Subconscious Mind

Most of us would say “I am in control of myself. My behaviour is controlled.” But you will be surprised to know that most often, all of us, including myself, have very little control on what we do. We are driven to a behaviour and we are seldom in control.

What we think and do, we do so with our conscious mind. But there are several actions which are controlled by the subconscious mind. We are not in control of the actions governed by our subconscious mind.

One example often used to explain the subconscious mind is the process of car driving. Initially when you are learning to drive, you have full concentration on the gear, the clutch, etc. You are all concentration on the process of driving; you look at every pothole, every bump, and every obstacle. As you get trained on driving, the act goes into your subconscious mind and you tend to drive without making a conscious effort to drive. You automatically avoid the obstacles, you automatically change gears when required while you could be doing umpteen other things at the same time like talking to your wife sitting beside you, listening to the music and observing the countryside.

As you practice driving again and again, you make decisions automatically and you drive naturally. Driving decisions and actions go out of the conscious mind to the subconscious mind.

After you have reached the destination, if you ask yourself which potholes or bumps you crossed on the way, you may not remember as you did not even notice when you actually slowed down and possibly changed gear to cross the bump. You did all that without being conscious of it.

Another good way to understand the subconscious mind is to do the following simple exercise. Hold your palm horizontally right in front of your face with the palm facing upward. Imagine that you are holding a lemon on your palm right before your eyes. I would suggest that you actually do this before you read on. Hold your palm up in front of your face and imagine that you have a lemon on your palm right before your eyes. Did you experience your mouth watering? The conscious mind knows that there is no lemon and that it is only an imagination. The sub conscious mind is illogical and immediately believes what is in the conscious mind and as a result your mouth waters.

Similar to the example of driving a car on a topsy-turvy road avoiding potholes, we have been driving down our life's journey - a journey which we started as a kid. There were various obstacles and potholes in our life’s journey, and we crossed them all – but with important learning all along the way. Based on whether our actions had positive or negative impact on us, we also made important judgements on do’s and don’ts, things we should do and what we should not. We made our own judgements on where the life’s potholes lie, what they look like. and what you do in life to avoid them. The problem is that we started making these judgements very early in our life when we were small kids and did not have the capability to truly judge the situations. But based on our kid-brains, we did pass some important judgements about do's and don’ts in life. We accumulated some learning and created a knowledge base We passed judgements about ourselves, about people around us, about what type of people are good and what type of people are bad.

All of us made conclusions about people based on their looks. Just because that person with long nose and grey eyes we met was bad, our kid brain concluded that all men with long nose and grey eyes are bad. . So through our kid-eyes, we have actually identified the potholes on the path of our life. These potholes are mainly situations or conditions which our kid brain has directed us to either avoid, or to retract. Or they are people with some particular physical traits, etc. which we as kids have concluded to be 'bad guys' to be avoided.

If some of our illogical beliefs in the early childhood, purely by chance, got support by a similar experience, the judgement and the learning got reinforced. A great deal of these judgements and learning of our kid brain have actually gone into our subconscious mind by repeated re-enforcements before we could mature and analyse them with our mature conscious brain.

Some of these rules may be completely illogical, but they have got so firmly set in our subconscious that now when we see a person we will automatically react in a particular way and won't even know that we reacted that way. So just as we drive the car while avoiding the potholes and slowing down for bumps without really noticing them with our conscious mind, we tread the life's path avoiding imaginary potholes, slowing down on bumps that we defined in our childhood without even realising that we do so, without realising why we do what we do. Just as while we drive a car our brain makes several hundred decisions every moment without our conscious mind knowing it, we make numerous decisions every second in our life and we obviously don’t make them with the conscious mind. These decisions are based on the knowledge base built in our subconscious mind. Our behaviour therefore is not a voluntary behaviour but largely governed by involuntary actions. And we call ourselves highly balanced people acting on conscious decisions.

When we are driving the vehicle of our life today, we actually drive topsy-turvy, because of the mental potholes which may not be there at all. We still try unconsciously to avoid those pot holes we defined in our childhood, but do not even know that we are driving the way we are. We are not even noticing the mental potholes. You may have experienced sometimes that you act in a way and then the very next moment, you ask yourself, “Hey, now why did I do what I did?” Most likely, you did so because of a mental pothole. You will be surprised to know that actually the situations have changed, conditions in your life have changed, your own abilities have changed, but you were simply reacting to a mental pothole the way your mind has got conditioned to react to it.

We do certain things out of conscious mind, whereas most of our actions are dependent on the subconscious mind. They are like reflex action in some ways, but different in many ways. In case of reflex action, there is some action or disturbance in or around you, and before you know or you realise it, your body reacts to the disturbance. But immediately after the reflex action, you know how your body has reacted. However in case of subconscious behaviour, most often, our conscious mind is not even aware that we have reacted to certain sub conscious stimuli.

