The Hidden Power of Your Mind

I found this interesting article from various university studies investigating how the human mind works. If we thought we were consciously in control of our behavior each day, then you may rethink that idea after you read this article...


Who’s Minding the Mind?

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth in psychological research over the last few years. New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

More fundamentally, the new studies reveal a subconscious brain that is far more active, purposeful and independent than previously known. Goals, whether to eat, mate or devour an iced latte, are like neural software programs that can only be run one at a time, and the unconscious is perfectly capable of running the program it chooses.

The give and take between these unconscious choices and our rational, conscious aims can help explain some of the more mystifying realities of behavior, like how we can be generous one moment and petty the next, or act rudely at a dinner party when convinced we are emanating charm.

“When it comes to our behavior from moment to moment, the big question is, ‘What to do next?’ ” said John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale and a co-author, with Lawrence Williams, of the coffee study, which was presented at a recent psychology conference. “Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness.”

Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.”

Priming the Unconscious

The idea of subliminal influence has a mixed reputation among scientists because of a history of advertising hype and apparent fraud. In 1957, an ad man named James Vicary claimed to have increased sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn at a movie theater in Fort Lee, N.J., by secretly flashing the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coke” during the film, too quickly to be consciously noticed. But advertisers and regulators doubted his story from the beginning, and in a 1962 interview, Mr. Vicary acknowledged that he had trumped up the findings to gain attention for his business.

Later studies of products promising subliminal improvement, for things like memory and self-esteem, found no effect.

Some scientists also caution against overstating the implications of the latest research on priming unconscious goals. The new research “doesn’t prove that consciousness never does anything,” wrote Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, in an e-mail message. “It’s rather like showing you can hot-wire a car to start the ignition without keys. That’s important and potentially useful information, but it doesn’t prove that keys don’t exist or that keys are useless.”

Yet he and most in the field now agree that the evidence for psychological hot-wiring has become overwhelming. In one 2004 experiment, psychologists led by Aaron Kay, then at Stanford University and now at the University of Waterloo, had students take part in a one-on-one investment game with another, unseen player.

Half the students played while sitting at a large table, at the other end of which was a briefcase and a black leather portfolio. These students were far stingier with their money than the others, who played in an identical room, but with a backpack on the table instead.

The mere presence of the briefcase, noticed but not consciously registered, generated business-related associations and expectations, the authors argue, leading the brain to run the most appropriate goal program: compete. The students had no sense of whether they had acted selfishly or generously.

In another experiment, published in 2005, Dutch psychologists had undergraduates sit in a cubicle and fill out a questionnaire. Hidden in the room was a bucket of water with a splash of citrus-scented cleaning fluid, giving off a faint odor. After completing the questionnaire, the young men and women had a snack, a crumbly biscuit provided by laboratory staff members.

The researchers covertly filmed the snack time and found that these students cleared away crumbs three times more often than a comparison group, who had taken the same questionnaire in a room with no cleaning scent. “That is a very big effect, and they really had no idea they were doing it,” said Henk Aarts, a psychologist at Utrecht University and the senior author of the study.

The Same Brain Circuits

The real-world evidence for these unconscious effects is clear to anyone who has ever run out to the car to avoid the rain and ended up driving too fast, or rushed off to pick up dry cleaning and returned with wine and cigarettes — but no pressed slacks.

The brain appears to use the very same neural circuits to execute an unconscious act as it does a conscious one. In a study that appeared in the journal Science in May, a team of English and French neuroscientists performed brain imaging on 18 men and women who were playing a computer game for money. The players held a handgrip and were told that the tighter they squeezed when an image of money flashed on the screen, the more of the loot they could keep.

As expected, the players squeezed harder when the image of a British pound flashed by than when the image of a penny did — regardless of whether they consciously perceived the pictures, many of which flew by subliminally. But the circuits activated in their brains were similar as well: an area called the ventral pallidum was particularly active whenever the participants responded.

“This area is located in what used to be called the reptilian brain, well below the conscious areas of the brain,” said the study’s senior author, Chris Frith, a professor in neuropsychology at University College London who wrote the book “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates our Mental World.”

The results suggest a “bottom-up” decision-making process, in which the ventral pallidum is part of a circuit that first weighs the reward and decides, then interacts with the higher-level, conscious regions later, if at all, Dr. Frith said.

