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them change in appearance and demeanor in a way that is age-appropriate for the period they are experiencing. People who regress to infancy typically adopt facial expressions, body postures, gestures, and behavior of small children. In early infancy experiences this includes salivation and automatic sucking movements. What is even more remarkable is that they usually manifest neurological reflexes that are also age-appropriate. They might show a sucking reflex to a light touch of the lips and other so-called axial reflexes that characterize the normal neurological responses of infants.
      One of the most dramatic findings was a positive Babinski sign occurring in people regressed to early childhood states. To elicit this reflex, which is part of the pediatrician's neurological test, the sole of the foot is touched with a sharp object. In infants the toes fan out in response to this stimulus; in older children they curl in. The same adults who showed a fanning out reaction to this test during the time that they were regressed to infancy reacted normally while reliving periods of later childhood. And, as expected, the same people displayed normal Babinski responses when they returned to normal consciousness states.
      There is another important difference between exploring the psyche in non-ordinary states and doing so in ordinary states. In non-ordinary states there is an automatic selection of the most relevant and emotionally charged material from the person's unconscious. It is as if an "inner radar" system scans the psyche and the body for the most important issues and makes them available to our conscious minds. This is invaluable for therapist and client alike, saving us the task of having to make a decision about which issues that arise from our unconscious are important and which are not. Such decisions are typically biased because they are often influenced by our personal belief systems and training in one of the many schools of psychotherapy, which disagree with one another.
      This radar function found in non-ordinary states of consciousness has revealed aspects of the biographical realm that had previously eluded us in
    our exploration of human consciousness. One of these discoveries involves the impact of early physical trauma on our emotional development. We found that the radar system brings to the surface not only memories of emotional traumas, but also memories of events where the survival or integrity of the physical body was threatened. The release of emotions and patterns of tension that were still being stored in the body as a result of these early traumas proved to be one of the most immediate and valuable benefits derived from this work. Problems associated with breathing, such as diphtheria, whooping cough, pneumonia, or near drowning, played particularly critical roles.
      Traditional psychiatry sees physical traumas such as these as potentially contributing to organic brain damage, but it fails to acknowledge their immense impact on an emotional level. People who experientially relive memories of serious physical traumas come to fully recognize the scars these events left on their psyches. They also recognize the powerful contribution of these traumas to present difficulties with psychosomatic diseases such as asthma, migraine headaches, depression, phobias, or even sadomasochistic tendencies. In turn, reliving these early traumas and working them through frequently has a therapeutic effect, bringing either temporary or permanent relief from symptoms and a sense of well-being that the person never dreamed was possible.

    COEX Systems—Keys to Our Destiny

    Another important discovery of our research was that memories of emotional and physical experiences are stored in the psyche not as isolated bits and pieces but in the form of complex constellations, which I call COEX systems (for "systems of condensed experience"). Each COEX system consists of emotionally charged memories from different