TRANSFORMING DRAGONS NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscribers,

This is our eighth monthly publication of the Transforming Dragons newsletter. Your email responses are greatly appreciated.

Again, I encourage subscribers to send me personal email messages. I will take the time to respond individually and privately to your personal concerns, comments, or questions.

Also, please share this newsletter with others.

What to Expect After Listening
by Gerald Vind, PhD

One of our TD listeners shares: “I've been listening to at least one TD module per day and doing some ‘free form’ walks with different parents. I suppose it just takes time to re-imprint all the crap that was put there first.”

Transforming Dragons can be listened to several times, however, it will loose its impact from continued repetition. We recommend that listeners then use their experience of the TD Modules as framework to improvise their own personal scenarios and to create their own positive prenatal experience. Find a quiet time and place where you can guide yourself through the process that you have learned. If you would like some personal guidance in how to do this, send me an email at: ghvind@yahoo.com I will assist you without charge.

PNRI Class
by Gerald Vind, PhD

Prenatal Re-Imprinting (PNRI) is the foundational science that is behind Transforming Dragons. PNRI Practitioner Training is now moving into the fourth month. The classes are held every Thursday evening in Dallas, Texas from 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm. The class has been held in Dr. Joe DiRuzzo’s office. Now because of increasing attendance, the PNRI class will likely be moving to a larger location. For more information contact: Dr. Gerald Vind at: ghvind@yahoo.com

If you are in the Dallas area come see us on Thursday evenings. Casual visitors are welcome, no matter how big or how small their problems are. You will very likely be able to experience a free PNRI session during the class.

Adrenal Function: Pregnenolone and Cortisol
by Gerald H. Vind

Understanding how our adrenal glands function helps us to better understand the psycho-biological processes that are involved in severe maternal stress, and our prenatal imprinting. While this article focuses on the adrenal glands (triangular-shaped “cap” on top of each kidney), the adrenals are part of the hypothalmo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that collectively regulate our response to stress.

While we are focusing on stress and the adrenal function, we must keep in mind that the human brain is the key organ in responding to stress. Also, the complexity of the HPA and ANS means that we can only provide a superficial reference in this article.

Maternal prenatal stress is very significant to the developing baby. It is recognized as an important factor causing pre-term birth, as well as low birth weight in full term births. Prenatal maternal stress in a chaotic home environment is thought to imprint the same patterns as early-childhood studies; that is, chaos results in poor self-regulatory behavior, a sense of helplessness and psychological distress. In addition, a chaotic home environment correlates with increased body mass and elevated blood pressure. (1.)

So now, let us look at the adrenal part of the HPA-Brain-ANS functions. The adrenal glands produce many hormones, and in this article we will focus on the important steroid hormones: pregnenolone and cortisol.

Pregnenolone is a precursor hormone synthesized from cholesterol. It is produced mainly in the adrenal glands, but it is also produced in the brain, gonads, liver, retina, and skin.

It should be stated that medical-pharmaceutical promotions of statin drugs are seriously wrong. Promotions of Crestor, Lipitor, Mevacor, Pravachol, Zocor, and (with life-long treatment programs) in order to reduce cholesterol in the interest of cardiovascular health have propagandized the public and sold a bogus issue. The real problem and risk factor for cardiovascular health is inflammation. Reducing cholesterol can have serious consequences, not the least of which is liver damage and an increased risk of cancer. There is a good report on statin drugs on: http://www.mercola.com/2004/jul/21/statin_drugs.htm

Pregnenolone is a natural steroid hormone that is produced in the body from cholesterol. It is the precursor to DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), and some 150 other steroid hormones, and is sometimes referred to as the "grandmother” of all steroid hormones.

With all of the media treatment of “roids,” it is probably worthwhile to take a brief overview. Steroid hormones include:

• Sex hormones that produce sex differences and support reproduction: progesterone, the estrogens, and testosterone.
• The corticosteroids: glucocorticoids (such as cortisol), and mineralcorticoids (such as aldosterone).
• Anabolic steroids interact with androgen receptors to increase muscle and bone synthesis.

There is illegal trafficking in natural and synthetic anabolic steroids. In popular language the word "steroids" and “roids” and “roid rage” usually refers to anabolic steroids. (It has been suggested with tongue-in-cheek that “roid rage” might also refer to a bad case of hemorrhoids.)

Pregnenolone is part of this large family of similar steroid hormones that play such important roles in regulating growth, inflammation, and sexuality. Yet, the beneficial action of pregnenolone supplements has no significant side effects, including little or no anabolic, androgenic or estrogenic effects.

Pregnenolone has been found to be 100 times more effective for memory enhancement than other steroids or steroid-precursors. Pregnenolone appears to be the most potent memory enhancer yet reported. Pregnenolone not only makes people smarter, it also makes people happier. Studies have shown pregnenolone is able to enhance job performance. Pregnenolone also has the ability to reduce stress effects caused by fatigue; and it also improves immunity, and speeds the repair of neuronal myelin sheaths.