Scientists have spent years trying to pinpoint the exact neural regions that support conscious awareness, so far in vain. But there’s little doubt it involves the prefrontal cortex, the thin outer layer of brain tissue behind the forehead, and experiments like this one show that it can be one of the last neural areas to know when a decision is made.

This bottom-up order makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. The subcortical areas of the brain evolved first and would have had to help individuals fight, flee and scavenge well before conscious, distinctly human layers were added later in evolutionary history. In this sense, Dr. Bargh argues, unconscious goals can be seen as open-ended, adaptive agents acting on behalf of the broad, genetically encoded aims — automatic survival systems.

In several studies, researchers have also shown that, once covertly activated, an unconscious goal persists with the same determination that is evident in our conscious pursuits. Study participants primed to be cooperative are assiduous in their teamwork, for instance, helping others and sharing resources in games that last 20 minutes or longer. Ditto for those set up to be aggressive.

This may help explain how someone can show up at a party in good spirits and then for some unknown reason — the host’s loafers? the family portrait on the wall? some political comment? — turn a little sour, without realizing the change until later, when a friend remarks on it. “I was rude? Really? When?”

Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, has done research showing that when self-protective instincts are primed — simply by turning down the lights in a room, for instance — white people who are normally tolerant become unconsciously more likely to detect hostility in the faces of black men with neutral expressions.

“Sometimes nonconscious effects can be bigger in sheer magnitude than conscious ones,” Dr. Schaller said, “because we can’t moderate stuff we don’t have conscious access to, and the goal stays active.”

Until it is satisfied, that is, when the program is subsequently suppressed, research suggests. In one 2006 study, for instance, researchers had Northwestern University undergraduates recall an unethical deed from their past, like betraying a friend, or a virtuous one, like returning lost property. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, an antiseptic wipe or a pencil; and those who had recalled bad behavior were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe. They had been primed to psychologically “cleanse” their consciences.

Once their hands were wiped, the students became less likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project. Their hands were clean: the unconscious goal had been satisfied and now was being suppressed, the findings suggest.

What You Don’t Know

Using subtle cues for self-improvement is something like trying to tickle yourself, Dr. Bargh said: priming doesn’t work if you’re aware of it. Manipulating others, while possible, is dicey. “We know that as soon as people feel they’re being manipulated, they do the opposite; it backfires,” he said.

And researchers do not yet know how or when, exactly, unconscious drives may suddenly become conscious; or under which circumstances people are able to override hidden urges by force of will. Millions have quit smoking, for instance, and uncounted numbers have resisted darker urges to misbehave that they don’t even fully understand.

Yet the new research on priming makes it clear that we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world that don’t always agree with our own, but whose instincts, these studies clearly show, are at least as likely to be helpful, and attentive to others, as they are to be disruptive.



By Benedict Carey

For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

Our World Is Nothing But Mind / Consciousness

The act of observation creates the entire universe. So says quantum physics. Scientists now reveal that an atom (the basic structure that makes up our so called physical world) is spread out all over the place until a conscious observer decides to look at it.

The implications of this knowledge for us are huge. When we realize that we have the power to change our experience within the world simply through the way we observe it, we have the power to make a quantum shift in our life.

In 1944, the "father of quantum physics" Max Planck stated - underlying everything that we see, our bodies included, there is the existence of what must be a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. When you watch the movie "The Matrix" you'll start to see your whole world in a brand new way.

This video is a compilation of various speakers on the topic of Mind as Matrix...



For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

The Substance of the Universe is Consciousness

There's an ocean of pure vibrant consciousness inside each one of us and it's right at the source and base of mind. Quantum physics is now telling us that when we change our consciousness we change the atoms in our world. They are now realizing that we live in a world of pure energy (thought). Our world is not made up of solid objects as we previously thought. It is nothing but constantly changing energy. When we know this and work with this principle consciously we are able to change what shows up in our world.

This video covers findings from several scientists about the nature of our world....


For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

How to Double Your Brain Power

I've found this great video from Brian Tracy on How to Double Your Brain Power. Tracy explains how most of us have disconnected from our creative ability at a very young age through subtle shutdown messages discouraging us from being open to investigating our world.

Tracy asserts that Creativity is our natural birthright. It is not allotted to a rare few genius minds. It is actually our true state of being when we clear out all our previous limiting ideas about our ability to be creative.

So, enjoy this inspiring video and take the next step in your life to opening your mind to its vast untapped potential....



