Dreaming and the Self-Organizing Brain
by David Kahn, Stanley Krippner, and Allan Combs
[Used with author's permission from Journal for Consciousness Studies (JCS)]

ABSTRACT:  We argue the REM dream experiences owe their structure and meaning to inherent self-organizing properties of the brain itself.  Thus, we offer a common meeting ground for brain based studies of dreaming and traditional psychological dream theory.  Our view is that the dreaming brain is a self-organizing system highly sensitive to internally generated influences.  Several lines of evidence support a process view of the brain as a system near the edge of chaos, one that is highly sensitive to internal influences.  Such sensitivity is due to several factors.  First, the dreaming brain normally gates out external input and thus operates without the stabilizing influences of external feedback.  Second, the pre-frontal cortex is only minimally activated during REM sleep, and hence the brain operates with weakened volition, reduced logic, and diminished self-reflection.  Third, because the neuromodulatory inhibitition mechanism is turned off during REM, the brain responds spontaneously to the least provocation.  In addition, the dreaming brain is also subject to powerful intermittent cholinergic stimulation which may stimulate creative patterns of dream activity.

Abstract: Developmental theory helps us gain a concept of what unblocked or free flowing developmental process looks like in terms of the fulfillment of human potential. The integrative developmental framework emphasizes the continuing evolution of the whole person; ultimately it is a spiritual process. The results of the stimulus of forward development and progression that is provided by the normative crisis of midlife, with its adjustments to aging and mortality, is examined in respect to the Consciousness Restructuring Process (CRP).  The goal of treatment is elimination of blocks to the still-evolving personality and to the course of current and future development.

CRP often leads to spontaneous initiatory spiritual experiences.  The adult experiences a constant process of dynamic change and flux, and is always in a state of “becoming” or “finding the way.”  We present seven hypotheses about development in adulthood, and identify phase-specific issues and challenges, including typical adult rites of passage and the developmental phenomena of middle and later life as well.  Erickson’s eight stages of life are used to outline the developmental continuum through the illuminative phase of potential transpersonal experience.

The evolution of the authentic self in adulthood is a dynamic process which is part of the lifelong shaping of identity and self-image.  The attainment of authenticity is a central, dynamic task of adulthood achieved through restructuring of the self.  Confronting the quintessential adult-human experience can lead to integration of the highest order and produce profound awareness of what it means to be human.  A number of factors, some unique to adult experience, build on the self constructed from earlier phases of life and develop it further.  Some of the most important include: (1) the body, (2) object ties, (3) time and death, and (4) work, creativity, and mentorship.

Keywords:  Adult development, developmental theory, Erickson, Maslow, Piaget, Gowan, Freud, Jung, midlife crisis, adult passages, rites of passage, death and dying, aging, mentoring, maturity, parenting, marriage, pair-bonding, self-actualization, self-realization, self-image, integrative models, character, vision, soul, spirituality, Transpersonal Psychology, peak experiences, ego-death, spiritual growth, creativity.
                                                                                                        

Abstract:  The Consciousness Restructuring Process (CRP) is rarely practiced in isolation from simple counseling, formal or informal.  CRP has roots in a multidisciplinary approach which includes the psychodynamics of Freud and Jung, as well as the humanistic/existential school, in particular the techniques of Transactional Analysis and Gestalt.  The work on childhood development by Piaget, Erickson, and Alice Miller is also pertinent.  Adult developmental theories of transpersonalists Maslow, Houston, and Gowan also describe some important aspects of this treatment philosophy.  As an eclectic approach, CRP is not limited to these, and each practitioner will no doubt pick a variety of therapies of choice from the entire gamut, including so-called shamanic techniques.  Consciousness journeys are not necessarily employed each session. This paper attempts to provide a skeletal background of the basic philosophical roots of CRP as they relate to the counseling practice of this process of natural healing.

Keywords: Freud, Jung, Berne, Perls, Miller, Erikson, Piaget, libido, psychodynamics, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Depth Psychology, childhood, fetal development, REM, dreams, psychosomatic families, psychosomatic disorders, chaos theory, Chaosophy.

ABSTRACT:  Fibromyalgia is a syndrome, difficult to diagnose, which is psychophysical in nature.  Symptoms are numerous, but feature characteristic tender points and muscular pain, chronic fatigue and sleep disturbances, and psychological factors.  The inflammatory process also produces chemicals that are known to cause fatigue.  Emotional and physical stress exacerbate symptoms, constricting bloodvessels and amplifying distress, often to the point of incapacitation.  Allopathic treatments help curb symptoms, but only mask rather than transform psychological or emotional blocks.  Conventional treatment offers no known cure for FM.  Therefore, the goal of treatment is successful symptom management.  The integrative approach of the Consciousness Restructuring Process uses dreams, feelings, and symptoms to initiate a therapeutic healing journey.  This journey leads past fear-based patterns of consciousness and psychophysical pain to a deep experience of the restructuring of the existential primal self-image.

