CONSIOUS V/S SUBCONCIOUS MIND
CONSIOUS V/S SUBCONCIOUS MIND
The subconscious mind is a composite of everything one sees, hears and
any information the mind collects that it cannot otherwise consciously
process to make meaningful sense. The conscious mind cannot always
absorb disconnected information, as it would be an information overload,
so the subconscious mind stores this information where it can be
retrieved by the conscious mind when it needs to defend itself for
survival (and for other reasons, such as solving puzzles).
The subconscious mind stores information that the conscious mind may
not immediately process with full understanding, but it stores the
information for later retrieval when ”recalled” by the conscious mind,
or by an astute psychoanalyst who can draw out information stored in the
subconscious, bringing it to the individual's conscious awareness.This
can especially be observed with heightened sensitivity of victims of
violence and other crimes, where victims "felt something"
"instinctually" about a person or situation, but failed to take action
to avoid the situation, for whatever reason, be it embarrassment,
self-denial or other reasons to ignore instinct, as they disregard
internal warning signals.
A precise example of the subconscious mind at work and related
phenomena can be found in a book written by psychoanalyst Gavin De
Becker, "The Gift of Fear". He describes how a victim "knew something
was wrong", but initially discredited her own instinct/subconscious
mind, opting instead to respond to the perceived threat in a normal,
"socially acceptable" manner, completely ignoring that the subconscious
mind tried to tell the conscious mind "that something is wrong." De
Becker tapped into the mind of the victim regarding her "prior awareness
by the subconscious mind that caused her to act instinctively" allowing
her to realize that the perpetrator was going to kill her. The analyst
brought her conscious mind to recognize how her subconscious was working
on her conscious mind, by eliciting her original "inner thoughts/voice"
through a series of events to which her subconscious mind ultimately
drove her conscious mind to behave in such a manner as to protect her
from being killed. Gavin was able to elicit her subconscious mind's
recognition of a dangerous situation that compelled her conscious mind
to act to save her through its basic survival instinct, bringing to the
victim's conscious mind that it was the "subtle signal that warned her."
The victim describes this as an unrecognized fear that drove her to
act, still unaware consciously of precisely why she was afraid. Her
conscious mind had heard the words, "I promise I won't hurt you, while
her subconscious mind was calculating the situation much faster than the
conscious mind could make sense out of WHY the fear was there. The
victim stated that "the animal inside her took over."
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