Remember driving down the road listening to a song, and becoming lost in the memories and feelings brought on by that song. The subconscious was driving the car.
The subconscious takes care of all processes that take place out of conscious awareness. The subconscious is more aware of what is going on in one’s life more than we realize. It is constantly working and is more powerful than we can imagine.
The subconscious receives million of bits of information through our senses. We select a small amount of those bits and filter all unnecessary information through our experiences, values, beliefs, and programs. In return, we get a representation of how we view our reality. It may not be “true”, but it is our interpretation.
It has thousands more time storage capacity than a computer.
It prioritizes about the emotional intensity of an event. Memories of fear and pain are the higher priority. Love and joy have the lower priority.
The conscious mind gives it direction and the subconscious deliver’s the true feelings and emotions for that particular experience based on its previous programming. It obeys and protects the conscious mind.
- Anatomical Nervous System.
The autonomic nervous system is a division of the peripheral nervous system; it regulates the involuntary functions of the body. It has two branches: the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system.
The parasympathetic nervous system
When you are calm and relaxed, happy, or in a peaceful frame of mind, the sympathetic nervous system is in check and non-functioning.
The heart is pumping blood through the blood vessels to all the extremities, organs, and brain. Organs are functioning throughout your body properly. Digestion does its work. Kidneys filter toxins. And the reproduction system is working properly, etc. The body is working, as it should.
The parasympathetic nervous system also supports the immune system. It enables the ability to higher intelligence and analytical problem solving.
The sympathetic nervous system
When a person is emotional, stressed, or when fear arises, the autonomic nervous system switches from the parasympathetic nervous system to the sympathetic nervous system.
The fight or flight mechanism is engaged.
The digestive, reproductive, and immune systems are suppressed.
Most of the blood flow more into the arms and legs, which adversely affects the proper functioning of the organs and systems within the body.
There is a decrease response to higher intelligence and the ability to solve problems analytically.
The sympathetic nervous system then relies on any currently programmed information stored in the subconscious to respond.
Because the subconscious is easily accessed using hypnosis, it is a valuable tool for making suggestions to tell it how it should control many aspects of our body functions. Hypnosis has been successful in reversing many ailments.
- Memory Storage
It stores information from all the five senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The subconscious is like a hard drive of a computer. Recent memory and information comes to the conscious mind when needed, but is remains stored.
It stores the information from all experiences that we ever had, every thought that ever was said, and every experienced we perceived by our five senses. It stores morals, values and core beliefs about one’s self.
- It is literal.
It takes the primary meaning of a word without exaggeration or metaphor. It would interpret the idiom “It’s raining cats and dogs” as cats and dogs are falling out of the sky instead of “it is raining very heavily”.
- Doesn’t discern fact from fantasy
The subconscious does not know the difference between fact from fantasy. It has no power to reason. It accepts and acts upon any fact or suggestion that it is given once accepted as true. It does not differentiate between what it perceives as imaginary and reality. Our “feelings” are interpreted by the subconscious as “reality”.
- Moves away from pain toward pleasure.
Movement away from pain is always stronger than movement toward pleasure. This is the basis for all addictions. Maladaptive behaviors become a movement away from pain.
The subconscious is only concerned with the present, here and now. Only concerned with feeling good at the moment. This is linked to our survival mechanism.
We develop a conditioned tolerance to physical and emotional pain. We become accustomed to pain, and it becomes our normal existence when we willingly accept negative habits, feelings or beliefs (our conditioned mind).
- The seat of emotions.
Beliefs are stored with the appropriate response that communicates the stored information. Ideas and beliefs become impressed upon the subconscious mind through emotions. The more intense the emotions, the deeper the idea becomes imprinted upon the subconscious. When more intense emotions accompany ideas, the less repetition is required to impress the ideas in the subconscious.
Repetition is another form of saturating the subconscious mind with an idea. It is why positive affirmations are effective.
- Programmed to be right.
Information stored is considered “true.” For example, the sky is blue because we have visually experienced it as such.
Another example: Because we received information; either through watching the Apollo moon landings or read it in a book while in school, we know the moon is not made out of cheese, even though we have never been there. We considered the book or telecast as a fact we made it a truth. We accepted without question. Any other information that contradicts is thrown out as not true, or incorrect.
From our personal experiences and how we have perceived the events in our life, unless changed the subconscious are considered to be true.
Authority figures (parents, teachers, boss, etc., or even a school textbook) are another way for an idea to be imprinted in the subconscious as true.
- Stores beliefs, and scripts
It stores what was learned, memories, beliefs, and emotions. Any information the subconscious accepts as true is then stored as fact.
Memories are a mixture of fact, fantasy, and perception.
Emotions can alter the perceptions of real events; “false memories”.
Everything that an individual has experienced is here, including memories that have long been forgotten by the conscious mind.