It is said that the conscious mind is logical, analytical. Subconscious mind is illogical. And since most of our behaviour is governed by the subconscious mind, you can imagine hat will be the outcome.

There is a very important lesson to be learnt about our relationship with people based on our recent learning. This learning should help us judge people better and react to people better. Very often we are upset by the reactions and behaviour of someone known to us or dear to us. We get upset because we feel he is doing it intentionally to upset you, to offend you, or as a revenge against you.

Whenever this happens, understand that we are all slaves to certain things in our subconscious mind. Appreciate that he is not behaving intentionally, it may be an involuntary reaction and not an intentional calculated move to upset you. He may not be control, just as we are all puppets to certain conditions under some situations. If you appreciate that he is helpless to his circumstances, just as you are on several occasions, you will understand people better.

All of us have in our subconscious mind a list of items about which we think we are "not ok" These items are of two categories:

1. Those of which we are comfortable and we can comfortably say "I am not ok" or "I can't do this" or "That's not for me", and have no real pangs of conscience saying it.

2. Those of which we have a complex and we feel hurt when we know our shortcoming. We have heartburn when we think of our own weakness, and are even ashamed to admit our weakness.

Most of our unnatural or abnormal behaviours are due to the second category of items in us.

These are items of which we formed some judgements about ourselves (I am not ok) in our childhood when we were not capable of decision making or judging, and then it went into our subconscious mind. Or these could be associated with some embarrassing experiences when we had to be ashamed of our own self, creating a “Not OK” judgement about ourselves.

These are things which we would like to forget about and not think about – we almost try to push it down the carpet and not think of it. They may go out of our conscious mind, but remain in our subconscious mind. These are our subconscious pain points.

When you have a pain in the stomach you must have seen the doctor checks by pressing at various points asking you whether it pains. You know that it may not pain when the doctor presses at different points, and suddenly at a particular point when he presses, Ooi.., you scream in pain. Similarly, we go through several incidents and experiences in life smoothly, whereas there are some incidents which touch you on your subconscious pain points and you react painfully and unpredictably . Incidents in life or comments and reactions of people around you may continuously touch your conscience, but you may not react till it pricks on the pain point and then the reaction is again “Ooi..”

When we experience these subconscious pain points, we are overcome with some strange senses and our reaction may not be very controlled. These could well be the same feelings and sensations that you first had when you had the unpleasant experience as a kid, and which you all along tried to push under the carpet and banish from your mind. In such situations, we become absolutely helpless in our actions. We are totally driven and not in control. Whenever we face that situation which touches our subconscious pain point, we always compulsorily react violently without any control. However hard we try and decide to act differently, when it comes to the real moment, we are helplessly overcome by that same sensation and feeling and we act predictably (against our wish) based on our subconscious mind.

All of us have "pain spots". Whenever these are disturbed, the person reacts sharply. Since the subconscious pain points are different for different persons, different people may react to same stimuli differently. Whereas one is deeply hurt by a comment, someone else may not care a damn.

Hence again, this shows the driven-ness of our behaviour – we are driven to some behaviour and are absolutely helpless in these circumstances. However hard we may like not to behave that way, we do still act the way our subconscious mind drives us to.

If we understand this aspect of human behaviour, we can avoid getting upset over others' behaviour. After all, I am as unpredictable as you are.

I believe that what is in our subconscious mind is hidden in some remote corner under some self imposed cover which we prefer to keep under cover (since most of these are recordings of unpleasant experiences). The difficult part is to discover it hidden in our subconscious mind. Once discovered, it may be easy to remove it. Following exercise can sometimes help to discover and eradicate some unpleasant things from our subconscious mind which unconsciously influence our behaviour:

Whenever you experience an unpleasantness, like an incident which made you angry, embarrassed, or uneasy, just sit back in a relaxed mood anytime later when you are your normal self. Close your eyes and recreate the same situation (in your mind's eyes) which made you angry, embarrassed or unpleasant. Imagine that situation in great details. Almost relive the same moments and keep noticing the thoughts in your mind. Notice the sensations in your body, any sensation in the stomach or any part of the body as you relive the old unpleasant experience of the day. Again and again keep asking yourself – “What are the thoughts in the mind, what are the senses in different parts of the body?” You will be able to uncover some of those under-cover parts of your subconscious mind and also be able to discover what exactly made you angry and unpleasant.

