The Origin of Anxiety: A Synopsis

: For thousands of years, in all developed societies throughout the world,
mothers have been separated from their babies-as an emotional adaptation to a life of alienation. The first
advanced civilizations which can relate this to us are the Sumerians-and their successors the Babylonians. Five
thousand years ago they developed the cuneiform writing system and then recorded the oldest stories in the
world. I understand their mythology as the ‘great dreams’ of these peoples. In the stories that tell of the great
goddess Inanna and her Taaby” Dumuzi, these early separation dramas are described with impressive imagery.
At a deeper level, the heroic battles are interpreted as a symbolic representation of birth: at the end of a
struggle beyond the limits of human imagination, the dragon or monster is beheaded: the umbilical cord is
severed, the baby is born. But this enormous battle is not the end of the myth. There are also tales of the gods
that actually tell what a baby experiences in its mother’s womb. The Sumerians are the first culture to write of
these dramatic events. Based on these wounds from pregnancy, birth and infancy, they invented more and
more new pictures and stories, to make these early traumatic experiences understandable. As I believe, to calm
the people of that tune. These interpretations are the key to understanding the mythology of other cultures, but
also to understanding the hidden pre- and perinatal aspects of our own dreams. KEY WORDS: Sumerians,
mythology, pregnancy, birth. HUMANITY’S EARLIEST MYTHOLOGY REFLECTS PRE- AND PERINATAL LIFE