Pregnenolone levels, along with all steroid-hormones levels, declines with age. At age of 75 there is a decline of some 60% in our pregnenolone levels compared to the levels produced in our mid-thirties. For this reason measurement of our pregnenolone level is one of the important markers of biological aging.

Pregnenolone supplementation is associated with improvements in memory, mood, awareness, alertness, and reduction in the symptoms of stress. Pregnenolone enhances the ability to acquire knowledge, and it has been shown to increase motivation. It not only makes people smarter, but it also makes them happier with heightened feelings of well-being.

Pregnenolone is a powerful neurochemical, and in our brain it modulates neuronal transmissions and it strongly influences learning and memory. Supplementing small amounts of pregnenolone appears to slow age-related degenerative processes, improving one's quality of life by rejuvenating the body to more youthful functioning.

Supplementation to restore pregnenolone to youthful levels is an important step in slowing (and reversing) the effects of aging. Pregnenolone is important because it has a balancing effect; and since it is a precursor to most other hormones it helps to regulate the levels of other hormones as needed. Recommended dose is 25 to 50 mg per day, or as directed by your health care provider. Pregnenolone is available in a sustained release form, and this form is preferable.

Our modern diet has significantly compromised the function of our adrenal glands. Rapid increases in blood-sugar levels causes the pancreas to secrete excessive amounts of insulin, which often leads to hypoglycemia. In an attempt to normalize blood sugar, our body starts a counter-regulatory process.

During this counter-process, our adrenal glands are stimulated to secrete increased levels of cortisol and adrenalin (epinepherine). This can lead to a chronic depletion of cortisol, and then to adrenal exhaustion.

The corticosteroid cortisol is a vitally important steroid that:

• Counteracts inflammation reactions and allergies,
• Counteracts the effects of stress. (From physical and emotional trauma, infection, temperature extremes, etc.),
• Maintains emotional stability and regulates mood,
• Stimulates the conversion of amino acids to glucose by the liver as an added source of energy production; and,
• Stimulates increased movement of fatty acids into the blood (from fat cells) to be used as an added source of energy production.

While cortisol plays an important role in our health and it is required for our survival, when our fight-or-flight stress response is turned on too high and for too long, some serious health problems can develop. Then, excessive cortisol production:

• Causes shrinkage in our brain, especially our hippocampus that is central to memory and learning,
• Increases blood sugar levels, while it reduces cellular utilization of glucose. This results in high insulin levels that increases abdominal fat, and can damage vital organs;
• Suppresses the immune system leading to increased infections, allergies, and degenerative diseases,
• Decreases protein synthesis, while increasing protein breakdown, and can lead to muscle wasting; and,
• Causes demineralization of bone that can lead to osteoporosis.

Pregnenolone helps to regulate cortisol production, however, there is another important process of regulating and stabilizing blood sugar levels. We must maintain a balance between the two hormones, glucagon and insulin, that are both produced by the pancreas. Protein in the diet induces the production of glucagon. Carbohydrates (especially refined carbs) in our diet will stimulate the production of insulin.

Insulin promotes fat (energy) storage. When refined carbs are eaten and then quickly converted to glucose (blood sugar), our body produces large quantities of insulin and reduced levels of glucagon. High insulin levels result in more fat being formed and stored, and this is the major factor in our national obesity pandemic with 65.2% of Americans in the obese category. (2.)

When insulin is high and glucagon is low, the adrenals are called upon to produce excess cortisol as a back-up response to help raise blood sugar in the absence of adequate glucagon. This occurs at the expense of the adrenal glands, thus contributing to adrenal exhaustion.

How many expectant mothers are given proper knowledge and guidance to reduce fetal stress from faulty nutrition and toxic substances? How many young families are properly prepared for pregnancy with adequate resources? How many young families are guided in stress reduction, and in coping with emotionally toxic relationships? I think that most of our society and educational system fails miserably. Most of us grow up in a fog of advertising and compromised science. Who is there to clear the fog? Actually, you are the one who must clear the fog, at least in your own mind. As your awareness grows, you can join with others to help improve the next generation by supporting programs such as The Wonder Baby Program.
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(1) McEwen, Bruce – “Physiology and Neurobiology of Stress and Adaptation: Central Role of the Brain,” Physiol. Rev. 87: 873-904, 2007 – pg 879.

(2.) With respect to obesity, there are the important considerations of the neurotoxins aspartame (in diet drinks) and MSG (in many processed foods). They are called excitotoxins, and both destroy nerve cells in the weight-regulating center of our brain (hypothalamus), and also in our brain’s memory-learning center (hippocampus). Through aspartame and MSG we not only become obese, we also become stupid!