	My Articles On God & Religion On Computer Tech Home
	What is Subconscious Mind? How does it Impact our Behaviour? by Prem Kamble
	copyright © 2004 Prem Kamble
Contents What is Subconscious Mind? What Goes in our Subconscious Mind? Our Behaviour is Driven by our Sub-conscious Mind What is the Learning? The Impact of Subconscious Mind on our Behaviour - More Lessons How to Discover the Subconscious More Articles on Subconscious Mind Home copyright © 2004 Prem Kamble	Most of us would say “I am in control of myself. My behaviour is controlled.” But you will be surprised to know that most often, all of us, including myself, have very little control on what we do. We are driven to a behaviour and we are seldom in control. What we think and do, we do so with our conscious mind. But there are several actions which are controlled by the subconscious mind. We are not in control of the actions governed by our subconscious mind. What is Subconscious Mind? Top One example often used to explain the subconscious mind is the process of car driving. Initially when you are learning to drive, you have full concentration on the gear, the clutch, etc. You are all concentration on the process of driving; you look at every pothole, every bump, and every obstacle. As you get trained on driving, the act goes into your subconscious mind and you tend to drive without making a conscious effort to drive. You automatically avoid the obstacles, you automatically change gears when required while you could be doing umpteen other things at the same time like talking to your wife sitting beside you, listening to the music and observing the countryside. As you practice driving again and again, you make decisions automatically and you drive naturally. Driving decisions and actions go out of the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. After you have reached the destination, if you ask yourself which potholes or bumps you crossed on the way, you may not remember as you did not even notice when you actually slowed down and possibly changed gear to cross the bump. You did all that without being conscious of it. Another good way to understand the subconscious mind is to do the following simple exercise. Hold your palm horizontally right in front of your face with the palm facing upward. Imagine that you are holding a lemon on your palm right before your eyes. I would suggest that you actually do this before you read on. Hold your palm up in front of your face and imagine that you have a lemon on your palm right before your eyes. Did you experience your mouth watering? The conscious mind knows that there is no lemon and that it is only an imagination. The sub conscious mind is illogical and immediately believes what is in the conscious mind and as a result your mouth waters. What Goes in our Subconscious Mind? Top Similar to the example of driving a car on a topsy-turvy road avoiding potholes, we have been driving down our life's journey - a journey which we started as a kid. There were various obstacles and potholes in our life’s journey, and we crossed them all – but with important learning all along the way. Based on whether our actions had positive or negative impact on us, we also made important judgements on do’s and don’ts, things we should do and what we should not. We made our own judgements on where the life’s potholes lie, what they look like. and what you do in life to avoid them. The problem is that we started making these judgements very early in our life when we were small kids and did not have the capability to truly judge the situations. But based on our kid-brains, we did pass some important judgements about do's and don’ts in life. We accumulated some learning and created a knowledge base We passed judgements about ourselves, about people around us, about what type of people are good and what type of people are bad. All of us made conclusions about people based on their looks. Just because that person with long nose and grey eyes we met was bad, our kid brain concluded that all men with long nose and grey eyes are bad. . So through our kid-eyes, we have actually identified the potholes on the path of our life. These potholes are mainly situations or conditions which our kid brain has directed us to either avoid, or to retract. Or they are people with some particular physical traits, etc. which we as kids have concluded to be 'bad guys' to be avoided. If some of our illogical beliefs in the early childhood, purely by chance, got support by a similar experience, the judgement and the learning got reinforced. A great deal of these judgements and learning of our kid brain have actually gone into our subconscious mind by repeated re-enforcements before we could mature and analyse them with our mature conscious brain. Some of these rules may be completely illogical, but they have got so firmly set in our subconscious that now when we see a person we will automatically react in a particular way and won't even know that we reacted that way. So just as we drive the car while avoiding the potholes and slowing down for bumps without really noticing them with our conscious mind, we tread the life's path avoiding imaginary potholes, slowing down on bumps that we defined in our childhood without even realising that we do so, without realising why we do what we do. Just as while we drive a car our brain makes several hundred decisions every moment without our conscious mind knowing it, we make numerous decisions every second in our life and we obviously don’t make them with the conscious mind. These decisions are based on the knowledge base built in our subconscious mind. Our behaviour therefore is not a voluntary behaviour but largely governed by involuntary actions. And we call ourselves highly balanced people acting on conscious decisions. When we are driving the vehicle of our life today, we actually drive topsy-turvy, because of the mental potholes which may not be there at all. We still try unconsciously to avoid those pot holes we defined in our childhood, but do not even know that we are driving the way we are. We are not even noticing the mental potholes. You may have experienced sometimes that you act in a way and then the very next moment, you ask yourself, “Hey, now why did I do what I did?” Most likely, you did so because of a mental pothole. You will be surprised to know that actually the situations have changed, conditions in your life have changed, your own abilities have changed, but you were simply reacting to a mental pothole the way your mind has