Isn’t it amazing how consciousness can surpass the frontiers of science? Or, as Access Consciousness™ founder Gary Douglas says, Access Consciousness™ discovers things, and then science catches up.

July’s Scientific American reports how neuroscientists are investigating painful memories and the chemistry and neuroscience of how they get locked into the body. More is now known about what happens to the brain, but science is no closer to being able to cure it, even with this additional knowledge of physiology.

The classic example of someone suffering from this is the veteran or someone suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The vet might drop to the floor whenever he heard a loud noise, for example, because it triggered his memory of a war zone attack. The behavior that was appropriate then, becomes dysfunctional at home in peacetime—or any other time thereafter.

Access Consciousness™ has long had a process to deal with this. Anyone who gets locked into their story, who tells a story of past trauma again and again, can be questioned to find out if a process called “Trifold Sequencing Systems” could clear this.

What Douglas observed is that people often cannot escape from the past trauma because they loop back to that time again and again. Not only are some of the behaviors dysfunctional, but it also prevents the person from being fully present in their life—an equal if not greater cost.

Pavlov’s famous studies of the dogs in Russia that salivated when they heard the bell ring indicating food was coming also showed that this same behavior was erased quickly in dogs when the event associated with the precipitating stimulus was removed.

“Why does PTSD not self-extinguish in the same way?” asks Scientific American. “The world, after all, is full of sudden loud noises that do not signify a mortar attack, and yet some people never seem to unlearn the responses they learned in Afghanistan” (or Vietnam). Neurologically what happens is that each successive re-experiencing of the memory of the trauma keeps the response intact.

The research described in more detail than has previously been known how the traumatic situation gets transferred into long-term memory. The “looping back” to that past trauma that Douglas observed over 20 years ago is now described by science as “long-term potentiation.” Two or more neurons (nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord) that fire simultaneously develop a synchronous bond that makes them more likely to fire together in the future.

What’s ironic is that the receptors on the receiving cell are incredibly unstable. This raises the question of exactly why the pattern that constantly recycles the stress gets so locked into the brain. Researchers are looking for a drug to destabilize the long-term dysfunctional memory, but success is a long way off.

Getting memories to be erased selectively is a huge part of the challenge. “The problem seems insoluble,” says Scientific American. There doesn’t seem to be a way to differentiate between good memories and the “bad” memories that could be erased. Even in the best of circumstances, all the drugs can do is bring the emotionally charged memories in line with recollections of neutral events. Some drugs that have been used in rats are actually toxic in people.

In the meantime, there’s still the completely non-invasive, drug-free approach of Access Consciousness™. Any licensed facilitator (and there are some 250 in 46 countries world-wide) can perform the Trifold Sequencing Systems clearing. Like many of the tools of Access Consciousness™, it’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s effective.

You can find licensed facilitators near you by searching the www.accessconsciousness.com website. The clearing can also be performed at
a distance, via phone or skype.