Key Points
- Our Conscious, Subconscious and Creative Subconscious levels work together to perceive the world around us, store our reality and make sure that each of us acts like the person we know ourselves to be. Research shows that we only are aware of about 20% of the brain’s activity.
- Our Conscious mind (The Perceiver) gathers information from our senses. Our Subconscious (The Server) stores our personal history, our experiences and the emotions we attach to them. The Creative Subconscious (The Regulator) monitors and regulates our behaviors and actions to make sure we act like “normal” for us.
- The Conscious mind has four functions: Perception (through our senses), Association with our stored history in our Subconscious (“Have I seen anything like this before?”), Evaluation (“What is this leading me to? Will it be good for me, or not?”) and Decision-Making. And this all happens in a split second.
- Our Subconscious mind stores more than our history and our definition of who we believe we are. It handles everything that is automatic for us, like heartbeat and breathing, digestion, and so on. It also handles our habits and attitudes.
- Our Creative Subconscious is a self-regulating mechanism. It is constantly checking our behavior against that definition we hold of ourselves in our Subconscious. When the pictures don’t match, the Creative Subconscious has four functions: it maintains sanity or reality for us; it releases energy and creativity to get us back to “normal” for us; expands our awareness (remember the RAS?); and maintains our teleological or goal-driven nature, to make the inside and outside pictures match.
- When we activate this process on purpose, instead of mindlessly reacting to a situation, we exert a powerful control over our lives and our futures.
Key Concepts
- Conscious – the aspect of the mind that encompasses all that we are momentarily aware of; the focal point of our senses – sight, sound, taste, touch and smell, allowing us to perceive the world around us.
- Subconscious – the level of the mind through which information passes on the way to full consciousness; information storage area of the mind, containing our memories that may be outside of awareness at the moment, but that can be brought to consciousness; handles everything that is automatic about us, including breathing and heartbeat, as well as our habits and attitudes.
- Creative Subconscious – the source of mental processes that leads to ideas, solutions, artistic forms, new or novel concepts and theories.
- Self-Regulation – adhering to and managing an internal standard of behavior and action. Thought Process
- Perception – a conscious process initiated by an external event; initializes analysis of sensory input provided by our senses.
- Association – a connection between two or more elements.
- Evaluation – determination of value or worth, typically measured against a previous experience.
- Decision – arriving at a course of action, based on past knowledge and experience.
- Truth – a characteristic of a proposition, statement, or belief that corresponds with reality, as it is known, possibly based on an earlier evaluative process.
Application & Review Questions
Download the interactive PDF and save to your hard drive. Then, take time to reflect on the Application & Review Questions and answer them in relation to the concepts presented apply to your own life.
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The Human Advantage: Forethought
It seems that the ability to look forward and imagine the future is unique to human beings. For years, scientists have been experimenting with different species to see if any are capable of imagining something other than the present. So far, most “future thought” has been classified as instinct – like a squirrel burying nuts in your yard for the winter or birds building nests in the spring for soon-to-come eggs – and built upon past experience or a primal drive for survival.
Human beings have the survival instinct. Remember that the RAS is open to value and threat, the very foundation of survival. However, it is our ability to contemplate and foresee the future that has allowed us to create societies, over and over throughout history. The Great Pyramids of Egypt had to start with a vision and a plan, as did the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower and the race to the Moon. If we couldn’t “see it” beforehand, we would not be where we are today. As we have just learned regarding the human thought process, our decision-making would seem to be based on our past experiences and how we felt about those experiences at the time. However, we are not locked in by the past. After our minds have gone through the Perception, Association and Evaluation phases, the Decisions we make actually are infused with what we expect in the future. This is where our forethought, our ability to imagine a possible future, comes in.
As we contemplate the future, research is showing that we can either be uplifted by what we foresee or become depressed and anxious. It all depends upon our perspective, a combination of our beliefs, attitudes and the words we use when we talk to ourselves. As we are beginning to understand, we have the power to choose which paths we take. We always have had the power to create the future, and our forethought is a valuable tool in building it.
Extended Learning Video TBC
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