02/01/2026
~Where Do We Come From? Where Were We Before Biological Birth?~
The question “Where do we come from?” is not merely philosophical; it is ontological, neurological, psychological, and deeply existential. It precedes religion, transcends culture, and persists even in the most technologically advanced societies. Modern neuroscience investigates consciousness as an emergent property of neural networks, while ancient spiritual traditions insist that consciousness precedes matter. This apparent contradiction has become one of the most fertile interdisciplinary frontiers of contemporary thought.
From a biological standpoint, our physical origin is clear: genetic material, cellular division, embryological development. However, biology explains how bodies form, not why consciousness appears nor where subjective experience resides before birth. Neuroscientists such as Dr. Antonio Damasio and Dr. Stanislas Dehaene describe consciousness as a dynamic process linked to neural integration. Yet even they acknowledge that subjective awareness, the qualia of being, remains irreducible to mere electrochemical activity.
Psychology deepens this mystery. Carl Jung proposed the concept of the collective unconscious, a transpersonal psychic field containing archetypes that precede individual life. According to Jung, the psyche is not born as a blank slate; rather, it enters the world already structured by symbolic patterns inherited beyond genetics. This suggests that something psychological, or meta-psychological, preexists individual embodiment.
Philosophy has wrestled with this question for millennia. Plato proposed that the soul exists prior to birth in the realm of Forms, temporarily forgetting its knowledge upon incarnation, a process known as anamnesis. Eastern philosophies, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism, describe samsara: a cyclical process of rebirth driven by consciousness, karma, and attachment. In this view, biological birth is not a beginning but a continuation.
Physics, surprisingly, has begun to echo these ancient intuitions. Quantum theorists such as David Bohm introduced the idea of an implicate order, a deeper, non-local reality from which space, time, and matter unfold. Consciousness, in this framework, may not be produced by the brain but filtered or localized by it. The brain becomes a receiver rather than a generator, a hypothesis also defended by William James and later explored by Dr. Pim van Lommel through near-death experience research.
Empirical data complicates the purely materialist narrative. Thousands of documented cases of children with verified past-life memories, studied by Dr. Ian Stevenson and Dr. Jim Tucker at the University of Virginia, suggest continuity of consciousness beyond biological death. These cases often include accurate memories of people, places, and events the child could not have learned through normal means.
Spiritual frameworks offer yet another layer. The entity known as Bashar, channeled by Darryl Anka, describes consciousness as eternal, non-physical awareness choosing biological experience as a form of exploration. According to Bashar, before birth we exist in a higher-dimensional state of being, selecting circumstances, parents, and challenges aligned with specific themes of growth. While not scientifically verifiable, this model is internally coherent and psychologically meaningful for many.
Similarly, Brazilian physicist and spiritual teacher Hélio Couto integrates quantum physics, neuroscience, and spirituality to propose that consciousness is fundamental and reality is a projection of informational fields. In his view, before birth we exist as pure awareness within a unified field, what mystics have long called Source, God, or the Absolute. Birth, then, is not creation but localization.
Across disciplines, a converging hypothesis emerges: we do not begin at birth. Rather, birth may be a transition point, a compression of vast consciousness into biological form. Memory loss at birth functions not as a flaw, but as a feature, allowing authentic immersion in the human experience.
Now, speaking personally,
When I contemplate where I was before my body existed, I do not feel absence. I feel familiarity. As if I came from a place of vastness, intelligence, and intimacy with everything that is. The sense is not conceptual; it is somatic, emotional, and strangely calm.
I experience life as if I temporarily forgot something essential, not because it was taken from me, but because remembering too soon would dissolve the game of being human. Birth feels less like an arrival and more like a deliberate narrowing of perception.
And deep inside, beyond belief systems, beyond doctrines and theories, I recognize myself as something that was never born and will never die, only changing lenses through which existence is experienced.
💖
Vivian Correia
Vivian Correia II
Vivian Correia - Holistic Psychologist
Psychology and Literature
