PERINATAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Perinatal experience constitutes in and of itself a state of subjective reality, which occurs during the period of the intrauterine development of a person. Its essential elements, those, which at the later stages form the frame of human psyche and behaviour are listed below. Firstly, there is sensory information that is fully manifest during the third trimester of the fetal development in its entirety. During the perinatal period all the sensory systems of a human being without exception are being shaped and filled with incoming information; the learning process is actively functioning, attention and fetal memory are developing. Secondly, there is emotional development that can already be detected in the second trimester. Furthermore, there is the sensation of bodily wholeness, which develops after the 25th week of pregnancy and that constitutes the first mental representation of the Self ontogenetically, that is, the foundation of subjective reality that accompanies a human being throughout their life, but that is, doubtless, still very different from authentic self-awareness. Additionally, one should mention the spatio-temporal continuum of subjective reality, which is already initiating its formation starting from the eighth week of embryo development. Finally, prenatal sensations create archetypes and archetypal patterns that permeate the unconscious structures of subjective reality during its entire existence. The incoming information flows, their processing, encoding and entrenchment in memory, the emotional response to stimuli and spatio-temporal structure of subjective reality generate initially perceptive and later spatio-figurative thinking of a fetus, which occur during the oneiric state of dreamless sleep, in cases of severe sensory deprivation, partial immobilization and hypoxia of the brain.