The Subconscious Mind
The Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind works deductively only. The conscious mind reasons both deductively and inductively. What this means is that the subconscious mind accepts all that it receives. There is much debate on this, but it is clear that the subconscious takes in information very passively, much like a child would. If you were to ask a person in a normal state, would you tell me your name, he would answer by giving it to you. But ask him while he is in a hypnotic trance and he’d nod his head or simply say, “yes” because the question literally was would he tell you, not what the name is. For this reason, phrasing questions and suggestions precisely and in a particular manner is very important to successfully accessing and influencing the subconscious.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for bodily functions and is controlled by the unconscious. As the Canadian physician Dr. Hans Selye points out, probably most of our illnesses can be traced back to unconscious or precognitive stress in one way or another. The implication being that if we could simply reduce stress, many illnesses would be either avoided or weakened in their potency. For this reason, gaining access to the unconscious mind can be very powerful.
Moreover, the unconscious mind controls all our automatic body functions and the way memory is recalled and stored. The totality of ur memories are too much to be conscious of at any given moment, and the great majority of them are unnecessary to accomplish any given task. We then access only memory that we need to perform our chosen tasks, leaving the rest undisturbed in our unconscious. Some memories are painful and we wish to forget them, so the unconscious keeps these memories away from the conscious mind even when the conscious mind tries to recall them. Hypnosis one is able to access automatic body functions and the vast store of memories either in order to work out traumatic experiences or simply to enhance our voluntary memory.
According to Freud, the superego portion of the unconscious polices our actions through guilt, shame or moral imperative. Sometimes the trauma of a past experience may be so painful that the unconscious hides it from the conscious while at the same time the superego is punishing you for the act committed or out of guilt for not having it resolved. Such a conflict may manifest itself in many ways to the conscious mind, either through psychosomatic symptoms or self-destructive behavior. Researchers have observed that when investigating accidents in large factories, about 80% of the accidents happen to 20% of the workers. This lopsided percentage suggests that many accidents are self-induced although unknown to the victim. As you can imagine, uncovering the causes of psychological trauma is one of the most important uses of hypnosis.
Hypnosis can improve just about any aspect of your life. As mentioned in the introduction, the categories of application of hypnosis covers the entire gamut of human activity. Here are just a few common uses and sample suggestions for remedying the problem.
