Blog 2: The Allegory of The Cave through History

For many years, mothers whom were pregnant believed that their thoughts and emotions gradually affected the characteristics and child development of their unborn child. This theory was very popular in the early 18th century. It was believed that if a mother were to be depressed in her pregnancy, then that would result in her child to be depressed in his or her life. If a child was to be born blind, then it was because the mother had been exposed to loud noise or the mother associated with a blind person at the time of her pregnancy. Joseph Merrick was born with a very unusual disease; he grew up with disfiguring tumors which spread all over his face. He was led to believe that because his mother was frightened by an elephant when she was pregnant with him, he had developed elephant features on his hands and face. As he was growing up his face and body developed many more tumors made of bone.

Towards the beginning of the 20^th century more people stopped believing in this theory and only noted it as a superstition. After many people dismissed this theory they started believing in the Mozart Effect. Many people didn’t know what to believe in and kept their minds set on maternal impressions. The reality of the maternal impression theory is as one begins to believe that the reason their child becomes ill or undeveloped is because of their own thoughts and exposure to different sight, touch ,smell, hear and taste they start to question what they need to do for the better health of their unborn child. Many mothers left the reality in which they believed their kids were growing up ill because of their exposure to ill people and started taking care of themselves and began thinking as normal people.