The alteration of one’s subconscious mind can potentially influence the success or downfall of one’s own mental health. Essentially, the subconscious mind is the counterpart of our mentality that withholds information of which we are unaware of. It is ultimately the “shadow” of our conscious mind and is theoretically suggested to harbor our primitive desires and repressed memories. Nevertheless, learning how to properly stimulate the connections between the conscious and unconscious minds is integral to altering one’s mental framework to his or her advantage according to human resources specialist, Gil Mayer. In contrast, altering the subconscious can also be detrimental to one’s mental health if not correctly approached since an abrupt unraveling of repressed memories can potentially stimulate subconscious turmoil and ultimately provoke traumatic symptoms. Conclusively, the interference with one’s unconscious mind can ultimately end up having beneficial or detrimental effects on your mentality.
The notion of the subconscious mind was famously brought to the world’s attention by the Austrian psychologist known as Sigmund Freud. Specifically, Freud idolized the subconscious mind by creating the theory of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is essentially centered around the notions of the subconscious as well as its respective therapeutic methods. In essence, “Freud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining insight” according to psychology teaching assistant and published researcher, Saul McLeod. This would ultimately be the foundation for which the subconscious mind is centered around. Furthermore, Sigmund Freud elaborated on his theory of psychoanalysis by coining the conscious and unconscious divisions of the mind.
Nevertheless, Freud introduced this division of the mind by also creating his famous Iceberg Theory in which the tip of the iceberg represents what we are aware of while the submerged remaining majority of the iceberg represents what we are unaware of according to psychology specialist, Kendra Cherry. According to this theory, we are only aware of approximately ten percent of ourselves while the rest of the ninety percent is essentially laid dormant in our unconscious mind. Elaborately, inside the subconscious supposedly lies an expansive variety of significant and disturbing material that is deliberately kept out of our awareness to prevent emotional acknowledgement. This Freudian theory was ultimately the first theory to exploit the immense power of the subconscious mind and just how unaware of it we are. It was ultimately the pillar of realization upon how much control our subconscious has over us compared to its conscious counterpart.
Although the subconscious is a complex notion, the primary and yet simple goal of it is to store and retrieve information according to author, Brian Tracy. In other words, the subconscious stores information recognized by the conscious mind, inherently interprets it, and then alters the way you think and act by naturally expressing its interpretation of what was stored. This is, of course, unique for everyone and can be both beneficial and detrimental to one’s mental health since positive information that is stored can aid mental health while negative information stored can compromise it. However, there are many ways for people to directly access their subconscious minds and the sacred content that it withholds. More essentially, there are even ways to safely alter what the subconscious contains.
The topic that you chose was one that I would never even think about; it’s so interesting. While reading, I saw you mention that we are only aware of about 10% of ourselves. I was thinking about it, and I think that if we were aware of more than 10% of ourselves, then we truly wouldn’t understand the concept of awareness. The fact that we are aware of such a small percentage allows us to understand the differences and the comparison of being aware and unaware. What do you think?
I definitely see where you are coming from! Analogically speaking, its almost like a person that has an extremely high intelligence not being able to understand the depth of intelligence itself since he/her is looking from a level higher than basic understanding. And thus traversing a realm that is void of intrapersonal understanding. Your theory is definitely an interesting one that I honestly never thought of. However, it is insightful nonetheless and definitely one that I am going to be thinking about for a long time!
This is a fascinating concept that I would like to learn more about. I wonder in what ways you can stimulate the subconscious section of your mind safely. One question I have is, what is an example of a detrimental effect to ones mental health if stimulating the subconscious part of your mind goes wrong?
That is a really good question! A prominent example of a detrimental effect that can occur from abruptly or falsely trying to directly access your subconscious mind can be a sudden upbringing of traumatic episodes upon emotional acknowledgement of what your mind has worked oh-so-long to try and keep repressed. This is one of the biggest reasons therapeutic practices such as psychotherapy and hypnosis have been prohibited or ignored as a means of effective and safe treatment. This is because there have been countless case studies of people leaving sessions with new fears and illnesses that they didn’t have prior to treatment. Its a very complex notion that I find extremely interesting! Do look up more information about it to further understand the complexity of the subconscious. Think of accessing your subconscious mind as a surgical procedure. My mother always use to tell me that once they open you up, you are never the same. I like to apply this to the subconscious since it is what truly defines who we are and is as complex as the arrangement of our bodily systems.
It is strange to think that there is such a large portion of our mind that we are unaware of, especially since it could be potentially harmful to our mental health. Your statistic that only ten percent of our consciousness is active really helped me understand the magnitude of how much of the mind we are unaware of. At first, I wondered why anyone would want to attempt to access their sub conscience. I think the point that the more we understand it, the more we can use it to our advantage is very important, but I’m still unsure if I would take that risk.
I absolutely adore this comment because the risk of altering the subconscious mind, let alone accessing it is a risk most would be unwilling to take supposing they have at least a basic understanding of the unconscious mind (statistically speaking). However, when reality shows its true colors in the form of mental illness, you would be so surprised on how accepting people become to any possibility of relief. But even with all of my experiences, likewise, I would also never want to risk it.