The Conscious and Subconscious Minds

Naked Leader Week – 60 – Monday 21 June 2004

Leadership from a different perspective – yours

 I have been writing and talking about the conscious and subconscious mind for awhile. This week Claire Selby from South Africa, a clinical psychologist, shares her thoughts on what they mean:

The Conscious and Subconscious Minds

“The human mind can be briefly divided into two categories: Conscious mind and Subconscious mind. The conscious mind takes up approximately 10% of your total mind, while the subconscious mind makes up the other 90%.

The conscious mind is that part of our mind that controls our cognitive behaviour – everything you do that you are consciously aware of. For instance, what you do, what you say, what you choose to eat, and even the decision you have made to read this paragraph is controlled by your conscious mind. These are actions that you are consciously controlling.

The subconscious mind is that part of our mind that operates just like a computer. It remembers everything we have ever experienced. The subconscious mind does not make judgments or decisions, it only stores and recalls every piece of information. The subconscious mind also controls your bodily functions. It regulates your pulse, your blood pressure, your respiration, your digestive system, your hormonal levels, and many other processes that are taking place right now as you read these lines.

The subconscious communicates in a different language than the conscious mind. It has an internal, operational language that speaks only in pictures. These images are the fabric and substance of the subconscious mind. While we get to see parts of it when we’re sleep, these pictures also come to us when we’re awake. They come to us in flashes from the subconscious. They influence our decisions and guide our existence and we never see it coming.

Thoughts and feelings originate in the subconscious and automatically surface without effort on our part. We remember whatever we see to an extent of one million images a day, the subconscious mind has a memory capacity of 70 – 100 trillion images because all our feelings and emotions and experiences are stored within us as images or sounds.”

With love and best wishes to you, wherever you are

David

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