The Genie Within: Your Subconscious Mind (7 page)

The reptilian brain evolved for survival. It controls basic functions necessary for life, including heart rate, breathing, fighting, fleeing, feeding, and reproduction. It has no feelings.

MAMMALIAN

The mammalian brain evolved about 50 million years ago. The mammalian brain in man is also essentially the same as in all mammals. This part of the brain contains
feelings
and
emotions
. It is playful and the source of maternal care. Mammals tend to their young; reptiles usually do not.

The mammalian part of the brain provides us with feelings of what is real, true, and important to us, but it is inarticulate in communicating these feelings to the conscious mind. Important features are that the subconscious mind (1) is the source of feelings and derives information in terms of feelings, and (2) derives its value system by experience, that is, experience with emotional impact.

CORTEX

The third stage of development is the “cortex.” It is the conscious part of the mind. According to Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist, it is about 40,000 years old and is still evolving. Some contemporary researchers think it is older. An important feature of the conscious mind is that it does not begin to develop until about age three and is not fully developed until about 20 years of age. These ages vary between individuals.

This late development is one reason we have so many negative and counterproductive programs in our subconscious minds. When the emotional part of our brains was developing in the early years of our lives, we did not have a rational, mature conscious mind to filter out negative programs and select positive ones we will need as adults. To make matters worse, we are not aware of most of these programs now because they were developed at such an early age we have no conscious memory of them.

In contrast to the subconscious mind, which evolves its value system through emotions, the conscious mind evolves its value system through rational interpretation of experience.

Because of these vast differences, “...the three brains are often dissociated and in conflict.”
¹

Ken Keys, author and lecturer, stated it well: “Although our cerebral cortex has more processing capacity than any computer ever built, unfortunately the new brain isn’t wired into the old brain with the monitoring feedback, and control circuits that we need for optimal functioning. Thus the new brain, the conscious mind, will analyze problems and come up with rational solutions, often without the vaguest idea what is taking place in the old brain, the subconscious mind, which is governed by nonrational feeling...that is the crux of our problem. The poor communication between the old and new brains creates problems in everyday life. For example, the old brain can bypass the thinking brain’s control systems and act out intense emotions that have been bottled up in the unconscious for decades...often making mountains out of molehills. The new brain, operating in present time, realizes that the person has strength, competence, and self-worth, yet the unconscious continues to trigger ineffective, inappropriate responses to life’s challenges based on negative childhood programming.”
²

SIZE

The subconscious mind makes up an estimated 92% of the total brain. The conscious mind comprises the remaining 8%. Thus, the conscious mind is puny compared to the subconscious mind.

SIGHT

The conscious mind sees with the eyes. It perceives outside experiences that are taken into our minds. It is your conscious mind that sees this printed page.

The subconscious mind, on the other hand, has no contact with the outside world. It is blind. The subconscious mind does not see any more than a computer sees. Consequently, the subconscious mind does not know the difference between
real
and
imagined
. This last statement is important and will be repeated again and again. It is not conjecture; psychologists have verified it in laboratory experiments.

The subconscious mind relies on sensory input. Thus, it responds to
reality
and
imagination
in the same way. For example, when you dream of a monster, your body responds the same as it would if the monster were real. The “fight or flight” mechanism jumps into action and pumps adrenalin into your blood stream. Your body responds by sweating, increased heart rate, etc. In reality, there is no monster and no real threat.

COMMUNICATION

Most thoughts in the conscious mind are communicated by an inner or outer voice. Most, although not all, thinking uses a voice, and a voice uses words. The conscious mind communicates predominantly with words. That is one reason a large vocabulary is important. Words are the tools of thinking.

The subconscious mind has limited vocabulary and is not as articulate with words. Most people do not dream in words. The subconscious mind communicates predominantly with images and feelings. For example, you (your conscious mind) might say, “I am frightened, but I do not know why,” while your subconscious mind might produce a dream in which a monster chases you.

FUNCTIONS

The conscious mind controls the voluntary functions. For example, I can consciously move my arm up or down. I can walk over here or there. These are conscious actions.

A critical factor is that
the conscious mind can only do one thing at a time
. It cannot do two things simultaneously. Someone may argue that they can read and watch TV at the same time. If you really become aware of what you are doing at an instant, you will see that you are either reading
or
watching TV. To do both requires that you quickly switch back and forth.

