Body Memory

“Your body is just the place your memory calls home.” – Deepak Chopra

Body Memory – (also referred to as cellular memory, tissue memory or somatic memory.) – Memories that reside in the body rather that the brain. The skin, muscles and nervous system register and record all of our physical experiences from in utero through life. A Body Memory is a holding pattern, with the memories from an event or series of events in a pattern of tension, in response to fear, illness, shock, anger, abuse or injury. Many of these memories were embedded before we were verbal and capable of understanding.

Body memory is a recollection of past events that has been stored in the body. Often we think there will be a visual – With traumatic events, this is less likely to be true, due to dissociation and repression.

Traumatic or extraordinary events are experienced through all our senses:

  • Sounds
  • Smells
  • Tastes
  • Physical sensations
  • Visual – often in the form of images “stills” and may or may not be accompanied by emotion.

“The events from your past are now inscribed upon the tablet of your flesh and today your body shows your life story so clearly.” – Joseph Heller


It has been thought that memory existed only i9n the brain, however traumas such as difficulty during birth, accidents, surgeries, injuries and physical or emotional abuse may emerge spontaneously during body oriented therapy sessions. Researchers are now providing the evidence to explain this phenomenon…

Candace Pert, Ph.D., former chief of brain biochemistry at the clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, found that neuropeptides (chemical substances such as beta endorphin) and their receptors appear not only in the brain, but through the body. These “keys to the biochemistry of emotion” form a communication link between the brain, the immune system and emotions. Pert’s work expands the concept of the primitive limbic system – the seat of emotions in the brain – to the whole body.

Memory researchers such as Marvin Mishkin, Ph.D., chief of the Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, have been able to follow the flow of information from sensory receptors on the skin through the spinal cord and brain stem into different areas of the brain. This information becomes a memory that is actually images of tactile experiences. Memory does not occur by itself in the brain, it depends on communication with everything that is happening in the body. “Memory resides nowhere and in every cell. It’s about 2000 times more complicated than we ever imagined” Says Saul Schanberg, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and biological psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center.

Peter Levine, Ph.D., originator of Somatic Experiencing refers to the body sense – something happens and the body responds. Ex. If there’s an explosion, you’d probably react with contraction… Then the body returns to normal. If you are traumatized by the event, your responses won’t complete. “The body memory is the frozen or incomplete response”

Clyde Ford, D.C., founder and director of the institute for Somatosynthesis Training and Research states that our bodies remember through our sense perceptions: Somatic tissue functions as a secondary storage facility for the brain. Ex. A car accident with the sound of screeching tires, sight of an oncoming car, and the touch of an out of control steering wheel are the sensory cues that cause us to hold our bodies tight and to experience fear as we brace for impact. Afterwards, the muscle spasms and lingering fear are stored images of these original cues – sight, sound and touch.

“Before you speak… your body speaks for you.” – Isabelle Anderson