Скачать или смотреть Enhancing Birthing Experience through the Science of Altered States of Consciousness - Orli Dahan

Dr. Orli Dahan is Head of the Multidisciplinary Studies Department at Tel-Hai College in Israel and a philosopher of science specializing in consciousness and childbirth. She coined the term birthing consciousness to describe the hormonally and environmentally modulated altered state often experienced during physiological birth – an experience she links to neurophenomenological shifts such as hypofrontality, enabling deep immersion, pain transcendence, and an altered sense of time and self. Her research combines theoretical and empirical approaches, and she collaborates closely with psychologists, midwives, physicians, and gender studies scholars. Dahan’s current studies explore how physical and social birthing environments shape these altered states of consciousness, and how such experiences may influence postpartum well-being. Her work contributes to broader efforts to humanize childbirth and to bring interdisciplinary perspectives – philosophical, scientific, and feminist – into maternity care research and practice.

Childbirth is a transformative experience, and recent studies suggest that birthing women enter a unique altered state of consciousness (ASC) during physiological birth (“birthing consciousness”). In research on ASC during psychedelic experiences, the set & setting theory explains how the same substance can lead to a positive and life-changing experience or a traumatic and frightening experience, depending on the mindset of an individual entering the experience (set) and the surroundings in which the experience happens (setting). I analyse typical modern birthing experiences in terms of set & setting theory and argue that it explains many psychological and physiological elements of the human birth process. Moreover, framing and characterizing the birth environment and birth preparations in terms of set & setting is a vital tool to design, navigate, and promote physiological births and subjective positive birthing experiences; both are currently an unreached goal in modern obstetrics.

Recorded live during Transforming Birthspace: A Global Colloquium (October 25–27, 2025).
Learn more: https://www.transformingbirthspace.com

Full program: https://www.transformingbirthspace.co...

#TransformingBirthspace2025