Conclusions

By David B. Chamberlain

  • I think we have been hampered in understanding memory by preoccupation with the physical parameters of the brain. This approach has long delayed the discovery of the true capabilities of newborn and unborn babies.

  • For most of a century, birth memories have been called "fantasies" and prenatal memories "impossible". Actually, it was these boundaries of memory set by physiology and neuroscience that were fantasies.

  • Neuroscience is not likely to contribute much to psychology, or psychology much to neuroscience, as long as brain continues to be confused with mind. Brain studies do not tell us about extended realms of consciousness.

  • I disagree with the belief expressed by Mishkin and Appenzeller that "ultimately, to be sure, memory is a series of molecular events". Molecular events do not reveal the true boundaries of memory. The wonder of human memory will never be expressed by how much glucose is burned nit he amygdala or how many neuropeptides have congregated in the hippocampus.

  • I do not believe that the term cellular memory is accurate to describe prenatal memory because memory is possible without cells, and memory endures while the cells do not.

  • The memory of newborn babies appears to be as good as memory can be. In many children, birth memories are carried consciously for three years or so and the, typically, slip into the unconscious memory bank.

  • Memory may be an inalienable right of all persons, regardless of age; it seems to track our experience even under conditions of anesthesia, coma, brain injury, and damage to the senses. Although ordinary memory may be flawed, at a deeper level there is vastly extended memory, reachable in nonordinary states of consciousness.

  • Memory is an essential component of self, learning, thinking, intelligence, and communication. I propose that we consider them inseparable and treat the whole cluster as a human endowment that is innate rather then developmental.

  • One of the sins of science in the last century has been ridicule and indifference to the evidence for expanded consciousness and memory. This scientific amnesia for birth, womb, and past-life memory has delayed discovery of who we really are.

  • The fact that even the most advanced memory activities can take place without benefit of body or brain means that memory is our faithful and constant companion on a long journey.


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    Reprinted with permission from ReVision (Spring 1990).

    David B. Chamberlain is a psychologist, author, and vice president of the Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Association of North America. His special contributions include original research on the reliability of birth memory (1980), a dozen scholarly papers on the mind and personality of the newborn, and a book written for the general public, Babies Remember Birth. This article is reprinted by permission of the author from ReVision, Volume 12, Number 4, 1990. It also appears in the Spring 1990 issue of Pre-and Perinatal Psychology Journal.

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