Also, obesity studies often overlook the important regulatory hormone leptin. Leptin is produced by our fat cells and it plays a key role in regulating energy intake and energy expenditure, including the regulation (decrease) of appetite and (increase) of metabolism. Leptin works by inhibiting the activity of neurons that produce appetite regulating peptides (NPY) and hormone (AgRP) that stimulate hunger. Leptin signaling also increases the activity of neurons that produce a regulatory hormone (á-MSH) that signals when we have satisfied our hunger. Leptin is a regulatory hormone and not another supplement to be taken; it is regulated by our dietary intake of protein and carbohydrates.

Exploring Personality
by Gerald H. Vind

The Transforming Dragons Personality Transformation ProgramTM (TDPTP) enables listeners to re-experience their time in the womb, and re-imprint positive personality patterns in the inner core of the brain. The program is developed from a new science of Prenatal Re-Imprinting (PNRI)

The presupposition of PNRI is: Our personality begins to form when we are only a small bundle of embryonic cells inside of our mother’s womb, through a process of imprinting in the deep structures of our brain. This imprinting is in a pattern of many different neurochemicals that conditions our emotional neuronal cells before we develop the massive cognitive-thinking part of our brain.

This imprinting establishes foundational perceptual filters that will later have a profound influence on our personality and how we experience life. After birth our life is about manipulating our reality field to achieve the same foundational patterns of emotional neurochemicals that we experienced in the womb.

Thus, all of our problems have their roots in foundational maladaptive Pavlovian (conditioned) responses developed under fetal and/or maternal distress. So for example, if your mother was distressed over a lack of emotional or financial support, her distress created a cascade of stress-related neurochemicals that pass through the placenta and imprinted a personality pattern of inadequacy.

Under extreme maternal stress embryonic cells are subjected to excessive adrenaline and its metabolite adrenochrome (hallucinogenic). These powerful neurochemicals can establish what later becomes a virtual addiction to stressful experiences. Thus, embryonic imprinting causes many to be born as “addicted” stress-seekers who unconsciously re-create stressful situations over and over again.

TDPTP is designed to do exactly what the name implies. There is a personality transformation through a re-imprinting (re-programming) of our core emotional center with alternative prenatal experiences. Thus, listeners are guided to accept alternative positive and self-actualizing foundations to their personality.

We are going to delve into aspects of multiple personality disorders to better understand the intimate connection between body and mind. (Multiple personality is now called dissociative identity disorder.)

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) has generally replaced the original name of multiple personality disorder (MPD). Some 97-percent of DID patients have a history of severe childhood trauma, often in the form of monstrous psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. Most DID patients have around eight to twelve separate personalities. No studies have yet examined the prenatal experiences of DIDs, but theory suggests a traumatic gestational period.

Dissociation is a complex coping mechanism for individuals confronting traumatic and painful situations, and with DID it involves a collapse in ego integrity (constructs of reality) that is so profound that their personality fragments. Ego integrity is our accumulated experience of order, structure, relevance and meaning from which we develop a sense of self and others; and from which we develop our personality. However, as students of PNRI we know there are prenatal experiences that form a more primary personality foundation.

DID is an unusual and bizarre condition in which two or more distinct personalities inhabit a single body. People who suffer from this disorder often have some awareness of their abnormal condition. However, they often have no awareness that control of their body is being passed back and forth between different personalities. They typically feel confusion, and believe that that they are suffering memory blackouts or amnesia.

EEG measurements show that each of a DID patient’s personalities has a different brain-wave pattern, and each personality has his own name, memories, and capabilities. Also, DID personalities each have their own unique handwriting.

At the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago, Dr. Bennet Braun has documented a case where a patient's sub-personalities were all allergic to orange juice, except for one. When this patient drank orange juice he would break out in a very bad rash when one of his allergic personalities was in control. However, if he switched to his non-allergic personality, the rash would instantly start to fade and he could drink orange juice freely.

Biological changes can take place when there is a switch in personalities. A medical condition possessed by one personality will mysteriously vanish when another personality takes over. For example, a multiple personality that was admitted to a hospital for diabetes showed no disease symptoms when one of her non-diabetic personalities was in control.

The evidence from studies of multiple personalities shows how fragmented constructs of reality (fragmented ego integrity) operate as separate belief systems. It is important to students of PNRI and TDPTP to understand the intimate connection between the body and mind. With a normal (single) personality there is one body-mind. With a DID patient there multiple body-minds.

Our personality (and for DIDs, multiple personalities) includes a belief system (or multiple systems). Our belief system is a core structure that is accepted as true, and thus resistant to change. Our belief system is surrounded by other thoughts and ideas that are generally consistant with the core belief structure. Acceptance of new thoughts and ideas is often blocked by the mechanism called cognitive dissonance.

