How the Subconscious Mind Works
The conscious mind is the part of our mind that thinks critically and analytically. The process of logic and decision making takes place in the conscious mind. However once a decision is made in the conscious mind and transferred to the subconscious memory it then becomes a belief. So in a future time a person may act on that memory as a belief without actually reassessing it at a conscious level.
The subconscious mind has a permanent set of memories and beliefs. It is very literal and does not make evaluations of judgements. These subconscious beliefs (right or wrong) drive our conscious thoughts and behaviour. Beliefs do not change in the subconscious level unless they are recalled into the conscious mind for valuation.
The deep subconscious mind is the part of the subconscious mind that cannot be accessed via the conscious mind. This part of the mind stores the deeply held belief systems we picked up over our childhood and adult years. Often we seem to think of these beliefs as “forgotten” because we cannot remember them but they are actually so deep in our subconscious that we do not even realise they are there. This reservoir of beliefs is very strongly entrenched in our deep subconscious and affect our behaviour without our awareness of their influence.
During our childhood years the conscious mind is not as developed as the adult mind, making it even easier for the growing mind to accept beliefs without analysis or critical reasoning.
The mind and body communicate in images. This communication is going on all the time, sometimes in a healing ways, sometimes in a damaging way, although most of the time you will not be consciously aware of it.
Have you ever noticed yourself do something automatically even though you were logically aware of the irrationality of the behaviour or thought.
Cases of Subconscious Influence:
- John was afraid of small dogs even though he was consciously aware that it was very unlikely they would cause him any harm.
- Mary was told she was a “silly little girl” when she was young so had little belief in her intellectual capacity as an adult.
The Classic Example of Pavlov’s Dogs
Pavlov trained his dogs to salivate at the ring of the bell. He was able to do this by ringing a bell and providing them with a food reward. The dogs eventually salivated at the ring of the bell expecting the food to follow after the bell was rung. After a while he rang the bell but didn’t offer any food. By that time the dogs were so programmed to expect food that when the bell rang, they reflexively started to salivate even when there was no food present. They had developed an unconscious learned reflex behaviour.
Similar conditioned learning occurs with human brains. The neural pathways between stimuli and behavioural responses become hardwired to ensure repetitive patterns become habits. Once we accept perceptions as truth they become hardwired in our brain. Often these truths are not monitored and develop into phobias, fear, addictions and other self defeating behaviours.
The mind and body communicate in images. This communication is going on all the time, sometimes in a healing ways, sometimes in a damaging way, although most of the time you will not be consciously aware of it.
Hypnotherapy uses attention, intention and imagination rather than will to create desirable changes.
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