For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

Think and Grow Rich

"Anything the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve."
So said Napoleon Hill in his best selling book Think and Grow Rich.

Hill teaches us in this book how to use our Mind to create wealth in our lives. Throughout his book he teaches that true wealth comes from our thoughts, not as previously thought by the sweat of our brow. Riches of every kind begin with "a state of mind", that one may start with nothing but thoughts.

This video gives us the essence of this immortal book...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

How the Subconscious Mind Creates our Life Experience

Over the years I’ve worked with many people wanting to find more harmony, peace, wealth, or some better kind of life for themselves. In doing so I continually hear how they more often than not have the same kinds of experiences showing up throughout their lives. This always signals to me that there’s some subconscious program running which is causing this pattern to play out in life.

In a previous article in my blog I shared a wonderful explanation for this phenomena from Dr Bruce Lipton. Dr Lipton explains that from conception to the age of 6 or 7 our brainwave state is similar to that of a hypnotised person. The implication of this is that any suggestions put to us during this time of our lives will likely stay as an automatic program in our subconscious mind, thereby reproducing that belief or thought for the rest of our lives unless we make a conscious effort to change that program.

Knowing this dynamic I worked with a lady who was continually experiencing living on the edge financially throughout her life. There was no real reason for this to be so as the lady was very well educated, came from a reasonably well off family and had the capacity to create good businesses/income. However there just never seemed to be “enough”. She was always finding her bank account showing at next to nothing. In many cases she had lots of money owing to her in her businesses, but she just couldn’t get the money to flow in at a constant rate to have any sign of abundance in her bank account.

We did quite a bit of work muscle testing to inquire what the subconscious belief/s may be that had setup this pattern in her life. We did several sessions of subconscious belief change but still no change happened. One day this lady just started talking about an incident that happened when she was about 7 years of age. Her mother had asked her to go to the corner store to buy a few small items and gave her a pound note to pay for the goods. While at the store the little girl noticed a 96 page exercise book which she immediately saw herself filling with many drawings. She was an avid artist and would draw on every scrap of paper she could find. When she saw this big book of empty pages her mind was already seeing the hundreds of drawings she could do to fill its pages. She added up the value of what her mother wanted and realized she had enough money left over to purchase the book, which she did.

So, off she raced home with her treasured book and mother’s shopping, burst into her home and announced to her mother that she’d been able to buy this wonderful exercise book with so many pages that she could fill with drawings. Well, she certainly wasn’t prepared for the reaction she received from her mother, who delivered a scathing judgment of the little girl’s selfishness. “How dare she spend that money on herself when it had to go round the whole family!!!!” She was promptly marched out of the house with instructions to return the book to the shopkeeper and never to do that again!

Anyone reading this story is no doubt already seeing how this message delivered to a child whose reasoning capacity was not yet developed, and whose brainwave state was pen to suggestive programming, would have had such a life impacting result. As we talked through this lady’s life experiences again, she could see this common thread of how she inadvertently had kept anything but the bare essentials at such a distance in her life. She even realized that she had chosen a husband who bought all her clothes. Because of her programming she was unable to go out and spend much on herself, but she chose a man who would do it for her. At least in this instance the program had beneficial results in the short term, but long term he also spent money with no thought of tomorrow and ultimately left her with more debt than collateral to cover it. In one instance she had been putting aside a little money each week into a savings account in her own name, but when her husband found the bank book while she was at work promptly went to the bank, sweet talked the bank tellers and withdrew the whole lot.

When her parents died and she was left an inheritance, she recalled feeling at a subtle level of herself that she had to get rid of that money as fast as she could. (She did exactly that and within two years she had become bankrupt). With this new awareness that she was receiving from our work together she could see that the programming her mind received as the 7 year old was that she had no right to “family money” and it would be selfish of her to think she could have that money for herself. Hence the underlying drive to get rid of that money as quick as she could.

After doing many subconscious belief changes, we finally realized that we needed to simply take the lady back in time to the moment just before she entered her family home with the exercise book in hand, stop her outside the door and let her know what was about to happen. So I asked the lady to go back in her mind to that moment in time. Once there she would explain to the “little girl” that when she went inside, her mother would be very angry about her purchase – not because she didn’t deserve the book, or that she was bad or wrong in some way. It was simply because at that time her mother was probably under great stress financially making sure a small amount of money spread around the 7 people in her family.