We have limiting beliefs that inhibit us and limit our thinking, and thus limit the fullness of our lives. Our perceptual filters, with their roots in our prenatal development, shape our self-image, our attention, and our interest, values and motivation. Our perceptual filters are the lenses through which we project and create our reality field. And we do really create our experience of reality with all of its problems, faults, and limitations. Our prenatal limitations are the foundations of complex generalizations that impose limitating beliefs, such as:

• I belong in a role or set of relationships that define my place and capacities in life, and these bind me and they cannot be changed.
• I am not good enough and cannot succeed, so there is no point committing to even trying.

Our beliefs have a profound influence on us physically, as noted in the orange-juice allergy cited above. This mental over-ride of bodily functions can be clearly demonstrated in hypnosis. If, for example, a subject is hypnosized and is told that the hypnotist is holding a red-hot branding iron (however the iron is cold). And then the hypnotist presses the iron on the hypnotized subject’s arm, and this produces a physical reaction.

The subject’s mind believes that the branding iron is red hot, while his body experiences a cold object. Normally the body would respond to a red-hot object automatically releasing neurochemicals to produce an inflammatory response. The hypnotized subject’s mind will perceive the contact of the cold iron, and will operate as a back-up system and will cause an inflammatory response at the point of contact.

Our personality patterns (that include our belief system) contain limiting prenatal programming. Working with TDPTP and PNRI can give us a much smoother playing field in the game of life, where stumbling blocks become stepping stones.

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Recommended Reading: The Alcoholism & Addiction Cure
by Chris Prentiss


This is an important book because Chris Prentiss is shaking up the establishment by demonstrating that they are misguided and wrong in their approach to alcoholism and substance abuse. While the book is written for those with alcohol and substance abuse problems, it is worth reading for those who are (or planning to be) therapists or caregivers.

For half a century, the American Medical Association (AMA) has identified alcoholism as an incurable disease. Throughout the world today, the medical model is used and thus: alcoholism and addiction are regarded as incurable diseases. While there are physiological and medical considerations in an individual’s recovery, the longstanding AMA model is being overturned by the ongoing work of Chris Prentiss.

In his book, Chris Prentiss shows how to truly cure alcoholism and addiction, and he backs up his words by the results of his rehabilitation center: “Passages Malibu [is] the world’s most effective center for the treatment of substance abuse, where our success rate…is 84.4 percent.”

Prentiss is an innovator, and he is very passionate about his work. He wants to bring about revolutionary changes to the longstanding medical approach to alcoholism and addiction.

“Alcohol and drugs are not the problems; they are what people are using to help themselves cope with the problems. Those problems always have both physical and psychological components—anything from anemia, hypoglycemia, or a sluggish thyroid to attention deficient disorder, brain-wave pattern imbalances, or deep emotional pain. You will be reading later about the steps to recovery that address these causes, but foundational to them all is this key premise: when the underlying problems are discovered and cured, the need for alcohol or drugs disappears.” [emphasis added]

“Pay particular attention to what you're about to read, for it will lay the groundwork not only for part of your cure, but also for your continued state of well-being throughout the rest of your life… Here's a bit of metaphysical law regarding our topic of cure that relates to one of the basic and most important aspects of our Universe - cause and effect. Simply stated, the metaphysical law says: "Every action produces a reaction, and that reaction is in exact accord with the action." (Do not confuse that metaphysical law with the physical law that states that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.)”

”The metaphysical law of cause and effect applies to your beliefs in the following way. Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. When we apply this metaphysical law to the cure of addiction, we see that healers and therapists who don't believe that a cure is possible will not talk about a cure, will not look for a cure, and will most likely fail to bring about a cure.”

“Those misguided ‘helpers’ poison the minds of those who come to them. It's not that they're doing it deliberately; they don't know any better. That is sad, because hope - the hope for a cure, the hope for a bright, clean future free of addictive drugs and alcohol, and the hope for a return to a normal, healthy life free from the excessive fear of relapse - is the most powerful stimulus for complete recovery.

Compare those misguided healers with healers and therapists who believe that a cure is possible. They will talk about a cure, will look for a cure, and will be more likely to bring about a cure. Most important, they will instill in you the belief that a cure is not only possible, but probable, and that you are definitely going to be among those who will be completely cured. That belief alone results in the self-empowering attitude that sets the stage for your recovery.”The treatment program at Passages Malibu is advertised as providing a therapy-intensive program:

“Each client receives an astonishing 65 individual therapy sessions per month with doctors and therapists who are at the forefront of modern addiction treatment. Our fully customized treatment program first discovers and then heals the underlying causes of a person's addiction using one-on-one therapy. With the proper addiction treatment, Passages helps our clients to cure themselves so that they can remain drug and alcohol free for the rest of their lives.”