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The subconscious and the unconscious are still the subject of controversy in the scientific community. We understand what is hidden outside of conscious thinking and whether it is possible to change life with the help of the subconscious
What is the subconscious
The subconscious in psychology is an area of the mind in which processes take place that are inaccessible to awareness, which it does not control. The idea of the existence of the subconscious arose in antiquity. Later Western philosophers thought about it: Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The concept of the subconscious was first formulated by the Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud in the XNUMXth century.
Dmitry Smyslov, candidate of psychological sciences, consultant psychologist:
“The subconscious is an outdated term. Now we use the term “unconscious”. It includes both psychic phenomena and experiences that are not strongly controlled by consciousness.
How the subconscious works in Freud’s theory
Freud divided the mind into three levels: preconscious, conscious and unconscious (subconscious). Let’s look at them in more detail.
Premonition. Consists of everything that has the potential to become conscious – thoughts or memories that we are not yet aware of, but we can if we focus. For example, we can forget how the summer went 10 years ago, but if we focus, the memory will appear in our minds.
Consciousness. It consists of thoughts, memories, feelings that we know about, that is, we are aware of. It is consciousness that is responsible for rational and logical thinking, focusing attention. Conscious experience refers to the things that we think about at the moment – the information that we perceive when we read a text or have a conversation.
Subconscious. Freud believed that the subconscious is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, impulses and memories that are beyond our conscious understanding. The subconscious also stores repressed feelings that are too painful or embarrassing to face consciously, such as hidden memories, habits, or desires.
At the same time, Freud was sure that the subconscious has the greatest influence on our behavior. Its contents may pop up unexpectedly – for example, in a dream or in reservations. This is how the term “Freudian slip”, familiar to many, appeared.
An example of such a clause is when a man accidentally calls the current girl by the name of the former. Someone will take this for a mistake, but according to Freud, this is the intervention of the subconscious due to unresolved internal conflicts or repressed feelings.
Freud’s model of the unconscious is still the most detailed, but his conclusions cannot be considered scientific, because they are made on the basis of personal observations of a psychiatrist, and not in the course of scientific experiments. At the same time, psychology recognizes that Freud made a huge contribution to the development of the discussion about the subconscious.
The subconscious in modern psychology
“What is the subconscious responsible for, what is the consciousness responsible for?” — remains one of the key questions of modern psychology. There are several approaches to interpreting and studying the unconscious.
Cognitive psychology recognizes that not only conscious but also unconscious processes play an important role in cognition – they are usually called the “cognitive unconscious”. And experts in cognitive psychology note that we may not be aware of the information we perceive, but it affects our behavior.
Dmitry Smyslov believes that there are different approaches to the study of the subconscious, they depend on the psychological school and direction: “Indeed, the unconscious has a rather serious effect on a person, on his behavior. Suppose, if we read a person’s behavior from the point of view of non-verbal communication, his gestures, facial expressions, pantomimes, then to a greater extent a person manifests himself unconsciously.
According to the psychologist, in classical psychoanalysis and neopsychoanalysis, dreams are also considered a manifestation of the unconscious in terms of the symbols they build, and are often the reason for additional analysis.
The unconscious occupies about 70–75% of human behavior, the rest is consciousness. At the same time, consciousness has control mechanisms, but most often it is the unconscious that determines behavior.
Dmitry Smyslov:
“When information enters the area of consciousness, a person immediately begins to doubt, suspect, distrust – protection appears. The unconscious is always perceived as a command to act, for example, in the case of attitudes that are laid down in childhood. Therefore, consciousness always tries to control the unconscious, tries to protect it. But still, it can be said that the unconscious controls consciousness much more often than vice versa.
Where is the subconscious
Neuroscientists agree that a significant amount of brain activity occurs unconsciously. A person performs some actions automatically, for example, he travels along a familiar route. Science is trying to find out exactly how this mechanism works, and how much the subconscious mind influences our actions.
Libet experiment
Back in 1983, American scientist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment in which participants were seated in front of a clock and asked to curl their fingers or move their wrist whenever they felt like it, memorizing the position on the watch at that moment.
What happened. It turned out that brain activity occurs before a person’s conscious decision to perform an action. In other words, unconscious mechanisms are triggered before we have a conscious intention to do something. Subsequently, Libet was criticized, claiming that he used inaccurate methods of measurement, but it was this experiment that gave rise to a lively discussion about the subconscious.
Libet’s new experiment
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences decided to conduct an updated version of the Libet experiment in 2013. This time, 36 volunteers looked at the letter in the center of the computer screen, which changed every second. Participants pressed one of two buttons whenever they felt like it. After that, four letters appeared – it was required to choose the one at the appearance of which they pressed the button.
What happened. Volunteers took an average of 22 seconds to press a button. They felt they had consciously decided to do it about a second or less before they made the move. But according to fMRI data, activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain occurred 7 seconds before the subjects became aware of their decisions. It turns out that by the time of the conscious decision to make a movement, this had already been influenced by processes in the prefrontal cortex for several seconds.
Research into the subconscious continues to this day, often for medical purposes. For example, it has recently been found that unconscious changes in movement can predict Alzheimer’s disease years before the onset of cognitive symptoms. Another recent study by Belgian scientists has shown that insights do indeed come from the subconscious. But, despite scientific progress, there are still more questions than answers in the study of the subconscious.
Is it possible to influence the subconscious
Now the concept of working with the subconscious to achieve your goals is becoming popular. The main idea is that by using special techniques of working with the subconscious, you can “direct” your thinking in the right direction, change your life and even recover from illnesses. For example, through meditation, visualization, positive affirmations.
Neurophysiological process researcher Joe Dispenza draws on neuroscience, biology, epigenetics, and psychology in his books. At the same time, Dispenza himself works as a doctor of chiropractic, and there is no reliable information about the availability of other qualifications.
One of his main ideas is that all potential events exist in the quantum field as infinite possibilities – “when we tune our electromagnetic radiation to a wave already present in the quantum field, our body will be attracted to the desired event, we move to a new time line, or the desired event will itself find us in a new reality. Dispenza’s theory is reminiscent of the “Law of Attraction” – one of the postulates of the religious-mystical movement “New Thinking”, which arose in the United States in the last quarter of the XNUMXth century.
At the same time, there is no scientific evidence of the effectiveness of such practices. Research has noted the benefits of meditation for several conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, anxiety disorder, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But there is no evidence that working with the subconscious and thinking can cure some kind of disease.
Alison Bernstein, associate professor of translational neuroscience at Michigan State University, says it’s impossible to magically make things happen. But a person can change their reaction to certain situations, and this is more like cognitive behavioral therapy.
Alison Bernstein:
“We can control our thoughts to some extent and we can acquire new habits – that part I don’t have a problem with.”
Neuroscientist Tara Swart in The Source. How to Rebuild the Brain to Achieve the Life of Your Dreams” explains that events do not happen through magic, but because a person begins to notice possibilities that were previously ignored.
At the same time, experts warn that such practices can do harm – people focus on the power of thought, instead of the real actions necessary to fulfill desires. It can also harm people with anxiety disorders by exacerbating intrusive thoughts. Therefore, when working with the subconscious, you should be more careful.
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