She then explained to the “little child” that she could speak to her mother about how she might be able to get that book sometime in the near future. Perhaps she could setup a savings plan, do some odd jobs for her mother and earn some pocket money or perhaps there might be some free money in the household in the near future, enough for her to receive the book. The lady did this process and reported back the sense of empowerment she felt from the situation as she spoke of it this time round. Previously there were only memories of loss, wrongness and feeling she was not deserving to have the things she desired. This time round she emerged as a powerful negotiator on her own behalf and also someone able to see beyond just her own needs. She was able to see that sometimes in life she needed to discuss through what she wanted and needed with those around her to find the best way forward to achieve the needs of all involved.

It’s been a difficult journey for this lady as she setup one major loss after another throughout her life, but now that she has re-framed an experience that she previously interpreted to mean that she didn’t ever deserve to have the things she desired, to now understanding that it was simply her interpretation of the event to have drawn that conclusion. She has now seen that there were many other possible conclusions she could have drawn. She chose to re-frame the experience into one that was empowering and creative that I’m sure will see her creating a very different future for herself from here on in.

I invite you now to look at your own life for any recurring painful or non supportive situations showing up and to start inquiring of yourself why you, as a masterful creator, would have been creating this in your life. What story did you buy into as a child about this aspect of your life? Keep inquiring until you can find the earliest memory of an event similar to your recurring situation. Once you’ve found this event, take the “little child” in you back to just prior to the event and help that child re-frame the experience in a more life supportive and empowering way.

What we’re doing here is rewriting the story in our subconscious mind – installing a new more self empowering program for our life to run on. Since about 95% of our lives is being run by our subconscious mind it’s vital that we have supportive beliefs operating there. All the best to you in your mind journeys!

For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .

Making Money with the Law of Attraction

World Renowned Author & Metaphysical Teacher Stuart Wilde explains how to make money and build wealth simply by using the right mindset. He asserts that we have all been raised under the illusion of lack and limitation, when in fact we all have access to an infinite source of abundance from within. 

Mr Wilde explains that we may need to use subliminal programs to help change the deeply embedded programs we have around money and wealth. He also gives practical steps for attracting greater wealth and shows us how we can achieve higher financial returns for our goods and services through the perception of delivering higher value.

How to Use Your Mind to Cope with Life Stress

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across.

In this speech David Wallace brings our attention to how most of us go through our lives on auto pilot, never really choosing our thoughts about our every day existence. He points out how we very rarely have awareness of what and who are around us. We push our way through the chaos and busy-ness of life without a moment of awareness of the world we are participating in.

This speech follows on from my previous Posts which discussed how our subconscious mind runs our life on auto pilot for about 95% of the time. We can however, choose a different way.

How We Create with Our Mind and Heart

Following on from my last post of Gregg Braden teaching us how we can create what we desire by combining thoughts with feelings or the power of heart energy. I want to share this diagram from one of Gregg's books, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief....

Quantum physics tells us that our world is made of electrical and magnetic energy, including ourselves. Researchers are also telling us that within the human body, the heart emits the greatest amount of electromagnetic energy. So, when we add heartfelt emotions to our thoughts we are using the "stuff" of the universe to bring into physical form what it is we are seeing in our mind.

When we change our thoughts and add heart based energy or emotion to our new thoughts, we change what shows up in the atoms and molecules of our physical world. The simple act of creation!

From Gregg Braden's research the secret seems to be that we need to see and feel that the thing we want to manifest is already done. Feel what it is like already having or doing that thing.

In my next post we'll be looking at a medicine-less hospital in Beijing where they perform healings through mind power.

Power of the Mind to Create

Gregg Braden traveled the world interviewing monks, nuns, healers and other 'miracle workers' to find the secret of what they were doing to create these miracles. He discovered that science had always taught us that the space between physical objects in our universe was empty.

However, quantum physics is now finding that the space between things is full of a living pulsating essence. In 1944, the father of quantum physics, Max Planck said - underlying everything we see, our bodies included, there is the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. Some refer to it as The Field. Researchers around the globe are now finding we have the ability to influence this field in ways that we are only just starting to comprehend.

Gregg Braden emphasizes it's not just using the mind to create the life of our dreams. We need to combine the thought of what we want with a strong heart feeling of what it would be like to already have that life we desire - already done, already done!