ABSTRACT:  Leading CFS researcher, Jay A. Goldstein, MD posits an etiology for CFS in limbic encephalopathy in a dysregulated neuroimmune network.  Thus his allopathic treatment protocols include interventions in the “bidirectional communication” between the immune and neuroendocrine systems.  This means that CFS can be considered among those syndromes which respond to Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), through intervention in the “cross-talk” between the central nervous system and the immune system.  Viral disease can also cause neuropsychological deficits which are amplified under physical or emotional stress.  The limbic system plays a crucial role in regulatory physiology. The Consciousness Restructuring Process (CRP) can influence this psychophysical network, through cognitive, behavioral and attitudinal changes that alter the state of limbic elements.  Nonrestorative, alpha-EEG sleep abnormalities are common in CFS patients.  Nevertheless, most report frequent, vivid dreams and nightmares which can be used to initiate the therapeutic process.

ABSTRACT:  The alter personalities experienced under dissociation in Multiple Personality Disorder may form around “strange attractors” in the psychobiological field of an individual attempting to escape or heal traumatic stress in a self-organizing way.  Generally, “personality change” is a creative attempt at growth.  However, in MPD it leads to “divided consciousness,” where different aspects of self are isolated by state-dependent amnesias or trances, mediated by characteristic changes in neuroimmunologic response.

It is possible that through dissociation, the person is attempting to heal in a self-organizing way, but the transformative process gets “stuck” at the classical stage of fragmentation, which then recreates itself through the dynamics of “infinite nesting” and “self-iteration.”  Core psychological patterns reinforce themselves by filtering sensory information about the world and self, and automatically organizing the rest of experience around itself in a way that further supports the basic pattern.

In shifting identities MPDs experience uncommon dreams, in an intuitive, if misbegotten, attempt at growth and change.  Experience of alters carries the aura of a ‘waking dream,’ where things appear real, but not quite ‘right.’ The Consciousness Restructuring Process fosters this healing attempt, rather than thwarting it.  CRP facilitates inter-modal shifts between not only identities, but sensations, perceptions, emotions, imagery and behavior.  Thus, it offers a ‘positive outlet’ for a process trying to self-correct the organism, but allowing that process to flow beyond the state of fragmentation to the fully undifferentiated experience for healing, dissolving old ‘basins of attraction’ in the mindscape.  The psychophysical channels of both the limbic-hypothalamus system (seat of reward/punishment circuits) and the placebo effect are invoked to account for positive results.

ABSTRACT:  There are three main types of depressive disorders: major depressive disorder, dysthymia, and the depressive lows of bipolar disorder.  While conventional treatment has been to freely dispense antidepressants (SSRIs), an integrative approach would include psychosocial therapy to focus on the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal issues behind depression.  For many individuals, SSRIs are contra-indicated due to a wide range of side effects, some quite severe.

CRP offers a comprehensive psychoimmunotherapy, which can alter mood in a positive direction, restore interest or pleaure in daily activities, promote healthy sleep patterns, restore energy reserves, transform feelings of worthlessness or guilt, foster pro-active decisions, calm restlessness, and ameliorate recurrent thoughts of death or morbidity.  In CRP, the value of the depressive state is acknowledged and honored.

Rather than medicating it away, CRP facilitates the the depressive process and allows it to cycle through.   Biological disturbances lead to a complex, dynamic interlocking group of psychophysical changes which depress the well-being and functionality of the individual until the call to restructure consciousness is heeded.  By going deeper into the process and allowing imagery of death, for example, to play out to its natural conclusion in rebirth, CRP fosters restructuring at the genetic, cellular, biochemical, and psychoneuroimmunological levels.

ABSTRACT:  Posttraumatic stress is a disorder, and disorder implies automatically a chaotic state of being.  The sorts of trauma that tend to induce PTSD include combat trauma, crimes, rape, grief, kidnapping, natural disasters, accidents, torture, and imprisonment.  Predisposition to dissociation can arise in violent family environments.  Those with PTSD become hypervigilant and hyperreactive to environmental threat.  The traumatic syndrome is ever present and unchanged.  Emotionally, it is as if it keeps on happening.  State-related learning and memory encoding help maintain the trance-like steady state.  Depression, shame, anxiety, subtance abuse, and survivor guilt are complications.