When accessing a belief, it runs the emotion based on past programming.
- Picture Consciousness.
The subconscious mind communicates through symbolic images, music, and metaphors. Like dreams, the sounds, imagery, and verbal messages, are information relayed by the subconscious. It is another form of communication through “word pictures”, the language of the subconscious.
The subconscious response well to metaphors. Metaphors by-pass the conscious mind and speak to the subconscious.
The subconscious mind responds well to a rhythm. Rhythmic music, drums or the sound of a metronome are proven ways to change awareness.
- Creative intelligence.
The subconscious is where our ability to create new and valuable ideas came from. Inventions, making discoveries, creating works of art and music to name a few. Whether it is pre-existing or new like a new way of doing a surgical procedure, etc.
- Synthesized Creativity
A memorized series of skills. The subconscious brings inspiration. Perform tasks. Using stored knowledge to solve problems, intellectually and mechanically. You learned how to change a flat tire. Create a web page or bake a cake. You learned how to do something and used that knowledge to perform a task related to it.
It is also the drive to use that knowledge to reach a person full potential. Going to medical school to learn how to become a doctor, then using that knowledge to practice medicine.
- The seat of imagination.
Imagination is the language of our subconscious. Imagination creates mental pictures to build and form to give the subconscious to be able to produce the desired result.
Since the subconscious does not distinguish fact from fiction, if you have a phobia or fear, like the fear of flying, your imagination may produce an unknown reason for the plane to crash. Or being afraid of the dark for no reason other than imagining something terrifying lurking in the dark. Once the light is off one may start imagining a monster in the closet, even if we know they do not exist. Fear of the unknown.
Fears and Phobias are rooted in a pre-existing belief that cannot be explained consciously.
Imagination is also positive. Imagining a pleasant scene to bring about a positive feeling.
- Reasons deductively.
The subconscious reasons deductively in which, roughly, the truth of the input propositions (the premises) logically guarantees the truth of the output proposition (the conclusion), provided that no mistake has been made in the reasoning.
If the room is dark then either the light switch is turned off, or the light bulb is burned out. Conclusion: The room is dark, and the light switch is not turned off. Therefore, the light bulb is burnt out.
- Always recording
The subconscious mind stores information 24/7/365. It is always recording. The subconscious never sleeps.
It has been documented under anesthesia, that an individual can subconsciously be aware of conversations between the surgical staff.
Listening to a subliminal recording while asleep has been proven effective. Another use of the power of affirmations.
- Association making mechanism
It matches new information with “data” already stored in the subconscious. But most importantly it matches associations that an individual is already conditioned to.
When we see a green traffic light, we have been conditioned to know that this means we can continue driving. A red traffic light means we have to stop our vehicle.
When we hear a noise, our subconscious tries to associate it with something we have heard before.
Another example would be if we were lying in bed attempting to go to sleep and we hear a noise that we are not familiar with, our imagination may kick in and scary thoughts may arise. Our subconscious may match the imagination and ideas to a particular belief, emotion, feeling or a memory that may bring a negative emotion. Most likely if it is a negative emotion, the subconscious will kick in its ‘fight or flight” mechanism for protection.
- Develops your character
A individuals character is traits that manifest themselves in particular situations. Honesty, thoughtfulness, and kindness to name a few.
Depending on how the programming was, it contributed to the type of morals and principles that make up who we are. If you received a good programming, you grew up with a strong character, with good morals, and have good ethics guided by the right principles.
If you received dysfunctional programming (dishonesty, hatred, or disrespect), you might end up having trouble as a juvenile, become an alcoholic or a drug addict, and or possibly end up in prison.
Research has suggested that pre-born babies perceived and were influenced by the events outside the womb. That the unborn child may share their mother’s feelings and the emotions that are produced from those feelings. From that day to the present, we continually receive programming.
A individuals character is based on our beliefs, e.g. it is important to be honest and kind to others.
- Influences the personality
Personality is different that character. Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors define one’s personality. It is who we are.
Being introverted, extroverted, confident, optimistic, and lazy or way too serious about situations, are personality traits.
It is influential in how we live our lives, what career path we choose, who are friends are, and the people we date.
It is such a fascinating subject in the field of psychology that it has been heavy researched. There are many theories about how personalities develop. There are even a few test, the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and the Socionics INFJ test that are used to find one’s personality type.
But no matter how you look at it, our personalities are developed through social factors, cultural factors, childhood experiences/upbringing, and education.
Changing our way of thinking can change our personality.
All our memories and beliefs stored in the subconscious as programming. Our memories and beliefs affect our habits and how we feel about ourselves.
Through hypnosis we can access the subconscious mind to make positive changes in our lives, change the way we view our reality, and better our health, so that we reach our potential to have a much more positive, productive, and fulfilling life.
Part 4 will concentrate on the “Superconcious” Mind.
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