How to Create Success Using Mind Power

John Assaraf speaks briefly on the Power of the Mind to create abundant wealth. It's all about clarity. Be absolutely clear about what it is you want to create. Then, he says, it's like giving an instruction to the universe. Seemingly without you even knowing it, things start to appear. You start to harmonize with your clear vision and everything you need to achieve your vision starts to appear.

The Power of the Mind - Dr Bruce Lipton

If you've ever wondered why you keep attracting the same kind of events or people into your life, then this article will deliver your answers. Dr Lipton explains how our subconscious mind is fully programmed by the age of 6. This means that about 95% of our life is run on auto pilot producing the same results over and over again. Once we are aware of this information, we can then start to make changes in our lives. My previous blog discusses PSYCH-K, an effective tool to make subconscious change and therefore lasting change in your life. Dr Lipton himself is a proponent of PSYCH-K for making subconscious change to improve your life.

 
© BY BRUCE H. LIPTON, PH.D.

Living in the world under your skin is a bustling metropolis of 50 trillion cells, each of which is biologically and functionally equivalent to a miniature human. Current popular opinion holds that the fate and behaviour of our internal cellular citizens are preprogrammed in their genes. Since Watson and Crick’s discovery of the genetic code, the public has been programmed with perception that DNA acquired from our parents at the moment of conception determines our traits and characters. This conventional view of genetics further has us believe that our inherited gene programs are apparently fixed, the equivalent of a computer’s “read-only” program.

     The notion that our fate is indelibly inscribed in our genes was directly derived from the now dated scientific concept known as genetic determinism. It is still a conventional belief that genes “control” the many wonderful attributes passed down through a family’s lineage, as well as dysfunctional familial traits such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and depression, among scores of others. As “victims” of heredity, genetic forces outside of our control, we naturally perceive of ourselves as being powerless in regard to the unfolding of our lives. Unfortunately, the assumption of being powerless is the road to personal irresponsibility. “Since I can’t do anything about it anyway… why should I care?”

Shattering Illusions

     Just as the Human Genome Project got off the ground in the late 1980’s, scientists began to acquire a paradigm-shattering new view of how life works. Their revolutionary research has become the foundation for a new branch of science known as epigenetic control. The world of epigenetics has shaken the foundations of biology and medicine for it reveals that we are not “victims” of our genes, but are in fact “masters” of our genes. 

 
     The conventional version of heredity still being taught in schools emphasisesgenetic control, which literally reads as “control by genes.” However, newly revealedepigenetic control mechanisms provide a profoundly different view of how life is managed. The Greek-derived prefix epi- means “over or above.” Consequently, the literal translation of epigenetic control reads as “control above the genes.” Genes do NOT control life – life is controlled by something above the genes. Knowledge is power and this knowledge of how life works provides the most important element in our quest for self-empowerment. Epigenetics leads us from our perception of victim to our proper role as a participatory creator.

        The new science of epigenetics recognises that environmental signals are the primary regulators of gene activity. As described in the Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, cells read and respond to the conditions of their environment using membrane protein perception switches. Activated switches send signals into the cytoplasm to control behaviour and regulate the activity of the genes, the hereditary blueprints used to make the body. Proteins are the cell’s molecular building blocks and their characters provide for our physical and behavioural traits.

        Amazingly, epigenetic information can modify or edit the readout of a gene blueprint to create over 30,000 different variations of proteins from the same gene. This editing process can provide for normal functional protein products as well as dysfunctional proteins from the same gene. One can be born with healthy genes and through epigenetic processes express mutant behaviours such as cancer. Similarly, one can be born with defective mutant genes and through epigenetic mechanisms create normal healthy proteins and functions.

     The conventional belief that the genome represents “read-only” programs is now proven to be false. Epigenetic mechanisms modify the readout of genetic code, therefore genes actually represent “read-write” programs wherein life experiences actively redefine an individual’s genetic expression. As organisms experience the environment, their perception mechanisms fine-tune genetic expression so as to enhance their opportunities for survival. The environment’s influence over the genome is dramatically revealed in studies on identical twins. When first born, these siblings express almost the same gene activity from their identical genomes. However, as they begin to experience life, their personal individualised experiences and perceptions lead to the activation of profoundly different sets of genes. 

