<p>According to Porges: there is no way to understand trauma without understanding the biology of trauma: first hyperarousal, crying then screaming, the best clinical term that describes the state of the infant at the level of abuse is panic. In panic there is a dysregulation of the body—the sense of self collapses or explodes in a reenactment of the abandonment.</p><p>Sympathetic excitation is now in the body, as well as in the organs, but its being shut down by a parasympathetic inhibition that tries to regulate this via disassociation—this is considered a moment of psychic death. Dissociation by means of parasympathetic inhibition is the role of the unmyelinated subdiaphrammatic vagus nerve, which is reptilian in its evolutionary origin. It is this dissociative mechanism that creates the feigning of death.</p><p>Dissociation is a right brain survival defense against overwhelming, unbearable, painful emotional experiences. This can manifest, symptomatically, in a number of ways. Dissociation can arrive in the presence of mu rhythm (covered earlier in this chapter), dissociation can occur in the presence of Temporal lobe Alpha.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p>