It seems that some trauma memories do not ever dissipate like regular memories and can be as vivid and potent years later as they were the moment you experienced them. That’s why we ask you to focus on the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings when you begin to relieve a memory in VR. Hormones flood our system and impair our ability to make rational judgments. For example, we may jump at the sight of a mouse even when we know it won’t harm us. In traumatic situations, often we shut down, freeze, or dissociate.

Severe emotional trauma causes lasting changes in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex region of the brain that is responsible for regulating emotional responses triggered by the amygdala. Specifically, this region regulates negative emotions (such as fear) that occur when confronted with specific stimuli.   

A new study has shown for the first time the neurotransmitter pathways that allow stressful fear-related memories become consciously inaccessible. Some stressful experiences – such as chronic childhood abuse – are so overwhelming and traumatic, the memories hide like a shadow in the brain.

One of the key players is the amygdala, a structure located deep in the medial temporal lobe, one on each side of the brain. It processes sensory threat information and sends outputs to other brain sites, such as the hypothalamus, which is responsible for the release of stress hormones, or brain stem areas, which control levels of alertness and automatic behaviors, including immobility or freezing.

There are clinical strategies to help people heal from emotional trauma. One critical factor is the sense of safety. Retrieval of traumatic memories under safe conditions, like the environment we use in our VR videos, when levels of stress are relatively low and under control, enables the individual to update or reorganize the trauma experience. It’s possible to link the trauma to other experiences and diminish its destructive impact. Psychologists call this post-traumatic growth.

Here’s an example of how this works. If you were a small child living with your tribe and a lion came out of the bush and attacked one of the villagers, your brain would store all sensory data pertaining to that incident in your amygdala because it scared you and threatened your life. Even though it did not happen to you directly, and it only happened in close proximity to you, your consciousness correctly evaluated it as a potential threat to you. You would probably grow up and consciously forget that the event took place, but the memory would be safely stored in your unconscious brain to serve your survival. Years later, even into full adulthood, If you ever heard a lion, smelled a lion, heard a human scream, felt you were being stalked, or experienced any of the senses attached to the original event, your amygdala would trigger the original memory and instantly gain control of your brain functions to prepare you for fight or flight or freeze. This amazing process assisted mankind by compensating because we as humans did not have natural defenses such as big teeth, sharp claws, superior speed, the ability to fly, body armor, and greater strength and stature. In other words, it helped us survive the world of predators where we were once the prey.

The amygdala is triggered so it can gain control of brain functions when you perceive danger, because normally the center of control is the frontal lobe, our neocortex, or the rational part of the brain. The neocortex is the place in your brain responsible for intellect, intuition, self awareness, reasoning, reflection, problem-solving, creativity, imagination and your perception of time and space. It seems to rule your day-to-day functioning except in times of high emotional stress, when it is actually taken off line by your survival instinct. The reason is clear: it may be disastrous for us to try and “think” our way out of danger. For example, if you are being charged by a bear it is very unwise to stop and contemplate which tree you should climb, or if you should drop and roll up in a ball, or if you should run. 

Another important event takes place when the amygdala triggers. It signals the brain to release a fear-based cocktail of stress hormones that will instantly prepare your body for fight or flight or freeze. When needed to protect us from danger, these stress hormones are life-saving and can give us super-human strength, speed, reaction times and bravery. They can literally save our lives when they are generated appropriately, but when they are generated constantly through the day-to-day stress of fear-based living, they become a killer of mankind. Recent research validates what every medical professional has been saying for years: stress ages your body, weakens your immune system, causes an incredible assortment of diseases and eventually kills you.

The end result of the amygdala triggering then becomes a question of appropriateness. Is it saving your life or taking it? For example, if you are sitting at your desk and your boss calls you and demands a meeting in an angry tone of voice, your brain may immediately go to every past experience of you being in trouble or getting fired. Your stress hormones rage inside you and your neocortex (the thinking part of your brain) goes offline. It is entirely inappropriate for you to hit something or go running down the hall screaming, so you freeze in a soup of biological chemicals designed to prepare you to act immediately in a fight for your life. Later you may discover that your boss has a horrible toothache and she’s angry because she hates going to the dentist. Her angry tone had nothing to do with you, but the damage to your body is already done.

We have all heard stories about people who have been traumatized and who cannot recover from it. The images of the event haunt their lives and their dreams. They become discouraged, sleep-deprived, depressed, sad, angry, and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness create panic attacks, illness and dysfunction in their lives. They withdraw and try to avoid anything that may trigger memories of the event. They may turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain and they become a mere shell of who they used to be. This is an example of our strongest ally in survival at its very worst, and the question becomes, “How can we undo this and stop this cycle of destruction in our brains?”

The process of the VR program allows you to review the memories of stressful events and circumstances in a safe and peaceful environment.  The reality in the VR glasses holds your brain’s attention while you are instructed that what happened was real and valid, but it’s over now and you are safe.  This gives your brain the opportunity to reevaluate the significance of the event and how it should be stored in your brain.  Your brain can release the emotions attached to the memory and diminish its impact on you.  You feel better.

Although emotional relief may be instantaneous in the VR process, full relief may not be completed until after you sleep.

I had a client who came to me for severe back pain. He had been bucked off a bull and landed flat on his back in the arena. He was so winded that he could not move, despite the fact he knew the bull was charging back after him. At the last minute he managed to jerk his head to the left, allowing the bull’s horn to miss his head, but the bull stomped on his chest. The blow injured his liver and spleen, punctured his lungs, broke several ribs and injured his back. The last thing he remembered was the pain, the sound of his bones breaking and the taste of his own blood in his mouth. After treatment he could no longer remember the feeling of his pain, hear his bones breaking, or taste his own blood. After he slept, his emotional reactions were gone. Six months after his sessions, this horrific injury seemed like a story someone had told him. Two years after his sessions he told me, “Sometimes when I get out of the shower and I’m drying off I see those scars on my body, and I think to myself oh yeah, it was me!” 

This VR program is a way to find freedom from trauma and a way for our bodies to find peace from stress. It is a simple, quick process and it is a gift you can give yourself.

– BA,CST

REFERENCES

A Brain is Born, John E Upledger, D.O., O.M.M., North Atlantic Books, 1996, Uupledger.com.

The Science of Parenting, Margot Sunderland, Director of Education for the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and Jaak Panksepp, PhD, DK Publishing, Inc., 2006, dk.com.

Train Your Mind Change Your Brain, Sharon Begley, Science Columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Foreword by the Dalai Lama, Ballantine Books, 2007, ballantinebooks.com.

What’s In Your Mind?, National Geographic, March 2005, pgs. 6-31,  nationalgeographic.com/magazine.

Who Switched Off My Brain?, Dr. Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain, 2007, drleaf.net.