The Theorem has some interesting ideas about how prenatal development influences behavior. No doubt there is some, and possibly much, truth to this. The author, however, seems to stretch every possible human behavior to fit subconcious memories of what it was like as an unborn human being, seeming to discount any experiences after birth as having much influence. Clearly postnatal experiences have a vital impact on behavior. Witness the emotional state of children who grow up in abusive homes vs. those who grow up in loving ones. It is certain that a child reared in an abusive home would not have the same behaviors if he or she were brought up in a loving one. We are programmed by what we experience, both in the womb and outside of it.
I wish the book had extensive footnotes to support the claims the author makes. I also wish he had a professional proof reader correct this for grammar and punctuation, as it appears to be a self published book. In addition, the author's excessive repetition of information previously discussed bogs down the information he's trying to get across. A good editor could have done a lot with this. Too bad the author didn't have one.
The value of this book lies in making folks aware that the unborn has experiences that are not forgotten. We do not become humans at birth. We are humans at conception and learn as we grow, in the womb and outside of it. The author is to be commended for recognizing this often over looked truth.
This book is literally like taking a nice trip on LSD(not that I have ever done so). If my review sounds confusing, it's more a reflection of his book than my writing because it is not easy to summarize. But I will do my best. Here is the basic theory of the book: Every single action in our lives is based upon subconscious experiences we experienced in utero. According to the author, during our mother's waking state, we experienced a type of euphoria caused by dopamine flowing to our fetal neuronal pleasure centers. The other phase occured during her sleep, which is a time when we actually believed our mother was dying based upon the slowing of the heart beat, the silence, and decreased dopamine levels. During this period of time, we struggled to keep our mother alive by kicking our way to freedom. The catch is that because of a memory block, we never remembered what happened the night before. So each night phase was like we were experiencing it for the first time.
In a nutshell, what he says is that every action/thought and or feeling can be traced back to one of those two experiences; the euphoric experience while our mother was awake, and the hellish experience of trying to keep our mother alive. While an interesting read, I found some portions of this book hard to accept. First of all, is it really reasonable to believe that fetuses can even understand the concept of being inside of a "mother" and the concept of "dying"? Are fetues really that intelligent? The author says that we(fetues) all feel guilty when we are about to be born because we think that escaping the womb will ultimately kill our mother since it is our job to keep her alive. Basically, he is claiming we are intelligent enough as fetues to know that what we are doing by kicking in the middle of the night is what is keeping our mother alive. By leaving the womb, we feel guilty about this, but we have no choice because of how bad the conditions become in the womb. He even says that all fetues bluff their first attempt to try to get the mother's attention so she will not die, which is usually what happens when the water breaks. Then when we are born, we are shocked to learn that our mother is still alive. She should have been dead, we reason. What's more, we feel forever deceived and this is locked away in our subconscious for the rest of our lives. Are you kidding me?? That seems a little over the top, to put it mildly. But then again, I don't know everything there is to know. I will say it's an entertaining book. He has a very original writing style. But I think it's fair to say that I am taking most of what this author has to say with a grain of salt.
