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Mental juggling

 

Is there a difference between our conscious and our unconscious mind?

 

Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar LicMT LHS LNCP LCPS

 

Try focusing on your breathing. Notice your inhaling and exhaling and allow the differences to be more evident, feel the diaphragm's movements as you breathe in and out and notice your ribs moving with it. Next, listen to your heartbeat - can you hear the co-ordinated pumping of blood to your body? Keep on noticing your breath, your diaphragm and your ribs as well as listening to the sound of breathing. Now, use a finger to locate your pulse and feel it, together with the above sensations. Add another thought, concentrate your thought on your blinking, notice the moisturising effect of blinking, the rhythm, the fact that once thought of - blinking is not as automatic as it was beforehand. Can you move on to feel your muscle tonus in addition to all of these feelings and sensations? If you can, find tensed areas in your body. They might be around the neck, or down the spine; in your jaw or the forehead. Once you have accomplished that, together with concentrating on everything else - try picking up loosen regions in your body.

 

If you are succeeded in doing all these tasks simultaneously, you are indeed an incredible person. Because although psychologists asserted that our short-term memory (or conscious memory) could hold up to 5-9 chunks, concentrating on more that one thing at a time is almost impossible.

 

And yet, each of us is breathing (with the entire complex adjustment and mechanisms involved), pulsing, blinking, adjusting the muscle tonus and doing hundreds of thousands of further actions – at the same time!

 

Traditionally, the mind was schematically divided into conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious (other times called subconscious). This division is, needless to say, a practical metaphor rather than an accurate account for the mind's composition. In-fact, I believe that there is no difference between the three - they are all aspects (or languages, or metaphors) of the same thing - together with our body [see Holistic Approach to Psychotherapy or The Magic of Hypnosis].

 

The conscious was defined as the current awareness of oneself to internal and external stimuli. A concept of the conscious mind is easily accepted and understood. It is the most vivid impression we have, as the 17Th century French philosopher Descartes had phrased: ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ – I think, therefor I am. The pre-conscious is where memories and information that can be recalled into consciousness reside. The unconscious mind holds the rest of the information, apart from the conscious.

 

There are several reasons for that dissociation between the unconscious and the conscious mind. The first, which I’ve mentioned already, is irrelevance. Numerous processes are going on in within our bodies and minds, there is no reason for us to be aware of the temperature calibration systems, the blood clotting processes, neural communication etc. In-fact, knowing everything about what's going on would create an infinite chain of knowledge: thinking of everything, thinking of the thought of thinking of everything and so on. Although it could be a nice philosophical (or mathematical) experiment, it would require an immortal entity (which would be nice too. However, we are not immortal). The consciousness could be properly described as the ‘War room’ of our mind-body system. It is the part of ourselves that is rationalising, deciding and reacting to the complex environment we live in. Just imagine what would have happened if a general in a war room was to receive all the messages from the battle field, like these: Sargent Roth's ammunition is low. Joni shot ten bullets, but only hit two targets. Mark got injured in his leg. Lieutenant Grady has in itch in his ear.

 

If such messages were things the general had to consider, or even just to be aware of - without any space to eliminate the irrelevant material, he would surely lose the war. If all our knowledge and processes were kept in our conscious mind, our ability to react would diminish to nil. We would have been incapable of paying attention to anything because we would be too busy checking our systems all the time, flooded with information. The generous unconscious does this for us. It serves as a gigantic control panel for our body and mind.

 

Many irrelevant memories are kept there too, and although we are unaware of them, they are surly useful to us. Can you remember your first steps you made as a child? Can you remember how the world seemed before you learned to talk, to read? The unconscious mind in our inner guide and teacher, parent and child. And unless the task of reading was saved and remembered, you wouldn't be able to read this line.

 

A second function of the unconscious is repressing. Traumas, unpleasant memories and thoughts, forbidden passions are all stored there, kept away from awareness. Indeed, sometimes we are aware of several unpleasant memories, but consider this: until a certain age babies have an unstable perception of time. If mom goes to another room – she ceases to exist. If you ever heard a baby’s cry for his mother you must have noticed the despair in its voice. How do you think hundreds of such acute memories of brief neglect would have affected yourself now? The unconscious functions as a selector and is a guarantee from immense grief.

 

The unconscious and the conscious mind constantly interact with each other. The data transmissions are of a two-way nature. Memories, thoughts and emotions are transferred from the conscious to the unconscious mind, and the unconscious mind expresses its inner processes through the conscious mind. The differentiation between them is an artefact, as I mentioned earlier. It is a useful diagnostic and clinical tool, mainly in the old paradigm of psychotherapeutic understanding. Today, the holistic approach enables us to use more sophisticated metaphors to deal with the mind-body system (or: people), at least to some extent. But the mind itself has no such divisions, it is far more complex than previously assumed. There are numerous regions and control centres, some conscious, some semiconscious and some unconscious, they interact with each other and function together (within a normal person) as a whole. Many scientists and therapists even believe that the mind is not located in the brain, but throughout our body.

 

The most trivial way of expressing an unconscious need within conscious is through drives. When we are hungry – we react to our body needs. We are not aware of the exact deficiency because the unconscious mind exhibits only a need - hunger. Sometimes, it can be a little more accurate – a craving for sweets or for cheese are examples. But the unconscious mind also influences our conscious awareness in much subtler ways, emotional and cognitive. Whenever you open a childhood diary or a picture album you are flooded with nostalgic emotions and thoughts, and sometimes drawn back to your past, recalling with great punctuality some lost memories. The associations are sometimes hidden – but are noticeable on the level of consciousness. There are also less tender effects. Some anxieties are a reaction to a present situation that draws its emotional value and intensity from past experiences. We are probably not aware of the cause to our intense fear, and yet – we express severe distress. Furthermore, even if we recognise the source of our anxiety, the connection is still at the unconscious level, and until we deal with it – we would continue to have those dreadful feelings.

 

The complexity of our mind is one of the most interesting mysteries we know of. Researchers from many fields try to understand our consciousness as well as to study the unconscious. Physicians, biologists, computer programmers, chemists and psychologists are all trying (and have always tried) to reveal the secrets of our mind.

 

Explaining the differences between the conscious and unconscious mind this shortly is somewhat like trying to tell a gold fish from a trout by looking at a satellite picture of the Pacific Ocean. But then again, when the water is clear enough we might occasionally see something.

 

 

Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar
Integrative Massage therapy
Hypnotherapy & Psychotherapy
Potters Bar
http://www.IMT.co.il

 

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