![]() This theoretical paper highlights a yet unexploited naturally occurring potential for facilitating and promoting well-being: experiencing awe during physiological birth. Thus, an operative conclusion that emerges from the theoretical analysis presented in this paper is that framing and characterizing the birth environment and birth preparations in terms of set and setting is a central tool that could be used to promote physiological births as well as subjective positive birthing experiences, which is currently a primary, yet unreached goal, in modern obstetrics and public health.Īwe is a complex experience usually followed by various physiological, psychological, and social benefits, thus improving well-being. I argue that the set and setting key parameters can help design, navigate, and explain many psychological and physiological elements of the human birth process. Because recent studies suggest that birthing women enter an altered state of consciousness during physiological birth (“birthing consciousness”), I suggest analyzing the typical modern birthing experience in terms of set and setting theory. In research on altered states of consciousness during psychedelic experiences, this theory explains how the same substance can lead to a positive and life-changing experience or to a traumatic and frightening experience. The theory of set and setting proves that psychedelic experiences are shaped, first and foremost, by the mindset of an individual entering a psychedelic experience (set) and by the surroundings in which the experience happens (setting). This paper offers a new approach as to how birthing experiences, and birth in general, can be navigated. There is a correlation between a negative childbirth experience and a poor mental state after birth, with effects that go far beyond the postpartum (PP) period. ![]() The subjective childbirth experience is crucial from a public health standpoint. Moreover, I contend that from an evolutionary perspective, sexual masochism may even confer adaptive advantages, consistent with evolutionary explanations for the tendency toward submission in conjunction with pain in the context of female reproductive responses such as mating and childbirth. ![]() I hypothesize that the ability (or even the desire) to reach pain-related altered states in sexual masochism has roots in a crucial evolutionary advantage that comes into play during childbirth, consistent with recent findings that sexual masochists are generally psychologically healthy. Although the term subspace is used in the context of sex, parallels can be drawn between subspace and another phenomenon: a psycho-physical altered state that can occur during natural and undisturbed birth. The enigmatic appeal of submission in sexual masochism is a phenomenon that calls for an explanation: What makes receiving pain during sex so appealing? This appeal can be explained conceptually, phenomenologically, and biochemically as the motivation to reach the highly pleasurable psycho-physical altered state called 'subspace'.
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