got conditioned to react to it. Our Behaviour is Driven by our Sub-conscious Mind We do certain things out of conscious mind, whereas most of our actions are dependent on the subconscious mind. They are like reflex action in some ways, but different in many ways. In case of reflex action, there is some action or disturbance in or around you, and before you know or you realise it, your body reacts to the disturbance. But immediately after the reflex action, you know how your body has reacted. However in case of subconscious behaviour, most often, our conscious mind is not even aware that we have reacted to certain sub conscious stimuli. It is said that the conscious mind is logical, analytical. Subconscious mind is illogical. And since most of our behaviour is governed by the subconscious mind, you can imagine hat will be the outcome. What is the Learning? Top There is a very important lesson to be learnt about our relationship with people based on our recent learning. This learning should help us judge people better and react to people better. Very often we are upset by the reactions and behaviour of someone known to us or dear to us. We get upset because we feel he is doing it intentionally to upset you, to offend you, or as a revenge against you. Whenever this happens, understand that we are all slaves to certain things in our subconscious mind. Appreciate that he is not behaving intentionally, it may be an involuntary reaction and not an intentional calculated move to upset you. He may not be control, just as we are all puppets to certain conditions under some situations. If you appreciate that he is helpless to his circumstances, just as you are on several occasions, you will understand people better. The Impact of Subconscious Mind on our Behaviour - More Lessons Top All of us have in our subconscious mind a list of items about which we think we are "not ok" These items are of two categories: 1. Those of which we are comfortable and we can comfortably say "I am not ok" or "I can't do this" or "That's not for me", and have no real pangs of conscience saying it. 2. Those of which we have a complex and we feel hurt when we know our shortcoming. We have heartburn when we think of our own weakness, and are even ashamed to admit our weakness. Most of our unnatural or abnormal behaviours are due to the second category of items in us. These are items of which we formed some judgements about ourselves (I am not ok) in our childhood when we were not capable of decision making or judging, and then it went into our subconscious mind. Or these could be associated with some embarrassing experiences when we had to be ashamed of our own self, creating a “Not OK” judgement about ourselves. These are things which we would like to forget about and not think about – we almost try to push it down the carpet and not think of it. They may go out of our conscious mind, but remain in our subconscious mind. These are our subconscious pain points. When you have a pain in the stomach you must have seen the doctor checks by pressing at various points asking you whether it pains. You know that it may not pain when the doctor presses at different points, and suddenly at a particular point when he presses, Ooi.., you scream in pain. Similarly, we go through several incidents and experiences in life smoothly, whereas there are some incidents which touch you on your subconscious pain points and you react painfully and unpredictably . Incidents in life or comments and reactions of people around you may continuously touch your conscience, but you may not react till it pricks on the pain point and then the reaction is again “Ooi..” When we experience these subconscious pain points, we are overcome with some strange senses and our reaction may not be very controlled. These could well be the same feelings and sensations that you first had when you had the unpleasant experience as a kid, and which you all along tried to push under the carpet and banish from your mind. In such situations, we become absolutely helpless in our actions. We are totally driven and not in control. Whenever we face that situation which touches our subconscious pain point, we always compulsorily react violently without any control. However hard we try and decide to act differently, when it comes to the real moment, we are helplessly overcome by that same sensation and feeling and we act predictably (against our wish) based on our subconscious mind. All of us have "pain spots". Whenever these are disturbed, the person reacts sharply. Since the subconscious pain points are different for different persons, different people may react to same stimuli differently. Whereas one is deeply hurt by a comment, someone else may not care a damn. Hence again, this shows the driven-ness of our behaviour – we are driven to some behaviour and are absolutely helpless in these circumstances. However hard we may like not to behave that way, we do still act the way our subconscious mind drives us to. If we understand this aspect of human behaviour, we can avoid getting upset over others' behaviour. After all, I am as unpredictable as you are. How to Discover the Subconscious Top I believe that what is in our subconscious mind is hidden in some remote corner under some self imposed cover which we prefer to keep under cover (since most of these are recordings of unpleasant experiences). The difficult part is to discover it hidden in our subconscious mind. Once discovered, it may be easy to remove it. Following exercise can sometimes help to discover and eradicate some unpleasant things from our subconscious mind which unconsciously influence our behaviour: Whenever you experience an unpleasantness, like an incident which made you angry, embarrassed, or uneasy, just sit back in a relaxed mood anytime later when you are your normal self. Close your eyes and recreate the same situation (in your mind's eyes) which made you angry, embarrassed or unpleasant. Imagine that situation in great details. Almost relive the same moments and keep noticing the thoughts in your mind. Notice the sensations in your body, any sensation in the stomach or any part of the body as you relive the old unpleasant experience of the day. Again and again keep asking yourself – “What are the thoughts in the mind, what are the senses in different parts of the body?” You will be able to uncover some of those under-cover parts of your subconscious mind and also be able to discover what exactly made you angry and unpleasant. . copyright © 2004 Prem Kamble Top Home