Subconscious

The subconscious mind is mental structures and processes that have meaning and logic, are not clear to consciousness, not visible to consciousness, not controlled by consciousness. In the subconscious mind, there is a reasonable orientation, and the formation of intentions, and decision-making, but this is hidden from me, it is beyond my control, and I only discover the results. However, if I delve into myself, I can understand: “Probably, subconsciously, I wanted to …”

When our emotions are actions rather than automatic reactions, we choose how to react — subconsciously. There is no obvious, conscious choice, but under the consciousness several guesses are going on: “Laugh? Frown? Ask what is it from?

Many psychologists believe that 90% of our behavior, habits, lifestyle are due to subconscious reactions and beliefs. And only 10% — consciousness. This is not entirely true: people are different. If a person lives like a vegetable, in the mode of a human organism, with an undeveloped mind and accustomed to controlling random emotions and impulses, then the ratio can be 99% versus 1%. If we have a person with a high culture and self-control, who is used to being responsible not only for his actions, but also for his thoughts and his mood, then the ratio may well be in favor of consciousness.

As a rule, the clearer the mind, the better one thinks. However, thinking is more than awareness and awareness. This is a careful look at the situation, which solves a particular problem. Synonym — Productive thinking. In addition, with some skill, you can launch the ability to think (solve life problems) in a subconscious mode, namely, give yourself a task, for example, at night, in order to return to the search for its solution without the control of daytime consciousness. Sometimes it gives unexpected, creative solutions.

We also refer to the subconscious our automatic reactions and reflexes, but reflexes and automatisms are not physiological, but have a psychological nature. The subconscious is not physiology, and physiology is not the subconscious. The subconscious is an area of ​​the human psyche that is responsible for unconditioned reflexes, as well as for storing and processing incoming information.

Our breathing and digestion is not done by the subconscious. Breathing with us is provided by the lungs and the respiratory center, food by the stomach and digestive center, and all this can work without any intervention of the subconscious. Can, nevertheless, the subconscious interfere with these and other physiological processes? Yes, of course, it can, and those people for whom it is important to manage themselves will definitely use it.

By influencing the subconscious, one can quite effectively influence human behavior. In fact, these are manipulations, and like any manipulation, once this is a useful thing, once it is unattractive. It is more pleasant to write about positive manipulations.

For example, an athletics coach wants to teach an athlete how to «take the hurdle» correctly. To do this, he must make sure that he strains the muscles of the leg that goes first. How to achieve this, because in the heat of the run, the consciousness simply does not have time to do it? The coach gave the athlete a recommendation — at each barrier, try to touch the toe of the spike with your fingers. As a result, the athlete lost a whole second from the result: this is a real case in the 400 m hurdles.

Was there manipulation? There is no manipulation of consciousness, since both the athlete and the coach knew why this should be done. Manipulation of the subconscious — yes, since they both «deceived» the subconscious by playing on the reflex to strain the right muscles in order to touch the sock.

It follows that manipulations are needed where our consciousness does not keep up with the subconscious. Or where it cannot control it for other reasons. Which, however, occurs at every turn.

Smith, Spence, and Clay (Smith, GJW, Spence, DP, and Klein, GS Subliminal effects of verbal stimuli, Jour. Abn. & Soc. Psychol., 1959, 59, 167-176) projected a still, expressionless image onto a screen faces of a person and asked the subjects to note how the facial expression in the portrait changes. Then, from time to time, the word «angry» was projected onto the screen, and the presentation time was so short that the subjects were not aware that they had seen the word. However, they tended to think that the face was becoming more angry. When the word “happy” was projected onto the screen in the same way, the participants tended to believe that the face became more joyful. Thus, they were influenced by stimuli registered at the subconscious level, stimuli that were not conscious and could not be realized by a person.