The Genie Within: Your Subconscious Mind (3 page)

Lesson One

YOUR GENIE

Lesson One

YOUR GENIE

T
he capability of your subconscious mind is far beyond what you think it is. Many experts claim that most of us use only ten percent of our subconscious mind. After this lesson, you will see why a few pundits believe most of us use less than three percent. Before I go over a few of the feats the subconscious mind is capable of, I need to clarify a couple of definitions.

First, you need to know what I mean by conscious and subconscious minds. The part of your brain that you are aware of is your conscious mind. On the flip side, the part of your mind you are unaware of is your subconscious mind. It is that simple: everything in these lessons is simple.

Another aspect of the mind that needs clarifying is the difference between “brain” and “mind.” The brain is that three-pound organ in your head. The “mind” is something larger and more elusive. There is a huge difference between brain and mind and there are books that go into intricate details on these differences. From a Western point of view, the
brain
is the physical anatomy and the mind is what the brain generates through its activity. From an Eastern point of view, some say, the mind is the source of the thoughts supplied to the brain. For the purpose of this course the difference is not important so the words, “brain” and “mind,” are used interchangeably.

Recent discoveries in the new field of psychoneuroimmunology show that the brain is not confined within the cranium—it actually extends throughout the body.
Mind and body are no longer two distinct entities. Your mind can control, directly or indirectly, the body and vice versa. This new field is exciting but, again, for our purposes, you can think of the brain simply as that wrinkled organ in your head.

Just a few decades ago our medical establishment said it was impossible to control involuntary functions, such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. They were partially right. It is impossible to
directly
control involuntary functions. But involuntary functions can be controlled indirectly by using the conscious mind to communicate your intent to the subconscious mind.

Biofeedback is now an accredited method in the medical profession for controlling involuntary functions. A few of its capabilities are reducing blood pressure, stress, anxiety, and eliminating migraine headaches. But a doctor’s prescription, an expensive, sophisticated instrument, and a skilled technician are required.

Biofeedback is not the only way to influence your subconscious mind. There are other ways that are easy and cost nothing. The purpose of this book is to explain these ways in easy-to-follow steps.

DIFFERENT,
REALLY
DIFFERENT

The crux of using your subconscious mind is to appreciate how different it is from your conscious mind. Even though the conscious mind and subconscious mind exist in the same body, they have vastly different characteristics. If another man or women communicated with you as your subconscious mind communicates with you in dreams, for example, you would think the man or woman was crazy. But your subconscious mind is not crazy just because your dreams are obscure to your conscious mind; it is just different.

Carrying this analogy further, consider the huge difference between men and women. Besides the physical differences, there are emotional differences and, as a result, men and women interact differently. A popular book explains these differences. Most men are goal-oriented and want to work out their problems alone. Most women are more into relationships and feelings. They need to talk to someone who just listens. These are valid differences, but even if you do not know this much, men and women can still talk and get along. At worst, if the differences are too large, they can go their separate ways.

But your conscious mind and subconscious mind cannot be separated. And, if they do not work together, the results can be harmful. Results can be, for examples poor health, seeking destructive relationships, and inappropriate behavior, such as, poor eating habits and temper outbursts.

The subconscious mind contains the software for your involuntary functions, emotions, and habits. Most of your habits and emotional conditioning were programmed in early childhood before you had mature faculties to make proper decisions. Many were programmed haphazardly and usually by parents, teachers, peers, TV and, recently, perhaps, computer games. Freud said, “We learn as children how we react emotionally and this is carried into adulthood. When we are children, we do not have the faculties that we do in adulthood. We do not know what we are going to need in adulthood to cope. Therefore, as adults we (often) react as children.”

These old programs are still influencing, if not controlling, your behavior even though many are counterproductive. Some may even be destructive. When you understand the subconscious mind and a few laws it obeys, you can change these childhood programs. You will become the master of your genie.

THE POWER OF
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

The subconscious mind has a largely untapped potential. A few observed feats of which the subconscious mind is capable, are listed below. Examples in this section are extraordinary feats performed by human beings with ordinary minds and bodies (except for the athletes). If these ordinary people, with ordinary subconscious minds, can do these feats, then you and I can do them. But to do them, we must rely on our subconscious minds, not our conscious minds. The conscious mind cannot make your body do these feats. The conscious mind has to know how to tap the subconscious mind to do them.

The following feats were performed without drugs or prayer. In addition to the following examples, there are miraculous healings of the body, such as spontaneous remissions of cancer or other diseases attributed to prayer or a visit to a sacred place, such as Lourdes. Such cases have been documented. But the power of prayer is another subject. Prayer is addressed in a sequel lesson.

I will start with stage hypnotists. Most of you have had an opportunity to see one perform. Essentially, all they do is plant a suggestion in the subconscious mind of the subject. But the results, to our conscious minds, seem extraordinary.

       
    I witnessed a hypnotist tell a man that he just returned from another planet, and he asked the subject to describe his visit to this planet. The subject
demonstrated a vivid imagination by describing the planet in detail. This person in a normal mental state would probably avow he has a poor imagination. Maybe his conscious mind has poor imagination, but his subconscious mind has a vivid one. Moreover, in a normal mental state he would, likely, not be able to vividly and spontaneously describe something in such detail from his imagination in front of a large audience.

       
    Hypnotic subjects can exhibit extraordinary strength. I have a picture from a national newspaper that appeared many years ago of Johnny Carson suspended between two chairs. Kreskin, the well-known mentalist (he refuses to be called a hypnotist), planted a suggestion in Carson’s subconscious mind that he was super strong and that he could keep his body rigid. He had Carson place his head on one chair and the soles of his feet on another. Carson remained rigid even when someone sat on his stomach. If it was not for the fact that his subconscious mind accepted the suggestion, Carson could not have performed this feat. (Do not do this. You could strain a muscle.)

       
    A suggestion planted in a subject’s subconscious mind can change his personality and make him or her do things they would not do under normal circumstances. I witnessed stage hypnotists make: an ordinary woman strut around the stage acting as if she had just won the Miss America contest; a man pursue a broom stick acting as if it were a gorgeous movie star, and; a man attack (he had to be held back) a larger man, who he knew was a muscled college wrestler, because the wrestler kicked an imaginary dog.

       
    Hypnotized subjects can be made amnesiac. A woman volunteer on a PBS TV program was hypnotized and she was told to forget the number 7. Later, when out of the hypnotic state, they took her to a stage set up like a game show. The host told her she would win $1,000,000 for answering this simple question: What is 4 plus 3? She could not come up with the correct answer. They gave her two more chances with two more simple questions in which the answer was 7. Each time she could not recall the number 7. They then asked her to count the fingers on her hands. She counted 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11. She could not say the number 7. She was also confused about having 11 fingers.