The mind of man is a dark and
murky place. Its mysteries have been ever advancing for over ten million years
of evolution; with one more complex layer piled on the top of a more primitive
one, from the most basic and animalistic to the most human and altruistic, as
humanity struggled to overcome its animal nature shaped by the wilderness of
our origins to the exalted pinnacles of civilization where we aspire to be.
In the immutable ways of evolution, through the long march of time over
the endless eons, none of the old mechanisms of the mind have ever been
replaced; with the more primitive layers being suppressed by evolution and
supplanted by the more modern machinery of thinking.
The bottom line, we cannot fight our human nature; we can only learn to
live with it, to follow it dictates and guidelines in bending it to follow our
will.
A strategy for problem solving that is not consistent with our nature is
destined to be ineffective as a tool in meeting its ultimate goals.
In the quest to understand ourselves, just how do our minds work: the
conscious, subconscious, and unconscious? And what is the difference between
them?
The concept of three levels of mind has been around for some time now.
Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist was probably the first to study
the dichotomy of mind and popularized that study into mainstream society as we
know it today.
Freud has bequeathed to us a useful model of the mind, which he
separated into three tiers or sections – the conscious mind or ego, the preconscious,
and the unconscious mind.
One way to illustrate the concept of the three minds is by using a
triangle. If you imagine at the very tip of the triangle is your conscious
mind. It occupies only a small portion of space at the top, a bit like an iceberg
where only a fraction of it is showing above the water. It probably represents
about 10% of your brain capacity. This mental capability is newly developed and
untried in the march of our evolution where communication of our thoughts and
feelings requires some organization and logic to be transferred onward to
others.
Below this is a slightly larger section that Freud called the
preconscious, or what some refer to as the subconscious. It is much larger than
the conscious mind and accounts for around 50-60% of our brain capabilities.
This mental process kept our ancestors alive in their fight to struggle out of
the wilds of our first habitats and is usually devoid of logic and science but
the preserve of intuition and feeling.
The section below this middle layer is the unconscious mind. It is the
mind of the primitive and occupies the whole width of the base of the triangle
and fills out the other 30-40% of the triangle. It is vast and deep and largely
inaccessible to conscious thought, a bit like the dark depths of the ocean were
the basest emotions live.
Our conscious mind is what most people associate with who we are,
because that is where most people live day to day. It is the thin veneer of our
being. It is the outer edifice of our existence where we expose ourselves to
the world. But it’s by no means where
all the action takes place.
Our conscious mind is a bit like the captain of a ship standing on the
bridge giving out orders to the crew. In reality, it’s the crew in the engine
room below deck (the subconscious and the deeper unconscious) that carry out
the orders. The captain may be in charge of the ship and give the orders but
it’s the crew that actually guides the ship that does the dirty work, all
according to what training they had been given over the years to best do so.
Our conscious mind communicates to the outside world and the inner self
through speech, pictures, writing, physical movement, and thought.
On the other hand, the subconscious mind is in charge of our recent
memories, and is in continuous contact with the resources of the unconscious
mind.
The unconscious mind is the storehouse of all memories and past
experiences, both those that have been repressed through trauma and those that
have simply been forgotten as no longer important to us. It’s from these
memories and experiences that our beliefs, habits, and behaviors are formed.
The unconscious constantly drives the conscious mind via our
subconscious, and is what provides us with the direction and meaning to all our
interactions with the world, as filtered through our beliefs and habits. It
communicates through, insight, feelings, emotions, imagination, mood,
sensations, and dreams.
The unconscious deals with all the same tasks as the subconscious – the
memory, habits, feelings, emotions, and behaviors. The difference between the
two minds, however, is that the unconscious is the source of all these programs
that our subconscious uses and the energy that drives us.
It is the place where all our memories and experiences since birth have
been stored. It’s from these memories that our beliefs, habits, and behaviors
are formed and reinforced over time.
The unconscious mind is where our optimism is born and the kind of hope
that just ignores the enormity of the tasks that face us or the road blocks
that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows
us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. It is the unreason of
stubbornness, the thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the
contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to
keep on thinking, to keep on hoping, to keep on reaching, to keep on working,
and to keep on fighting.
It is the drive rooted in the unconscious instinct for survival that has
gotten us to where we are now over the countless generations in an endless
cycle of birth and death.
It is where purpose if found. It is this purpose that guides up, this
purpose that connects us, this purpose that pulls us, this purpose that drives
us, and it is this purpose that binds us.
It is where these mystic chords of our passion lie that swell when
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our natures. It will
not allow us to shrink from these great missions of our lives and the root of
the emotions that life engenders.
It is the part of us that says unto the latest generation that when we
are tested we refused to let this great journey of survival end, that we did
not turn back nor will we falter to pass the gift of life forward; and with
unreasoned eyes fixed on the horizon, we are compelled ever onward to carry
forth, restore and maintain that great gift that cannot be squandered and must
be delivered safely to future generations.
