Conscious and Unconscious (or Subconscious)

By ‘unconscious’ we don’t mean comatose or asleep! So, what do we mean by these terms? Well, in this context the conscious mind is that part of your mind’s function that is actively learning new things, making decisions, calculating, using logic, planning etc. We can only concentrate consciously on a few things at a time.  The unconscious mind (or subconscious) controls those functions that operate below the surface (at least partially) without your conscious awareness, such as habits, instinctive responses, walking, running activities on automatic pilot.  Now, this division is just a model – a way of thinking about our mind. We don’t actually have two compartments in our mind, one conscious and the other unconscious. There is constant communication between the two. For example, when you first learned to walk, ride a bike, tie your shoelaces, drive a standard transmission, there were many different actions that had to be learned and were required to be done in the correct sequence and that took a lot of conscious attention. Once mastered, those actions can run as automatic programs from the unconscious mind while your conscious mind is busy with more pressing matters. Your unconscious mind also stores all your memories (in different bits of information in different parts of the brain including the visual, auditory, fragrances, emotional aspects of the event etc) which have to be retrieved and reassembled when you bring them to conscious remembrance. Every time we recall a memory it changes to some degree as its components may be reassembled in a fashion that’s been influenced by later experiences, what you’ve heard from others and by subsequent reflection.

When you have a new experience your brain pattern-matches that new experience to all prior experiences in order to make sense of it, and to evaluate its significance. Anything that resembles in any way a part of a previous experience can recreate it – that is why the aroma of fresh baking can transport you back to Grandma’s kitchen, a jingle on the radio can reproduce the feelings and emotions you had when you heard it before. We can make use of these positive ‘triggers’ to anchor positive feelings that you can then voluntarily access when you need them. By the same token, anything that resembles something that your mind registered unconsciously during a negative experience can trigger, amplify, or consolidate previous emotional trauma. This is the basis of phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Normally, even unpleasant memories can be processed by the brain, stored as factual memories that once were unpleasant but have now had the emotional charge removed so one can recall them as past events that are now over-with. This memory reconsolidation occurs chiefly during one of the stages of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. “That was then, this is now, move on”, is how it is supposed to work, retaining what was learned, being wiser and more mature, but no longer feeling as affected. When it comes to past traumas that continue to affect one it is as though they have never been put to rest. Instead, they run as though they were present experiences, a movie in which you are a present actor. There are a number of very respectful techniques with or without hypnosis that can help to put old traumas to rest fairly rapidly, without having to relive them or even disclose them to the therapist, unlike many “talk therapies”. An excellent resource is the Human Givens Institute in the UK that publishes books, articles, and courses.