…
D: What is happening to you? Tell us…(Please notice the role of the assistant, the discretion of his interventions and the tone of his voice in order to lead the session as possible in a profound state without disturbing my trip way back in time )
K: Everything has been swept away…I feel….vibrations…and my palpitation why? …why palpitation? Why have I denied the truth so much? I have to break down those shells…they must break (the shells represent defense mechanisms and resistance to express repressed emotions) I don’t want much… I want just to play lightly…to fly like a little bird…I feel the heaviness of my body…my body lays heavy on me… my existence … lays heavy on me! Castles are falling down! Defense (mechanisms) is meaningless (Defenses and resistances are collapsing in front of the revelation of profound traumatic memories. Bursts of vomiting lasted for more than 2 minutes) I cannot continue defending myself any more. Oh God! Fading faces… I refuse to give them any shape… …the shape is J. (the initial of the woman from which I was rejected emotionally at that time).
D: What inhibits you from giving them shape? What other figures are present?
K: C! (another person) a bad face. J. and C. They both hurt me deeply. I have been hurt much Dimitri… I have been hurt toο much (The above faces seemed to be responsible for my psychic pain, disappear giving place to a deeper hidden truth). I don’t know what has happened? such a big mess…
D: Try to begin from somewhere, to clarify what has happened… to realize deeper…to see what has happened.
K: What has happened ? ..What has happened? But of course… this is what happened! …I am A SPERM CELL which moves IN INFINITY! This is the MOTION… this is the motion, the MOTION that has to be completed, the MOTION. the MOTION Dimitri, the MOTION can’t be stopped! (the motion towards the egg, obeying to the biological irreversible creative process of conception). THE MOTION CAN NEVER BE STOPPED! The MOTION is to penetrate… to penetrate into a body. There is no other meaning besides that…I am terrified…I can’t continue…
A lot of damage has happened in there! It is a big mess in there…fibers… foreign bodies…objects that obstruct the way… THE WAY TO THE LIGHT!
(given that the mother was under the state of panic of getting pregnant, the storm, expressed in different forms, is created by the maternal body in order to extinguish my existence as a sperm cell, obstructing the way to conception the way to life). Matter…matter holds me back!
D: What is generating the fear in there? Where you are?
K: Tissues, fibers, all jumbled up together on me, they choke me… they don’t let me function…Everything is concentrated in a sphere…Sea battles, guns, smoke coming out. I WANT SILENCE. I want a little golden box, to get in…to lock me up and stay there for ever…stay there for ever…(A state totally away from human conflicts. The little golden box excludes physical dimensions, maybe a divine condition beyond matter, beyond time and space…). That’s it, I have developed the conditioning of palpitation whenever I think of J. ( back to the recent emotional rejection from J.). Here comes the idea of my erected penis into her… and I feel sick…my penis is dominant, but in the same time it is so weak! (maternal emotional rejection, “castrates” , inhibiting mind and body both genders. The same is true with the maternal substitute if her behavior becomes rejective like in my case). Ah…Ah… Dimitri…the body of J. makes me feel sick! But I need it
D: Does she have any real connection with the little golden box?
K: They are identical!! (The body of J. is the means to reach that divine condition.)
D: Why do you need it?
K: In order to penetrate into there and give an end to my existence….
D: Is she the golden box you said earlier?
K: She who has given me life should take it back!
D: Into her body? Is there where you are going to meet with golden box?
(Dimitri’s question is ignored. Body of J. does not symbolize any more the golden box. Here we have self destructive thoughts, in order to satisfy the maternal wish, for intrauterine death).…
K: The same body which created me, the same body will destroy me…to make me vanish Ah, Dimitri…I am getting close to something extraordinary, but I don’t let it come out……I am afraid……..
D: But you have approached it…
K:There is something so rotten… but I doubt if I will endure to let it come out…
D: But you have approached it and doesn’t look so threatening…get closer to it…
K: The motion…THE MOTION OF THE SPERM CELL…(falling back to deeper state). ….I AM A SPERM CELL THAT FOLLOWS A (predetermined) COURSE!
D: Follow its motion…
K: I am moving my legs…because I am weak……I have nothing else to move… nothing else … only my legs, my lower limbs…( the flipping of the legs together, on the couch, can be heard clearly, it is the motion of the sperm cell…). I am trembling…I am shocked from the vibrations…vibrations are shaking all my body… TELL HER TO STOP IT! Stop that! …enough! …stop it…stop it… stop it…(full awareness that the storm emanates from the maternal body). Sickness … All my body is trembling, I am trembling Dimitri…I am trembling all over …(bursts of vomiting lasts more than a minute)..I AM A SPERM CELL THAT IS TREMBLING ALL OVER! IN A WOMB WHICH IS INCAPABLE (unworthy) TO ACCEPT IT! (a rejective womb). IT CANNOT FINALLY FIND PEACE IN THERE! (as a sperm cell in the maternal body). BECAUSE THIS WOMB IS SHAKING …IS SHAKING ALL OVER !! ….I AM THE GOOD SPERM CELL WHICH HAS BEEN EXPOSED IN THAT VICIOUS STORM, WHICH SWEEPS OUT EVERYTHING! ….I am still afraid, I feel tired… I feel tiny and unprotected. I feel tiny and weak…I AM LITTLE KOSTAKI ….(= little Kostas). KOSTAKI IS ALWAYS A SMALL CHILD…KOSTAKI IS ALWAYS A LITLE CHILD…THIS IS THE ROLE GIVEN TO ME, TO ALWAYS BE A LITTLE CHILD…do you perceive that…(For a lifetime I was dominated by this unconscious feeling of being rejected as sperm cell, accepting the role of being small and weak. It was triggered usually by emotional rejection from women turning me unhappy and making me loose my self confidence).