Our subconscious is dominated by our conscious mind. Controlling and
directing it is the key to personal change. This control is like programing an
internal computer.
Our subconscious is a bit like the RAM in our computer; the short term
working memory in our computer and its job is to hold the programs and data
that are currently in use so they can be reached quickly and easily by the
computer processor. It’s a lot faster than the other types of memory, such as
the hard disk or CD-ROM available on the conscious level. The quality of these
memories and programs determines how successful the conscious level will be.
Apart from short term memory, the subconscious also plays an important
role in our day to day functioning.
It works hard at ensuring you have everything you need for quick recall
and access to when you need it. Things like –
Memories – such as what your telephone number is, how to drive a car
without having to consciously think about it, what you need to get from the
shop on the way home etc.
Current programs you run daily, such as behaviors, habits, and mood.
Filters (such as beliefs and values) to run information through to test
their validity according to your perception of the world.
Sensations taken in via your 5 senses and what it means to you.
If it doesn’t happen to have a filter or reference point in its RAM for
some bits of information that come in, then it has a direct line to the storage
place of the mind – the unconscious. It will ask the unconscious to pull out
the programs that it best associates with the incoming data to help make sense
of it all.
The subconscious is also constantly at work, staying a lot more aware of
your surroundings than you realize. In fact, according to the NLP communication
model we are assaulted with over 2 million bits of data every second. If our
conscious mind had to deal with all that you would very quickly become
overwhelmed and not be able to get anything done. The conscious selects from
the vast storehouse of data and functions to get a job done.
Instead, our subconscious filters out all the unnecessary information
and delivers only that which is needed at the time, around 7 chunks of
information. It does all this behind the scenes so you can perform our daily
work uninhibited. And it does this as logically as it can; based on the
programs it has access to in your unconscious.
The subconscious is where most problems are solved. These solutions
flash into the conscious mind in a flash of inspiration, logic of the conscious
follows the intuition of the subconscious.
It then communicates all the results into consciousness via emotions,
feelings, sensations and reflexes, images and dreams. It doesn’t communicate in
words, it flashes insights that we feel come out of nowhere to help us solve
the problems of the conscious. This communication between these mental layers
is where hunches, premonitions, instincts, and guesses are born.
One of the truly great things about the subconscious (and one which we
need to take advantage of to affect change) is … it obeys orders; the
subconscious can be educated!
People often erroneously think that the subconscious is in charge and we
are merely at its mercy. In fact it’s the complete opposite. Your conscious
mind gives it the direction, the environment if you like, for which it operates
in. The subconscious will only deliver the emotions and feelings of what you
continuously think about.
Now I’m not saying it’s as easy as changing what you think of in one
moment and your entire life will be changed. In most cases your default
programs have too much energy attached to them to change instantaneously.
Training the subconscious take both great effort and discomfort. It can be done
though – such as after a massive life altering event or if enough pain is
associated with the old behavior – but without a major shift like that it is
likely the old programs will reemerge.
As an example of how the subconscious mind works, let us look at one of
the greatest minds to have ever lived to see what formed it and what made it
tick.
Leonardo DaVinci was a great painter, designer, scientist, futurist and
thinker. He also had the gift of dyslexia.
One remarkable indication that Leonardo was dyslexic is in his
handwriting. Leonardo was constantly sketching out his ideas for inventions.
Most of the time, he wrote his notes backwards. Why did Leonardo write from
right-to-left, in mirror image? Although unusual, this is a trait shared by
many left-handed dyslexic people. Most of the time, dyslexic writers are not
even consciously aware that they are writing this way.
Leonardo's spelling is also considered erratic and quite strange. He
also started many more projects then he ever finished - a characteristic now
often considered to be 'A.D.D.'
The way the world entered DaVinci’s mind forced his subconscious
programs to compensate. How this process worked is not known but his genius was
not developed on the conscious level. It was a miracle of adaptation.
To make sense of the world, the dyslexic sorely needs to order the
confused signals that enter through their senses.
From the earliest age, the dyslectic forms programs and compulsions to
impose a synthesis of the product of their senses.
This synthesis is achieved by registering through memorizing all the
relevant data involved in a subject, correlating it using inbuilt subconscious
programs perfected from birth as a coping mechanism for dyslexia so that no
contradictions exist between the input data. When this synthesis is reached,
the unconscious responds with a feeling of beauty that reinforces the synthesis
behavior.
Dyslexia requires the achievement of order, precision, and harmony in
the unconscious mind as a coping mechanism for the imprecision and confusion
inherent in the senses of the dyslectic. This compensation mechanism results in
unique mental mechanisms and talents to form.