The nucleus of the disorder is a physioneurosis, somatization, depersonalization, and dissociation.  Psychosomatic symptoms are expressions of the dissociation.  Therapy proceeds by facilitating information transduction between them. There is poor impulse control and explosive aggressive reactions.  There are persistent and profound alterations in stress hormone secretions and immune function.  Integration of traumatic memories proceeds by verbal and nonverbal means in therapy. 
Time does not heal all wounds.  Different treatments are needed at different stages of posttraumatic adaptation.  CRP offers a way of restructuring the frozen structure of this disorder at the most fundamental level, in the sensory terms in which it is encoded.

ABSTRACT:  CRP addresses this psychobiological disorder in terms of non-linear dynamics instead of as a battle of opposing states.  Using Ernest Rossi’s Dream-Protein Hypothesis, a theory of this disease process is developed which accounts for much of its phenomenology.  It examines the complex dynamics of learning and memory, which lead to greater creativity, stability, and healing in therapy.

Bipolar disorder consists of dramatic mood changes, characterized by irrational shifts in behavior and temperament.  It used to be called manic depression, because of the alternating between normal, manic and depressive states.  Rather than far poles of a linear oscillation, this effect is revisioned as related states of one primary attractor which accounts for them all.   Bipolars experience both  behavior and mood disorders, rooted in a runaway feedback loop modulating highs and lows.  This disease is akin to a Hydra, the multiheaded monster from Greek mythology.  It is a virulent disorder with multiple faces, making diagnosis difficult.  Bipolars experience dramatic changes in sleeping patterns, eating habits, may drink excessively or suddenly begin to abuse drugs.  Excessive activity, spending sprees, reckless driving, foolish business investments, infidelity, etc. can create problems.  Moods and behavior are as changeable as weather’s unfolding divergence.

This mood disorder disrupts normal emotional states, such as happiness or sadness.  On the down side it includes depression, passivity, lethargy, fatigue, and at the extreme, delusions, hallucinations, and thoughts of suicide.  The elated pole includes wildly racing thoughts, expansiveness, agitation, restlessness, excitement, irritability, grandiosity, hyperactivity, and again, when severe, delusions, and hallucinations which repeatedly sweep over the person, altering normal personality.  CRP helps ameliorate swings, reducing need for medication.

ABSTRACT:  The Consciousness Restructuring Process can be used in an integrative treatment of ADD in both children and adults.  ADD is a developmental disorder characterized by distractability, impulsive behavior, and the inability to remain focused on tasks or activities, without or with (ADHD) hyperactivity.  Although the exact cause of ADHD is not known, an imbalance of certain neurotransmiters, the chemicals in the brain that transmit messages between nerve cells, is believed to be the mechanism behind symptoms.  CRP goes deeper than behavioral, or cognitive behavioral therapy, and includes family therapy, neurofeedback, and proper nutrition in its integrative approach.

Adults who had ADD as children still carry some of the patterns of the disease, as well as residuals from years of treatment with stimulants, tricyclics, or other antidepressants, and psychological fallout.  They benefit from CRP therapy as much as children in whom symptoms are amplified.  Many children with ADHD receive neither behavioral training nor careful dose calibrations for the stimulants physicians prescribe, especially though community sources.  About two-thirds of children do well enough to stay off medication with behavioral treatment alone.  Psychosocial interventions like CRP, especially combined with neurofeedback, can profoundly affect ADHD even if a genetic predisposition is involved.

ABSTRACT:  There are basic human drives toward sexuality, death, and a general evolutionary healing growth force.  They are respectively eros, thanatos, and physis.  The inwardly directed force of physis is a healing power that can be invoked through CRP even in the face of life-threatening disease.  In fact, physis is the counterpoint to disease, a generalized creative drive toward health.  Crisis may precipitate enhanced opportunities for the recognition and manifestation of physis; opportunities for massive reorganization along lines that are developmentally healthier and creatively more productive and healing.  This creates more flexibility and resilience.  In T.A. correlated script-free aspirations are under the influence of physis.  As people get closer and closer to their true self or “First Nature” (which always involves a sense of somatic and organismic integrity), they connect more profoundly with an inner healing and actualizing drive.  CRP journeys enhance awareness of the spiritual, transpersonal, or transcendent dimension of our endeavors.  Dreamhealing journeys provide the proper ambiance for clients’ self-discovery of healing physis within themselves.  In this process the life-force is kindled, facilitating healing and self-realization.

ABSTRACT:  Those with Borderline Personality Disorder live at the “Edge of Chaos.”  Sensitive to the initial conditions of their lives, they are labile, jostled by the slightest perturbations into unstable states of being.  They inhabit the borderline between psychotic and non-psychotic states.  Psychotic episodes are generally transitory and relatively brief, but the personality disorder, an attractive impulse without logic, is notoriously intractable. It can be conceptualized as a level of personality organization rather than a disorder.