Recall the first time you tried to pat yourself on the top of your head and, at the same time, rub your stomach in a clockwise motion. You could not do it at first; not until you very quickly shifted one function to your subconscious mind. Then it became easy. Then when you were instructed to reverse the functions, that is, to rub the top of your head and pat your stomach, it again became difficult. It may have only taken seconds to learn one function and relegate it to your subconscious mind, in which case, doing both at the same time again became easy.

A recent article in the
New York Times
reported a scientific study that showed people cannot consciously drive and talk on their cell phone at the same time. In other words, you are doing one or the other consciously, but not both simultaneously. Using magnetic resonance images of brain
activity, the scientists found the brain has a finite amount of space for tasks requiring attention. One scientist commented that when you really want to listen to someone on the phone, you close your eyes.

Another article in a newspaper reported a mother who was so rapt in a cell phone conversation she got off the bus without her four-month-old baby.

A simple experiment will prove that your conscious mind can only do one thing at a time. Pick up a light object such as a pen. Will yourself to drop it. Easy! To drop the pen you had to make a conscious decision
when
to drop it. Now hold the pen and continue saying to yourself, “I can drop it; I can drop it...” on and on. If you truly concentrate on the one thought, the thought that you can drop the pen, then you cannot make the decision
when
to drop the pen. If you cannot make the decision when to drop the pen, then you cannot drop it. You cannot continuously think, “I can drop the pen” and at the same time consciously think “Now, I will drop the pen.”

Think about when you learned to drive a car. Many of us learned in a car with a stick shift. The first lesson went like this. You turned the key on. The car lurched and the engine died because we forgot to put the gear in neutral. You started the car again but it died because you did not give the engine more gas. You were thinking of turning the key. You started the car again and gave it some gas. You shifted gears only to hear a clash. You had forgotten to push in the clutch. Now you pushed down on the clutch pedal and shifted into first gear. You let off on the clutch and the engine died. You did not think to give it more gas. Finally, the car started moving and your dad screamed, “Look out!” Oops, you were not steering; you were thinking of shifting gears.

Learning to drive is a good example of how difficult it is for the conscious mind to do many things at once. However, after you relegated one function after another to the
subconscious mind, driving became easy—it no longer required conscious effort.

Hitting a golf ball is another example. When you are learning, there are too many things to think about during the swing. A beginner’s swing is awkward and often jerky. After you transfer each step to your subconscious mind, you do not have to think about your swing at all. In fact, thinking about your swing (a conscious mind activity) interferes with it.

The subconscious mind, in contrast, can do trillions of functions at the same time. We do not have to conscientiously think to breathe, perspire when we are hot, digest our food, fight foreign bodies, release insulin, and on and on. This subject is discussed again in the next lesson when we explore the subconscious mind as a computer.

Your subconscious mind constantly communicates with all of the cells in your body, and the cells, in turn, communicate with your subconscious mind. To learn more of this fascinating subject read
Molecules of Emotion by
Candice Pert, a pioneer in the new medical field of psychoneuroimmunology.

COGNITIVE PROCESS

The conscious mind is logical. It has the ability to think, think abstractly, reason, criticize, analyze, judge, choose, select, discriminate, plan, invent and compose, use hindsight and foresight. It uses both deductive and inductive reasoning.

Your conscious mind, for the most part, filters the impact of input to the subconscious mind. Everything gets into the subconscious mind, but the conscious mind can influence the effect, or power, it has over the subconscious mind. As stated earlier, the conscious mind does not begin to develop until the age of three and it is not fully developed until about the age of 20. You did not have this filter during your critical, early formative years. Thus, you have a lot of garbage in your
subconscious mind that is counterproductive to your health, peace of mind, and productivity.

The subconscious mind, conversely, is not logical; it is the feeling mind. It is the source of love, hatred, anguish, fear, jealousy, sadness, anger, joy, desire, etc. When you say, “I feel...” the source of the feeling is the subconscious mind. Think of an extreme example, such as rage. A person expressing deep rage exhibits strong emotion, superior strength, is highly illogical, and has poor (conscious) recollection of his or her carrying on afterward.