Dyslexia Areas of Strength:
•Computer programming
•Art- especially 3-D expression and visualization
•Music
•Science
•Law
•Highly intuitive
•Mechanical skills
•Inquisitive and Imaginative
•Creative and Innovative
•Global thinkers-"think out-side of the box"
•Problem solvers-good at seeing the big picture
•Strong verbal communicators
As an example, of the Dyslexic method, here is how an affected software
person would write a tax preparation program.
First memorize all the rules of all the application programming
interfaces (API) and the functions of the operating system that will be needed
to write the program. These APIs are all committed in detail to the
subconscious usually through long experience.
Completely learn all the rules that govern the tax structure to be
programed.
Formulate a user experience that best suits the needs of the users of
the program.
Inside the head of the dyslectic, a subconscious program works 24/7 to
correlate all the associated factors to form a synthesis of form and function. Based
on his level of unconscious compulsion to achieve order, the programmer may
well dream about the program constantly.
When completed and such a program is examined and evaluated by others
skilled in the art, it is considered beautiful in it execution in terms of the
level of synthesis and innovation that it achieves.
On the other hand, the opposite of this is termed in the software
industry as spaghetti code which is twisted and tangled; Spaghetti code occurs
when items are added in disjointed layers without any correlation, ordering,
and harmony. It is a nightmare to add to it or maintain this type of program.
In another example, in what is known as DaVinci’s masterpiece in light
and perspective, The Last Supper, da Vinci applies his novel, though more
complicated understanding of light and optics, translating his scientific
inquiry into artistic innovation.
First Leonardo da Vinci’s studied perspective and mastered it. His use
of light and optics in painting over long years of practice were it became
second nature and was committedentirely into his subconscious.
This subconscious programming ultimately allowed him to excel in the
portrayal of reflection, shadow, and luminescence. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper
demonstrates this careful study of light and the relation of light to
perspective. In the work, da Vinci
delves into the true complications of optics and reflections, and its renown
guided the artistic study of light by subsequent masters.
From da Vinci’s personal manuscripts, accounts from his contemporaries,
and present-day art historians, the iterative relationship between Leonardo da
Vinci’s study of light and study of optics becomes apparent, and how his study
of the two fields manifested in his paintings.
What gives this painting it unparalleled eternal beauty is the mastery
and synthesis of the artistic techniques used to confer the unified and
coherent message of the artist.
Albert Einstein was
another famous Dyslexic.
The mechanism of Dyslexic subconscious production of insight is
illustrated by the Albert Einstein Eureka moment at the Bern Patent office. The
truth that was long apparent on the subconscious level eventually flashed into
his conscience mind.
Albert Einstein was
sitting in his chair at the Patent Office in Bern one day when the breakthrough
happened. "Suddenly, the thought struck me: if a man falls freely, he does
not feel his own weight. I was taken aback. This simple thought experiment made
a deep impression on me," he wrote in 1907. This was two years after the
publication of his Special Theory of Relativity and it led directly to his
theory of gravity, and still later to his General Theory of Relativity. In
effect, Einstein had stumbled upon one of his greatest insights: gravity is
acceleration.
Einsteinknew
about and utilized his subconsciousabilities to solve difficult problems. Using
a sudden flash of insight method, one of the key insights in developing his
special theory of relativity came to Albert Einstein while talking to his friend Michele Besso:
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I started the conversation with
him in the following way: "Recently I have been working on a difficult
problem, today I come here to do battle against that problem with you"
We discussed every aspect of this problem. Then suddenly I understood where
the key to this problem lay. Next day I came back to him again and said to
him without even saying hello, "thank you. I've completely solved the
problem"
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalogram studies
have found that problem solving requiring insight involves increased activity
in the deep primitive brain at the right cerebral hemisphere as compared with
problem solving not requiring insight. In particular, increased activity was
found in the right hemisphere anterior superior temporal gyrus.
Subconscious processing may take place while a person is asleep, and
there are several cases of scientific discoveries coming to people in their
dreams. Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz said that the ring structure of
benzene came to him in a dream where a snake was eating its own tail. Studies
have shown increased performance at insight problems if the subjects slept
during a break between receiving the problem and solving it. Sleep may function
to restructure problems formulated in the subconscious, and allow new insights
to be reached. Henri Poincaré stated that he valued sleep as a time for
"unconscious thought" that helped him break through problems.
A kitchen design or a pluming job can be just as beautiful as a work by Leonardo
DaVinci if they achieve a synthesis of form and function.
Everyone has their own talents and abilities that have been formed by
their nature and nurture. We must identify who can best do the job needed to be
done and let them do it.
The shaping the subconscious mind entails a lifetime of effort,
discipline, experience, and practice.
Let Einstein understand the universe, Michelangelo build St. Peters cathedral, and
William Shakespeare write the plays.