Borderlines are raised within dysfunctional family systems where emphasis is on maintenance of family myths in the face of neglect and/or abuse (physical or sexual) through double-binding messages or communication given to the child victim.  There is a discrepancy between the social facade presented to the outside world and the actual transactions within the family.  The child creates defenses including denial of fantasies of good enough parents in order to deal with painful realities.  Family members often collude with the abuser either to justify the abuse or to keep it a secret.  The victim is damned by the fact that the abuse is either denied as real or the child is accused of causing it.  Therefore, the child is either mad (“crazy”) or bad.

KEYWORDS:  Borderline Personality Disorder, psychotherapy, dreams, REM, placebo effect, family therapy, healing, spirituality, dreamwork,

ABSTRACT:  Typical treatment for eating disorders involves ego building and cognitive redecision therapy; existential systems-oriented therapy.  But eating disorders are holistic dis-eases.  The root of the disorder is a mistake in self-image.  They reveal the relationship of a self to the world who either can’t get enough, or for whom any input is too much.  Since we must all eat to live, being out of balance with food means being out of balance with nature.  The CRP process dissolves old patterns of self-image, of relationship with food, and rebuilds ego by first restructuring consciousness at the sensory root or primordial level.  REM journeys facilitate creative self-organization.

CRP for disordered eating is not just for those with clinical disorders, or even food cravings for carbohydrates, fats, or sweets.  Poor dietary and sleeping habits lead to hypoglycemia, subclinical depression, fatigue, insomnia, and poor concentration, disrupt daily life, strain relationships, and even jeopardize careers.  Self-esteem, self-control, mood, and eating are intertwined, so what a person eats or feels is wrongly metabolized.  What we eat affects whether we are happy, sad, irritable, moody, alert, or sleepy.  If you want to feel your best, you have to eat your best.  Children can also benefit from CRP: 1 out of 3 children are overweight and in danger of obesity; children are 30% heavier than they were 10 years ago.

Keywords:  Eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, obesity, dreams, dreamwork, REM, consciousness, binging and purging, eating behavior, psychotherapy, mood and food, hypoglycemia, alcoholism, psychosomatics, sugar blues, cravings, nutrition, depression.

Abstract:  Substance Abuse can be revisioned as a substitute spiritual experience.  This notion has even entered into colloquial language, where intoxicants are refered to as ‘spirits.’  The addictive process is a bastardization of the shamanic form of drug and ritual-induced initiatory healing and transformation.  It leads to false ego states, ranging from inflations to atavistic regressions into unconsciousness and dissolution.  A progressive disorder, addiction is literally a matter of life and death, and a seach for regeneration often ending in a literalized or symbolic “trip to hell.”  The archetypal background of addiction and madness is the ancient Greek godform, Hades-Dionysus.

Acting-out this pattern can be seen as a pattern of avoidance: the habit is used to dodge psychological reflection.  Sometimes we act in order not to see.  Addiction means actively doing and taking part in order to avoid knowing what one’s soul is doing.  Instead of looking for himself, for satisfaction within himself,  the addict keeps “looking for action,” for predictable gratification which never quite lives up to his euphoric recall.  Addiction is a black hole for creativity; it sucks all life energy down into itself, as if nothing else matters.  Addictions are pursued with a zeal that can ironically be called “religious.”  The religious theme is implied by “transgressions” and the “contrition” that tends to follow binges, by the oaths and deals with the devil or God, for surcease, or perhaps pleas for more intoxicants to “get well.”  Addiction is a cult-of-substance.

CRP addresses the underlying spiritual disconnectedness through the inner journey which leads through dissolution and death, thus following the recurrent theme of addiction, substituting altered states for intoxication and personal experience of the death/rebirth cycle instead of compulsively acting it out.  The creative leap occurs when observed facts are correlated; that is, when by perceiving a heretofore unsuspected identity, a conjunctive path or new order is discovered.  The discovery of this class reveals a new piece of the order of the universe, of Spirit, and each individual recognizes himself to have similar properties.  Access to a higher state of being is possible only through symbolic and ritual death and regeneration.  It is an initiation of the soul’s transformation.  A symbolic death is a new beginning; an experiential regenerative journey and opportunity for rebirth.  The creative energy that was wrapped up in the repetitive addictive cycle is free to flow in positive channels.  CRP is for those seeking a deeper meaning within their suffering and patterns.

Keywords:  Addiction, substance abuse, creativity, spirituality, altered states, initiation, recovery,
transpersonal psychotherapy, REM, dreams, healing, sobriety, “dry drunk,” Spirit, Higher Power.