D: It is important that you know it…
K: THIS CHILD HAS BEEN EXHAUSTED… I AM TIRED OF BEING A CHILD, I AM TIRED…I AM TIRED OF SEEKING FOR ACCEPTANCE FROM WOMEN!
D: Does the storm of mind, the storm in the womb that received you as a sperm cell have any connection with this, ‘seeking for acceptance’? (Seeking for acceptance on behalf of women means seeking acceptance from the womb.).
K: Ah…Back to the motion … back to vomiting that lead’s me… back to that body…(back to the maternal body which rejects my existence)…I couldn’t stand anymore that sickness… I had to stop it…I couldn’t any more…I couldn’t…stand this rottenness…I couldn’t any more…Here comes again…Spirit get your freedom…spirit get liberated from all that…go away from all that…go away…
THROW UP all that …throw up all that, oh fuck…throw up all that… they are not yours! They are not yours! (This is the desire of the deeper self ,to be expressed, seeking for an existential identity. Throwing away any foreign traumatic memory stored against our will and against natural programming)...Ah Dimitri I am in a state of delight… as if…as if my whole body regresses into a warm condition…It’s warm in there, it’s warm…oh…God…(Delight and warmness it’s a reactivation of the feeling of the accepting womb. My body took unconsciously the position of the fetus, with a deep feeling of serenity… a serenity reflected on me from mother during my intrauterine life, after her decision, against the risk for her life, not to abort me as an embryo, falling her self, into a state of serenity.) …Oh God, I have been left hanging in mid-air…there is a sort of tension, an intellectual alertness. Something will occur, something MUST occur to differentiate things… A DOCK OF A BAY…A SHIP…A SHIP READY TO SAIL-AWAY…
D: A trip into knowledge!
K: A long journey my friend…My little heart is still beating…like crazy. ….I DO NOT WANT TO EXHAUST MY BODY ANY MORE… AWAY FROM ROTTENESS…AH…DIMITRI I WANT TO FEEL WARM AND CUDDLED…AND DO NOTHING…(the desire to return to the accepting womb). FACES ARE OF NO IMPORTANCE! I WANT TO LIVE FROM NOW ON WITHOUT PAIN,
DIMITRI…AND THE JOURNEY IS VERY LONG…
D: The fact that you have reached this realization is already a step away from pain.
(The above realizations had therapeutic results, taking me out of the dead end in which I was and leading me to very important decisions regarding my life, among which decisions one was to study medicine).
END OF SESSION
Is all that was brought up under the effect of the psychedelic drug, hallucinations? This is a very rational question. In fact all the above experience became a part of me, it is my possession, it is my truth.
After all, the outcome was a realization towards truth. My whole life has changed dramatically after this session.
As a conclusion I would like now to mention the following theoretical views concerning human memory made by five eminent psychotherapists.
Frank Lake, who used as well the abreactive agent LSD-25 stresses the importance on the first trimester following conception and the unbearable transmarginal pain experienced by the rejected fetus. He underlines that: “we must begin at conception, through the blastocystic stage, to implantation and the events of the first trimester. It is here, in the first three months or so in the womb, that we have encountered the origins of the main personality disorders and the psychosomatic stress conditions.”
Graham Farrant, through Primal therapy, he relived as an egg and his own conception. In his interview to Steven Raymond, he claims that : “when memories of conception were achieved, expressed, relived and integrated, and there followed by a dramatic, sudden and sustained change in personality, behaviour and interactive life experiences, it became convincing to me that the experiences relived in therapy must have had some basis in a concrete reality”.
Athanassios Kafkalides in his treatise “The Knowledge of the Womb – Autopsychognosia with Psychedelic drugs” writes: “I believe that the matter of which the human body is composed preserves the memory of its origin and evolution. The reactivation of this memory by LSD-25 transports a person back through the limitless past, creating in him levels of consciousness corresponding to various stages in the evolution of matter. The revival of the very distant past which may be brought about by psychedelic drugs (as seen in the example just mentioned) is the result of reactivation of a latent memory of matter, the matter from which originated all our ancestors on the zoological scale”
Thomas Verny in his paper “What cells remember; Toward A Unified Field Theory of Memory” refers to evidence from studies on genetics, epigenetics, organ transplants, immunology, unicellular organisms, planarian flat worms, nano computers and clinical psychology in support of the hypothesis that memory can also be stored in all the cells of the body, not just nerve cells. The relevance of this theory to pre- and perinatal psychology is explored…
Stanislav Grof , a pioneer in the field of LSD psychotherapy, believes that biological birth is the most profound trauma of our life It is recorded in our memory in miniscule details down to the cellular level and it has profound effect on our psychological development.