 
     The “new” biology is based upon the fact that perception controls behaviour AND gene activity! This revised version of science emphasises the reality that we actively control our genetic expression moment by moment throughout our lives. Rather than seeing ourselves as victims of our genes, we must come to own the responsibility that our perceptions are dynamically shaping our biology and behaviour. The expression of a healthy or dis-eased biology is directly influenced by the accuracy of an individual’s interpretation or perception of their environment. Misperceptions rewrite genetic expression just as effectively as accurate perceptions, yet with far graver, perhaps even life threatening consequences.

From the Microcosm of the Cell to the Macrocosm of the Mind
     For the first three and a half billion years of life on this planet, the biosphere consisted of a massive population of individual single-celled organisms, such as bacteria, yeast, algae, and protozoa like the familiar amoeba and paramecium. About 700 million years ago, individual cells started to assemble into multicellular colonies. The collective awareness afforded in a community of cells was far greater than an individual cell’s awareness. Since awareness is a primary factor in organismal survival, the communal experience offered its citizens a far greater opportunity to stay alive and reproduce.

     The first cellular communities, like the earliest human communities, were basic hunter-gatherer clans wherein each member of the society offered the same services to support the survival of the community. However, as the population densities of both cellular and human communities reached greater numbers, it was no longer efficient or effective for all individuals to do the same job. In both types of communities, evolution led to individuals taking on specialised functions. For example, in human communities some members focused upon hunting, others upon domestic chores and some upon child rearing. In cellular communities specialisation meant that some cells began to differentiate as digestive cells, others as heart cells, and still others as muscle cells. 

 
     Most of the trillions of cells forming bodies such as ours have no direct perception of the external environment. Liver cells “see” what’s going on in the liver, but don’t directly know what’s going on in the world outside of the skin. The function of the brain and nervous system is to interpret environmental stimuli and send out signals to the cells that integrate and regulate the life-sustaining functions of the body’s organ systems.

     The successful nature of multicellular communities allowed evolving brains to dedicate vast numbers of cells for use in the cataloguing, memorising and integrating complex perceptions. The ability to remember and select among the millions of experienced perceptions in life provides the brain with a powerful creative database from which it can create complex behavioural repertoires. When put into play, these behavioural programs endow the organism with the characteristic trait ofconsciousness. In this presentation, the term consciousness is used in its most fundamental context… the state of being awake and aware of what is going on around you.

     Many scientists prefer to think of consciousness in terms of a digital quality, an organism either has it or not. However, an assessment of the evolution of biological properties suggests consciousness, like any other quality, evolved over time. Consequently, the character of consciousness would likely express itself as a gradient of awareness from its simpler roots in primitive organisms to the unique character ofself-consciousness manifest in humans and other higher vertebrates. 

 
        The expression of self-consciousness is specifically associated with a small evolutionary adaptation in the brain known as the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the neurological platform that enables us to realise our personal identity and experience the quality of “thinking.” Monkeys and lower organisms do not express self-consciousness. When looking into a mirror, monkeys will never recognise that they are looking at them selves; they will always perceive the image to be that of another monkey. In contrast, neurologically more advanced chimps looking in the mirror perceive the mirror’s reflection as an image of themselves. 

 
        An important difference between the brain’s consciousness and the prefrontal cortex’s self-consciousness is that consciousness enables an organism to assess and respond to the immediate conditions of its environment that are relevant at that moment. In contrast, self-consciousness enables the individual to factor in the consequences of their actions in regard to not only how they impact the present moment but also as to how they will influence the individual’s future.

     Self-consciousness is an evolutionary adjunct to consciousness in that it provided another behaviour-creating platform that included the role of a “self” in the decision-making process. While conventional consciousness enables organisms to be participatory members in the dynamics of life’s “play,” the quality of self-consciousnessoffers an opportunity to simultaneously be an observer in the “audience.” From the perspective of our being able to observe the role of “self” in the unfolding of the “play,” self-consciousness provides the individual with the option for self-reflection, reviewing and editing their character’s performance. The conscious and self-conscious functions of the brain may be collectively referred to as the mind.

     In conventional parlance, the brain’s conscious mechanism associated with automated stimulus-response behaviours is referred to as the subconscious orunconscious mind, for the reason that its functions require neither observation nor attention from the self-conscious mind. Subconscious mind functions evolved long before the prefrontal cortex, consequently it historically was able to successfully operate a body and its behaviour without any contribution from, or involvement with, the more evolved self-conscious mind. 
     The subconscious mind is an astonishingly powerful information processor that can record perceptual experiences (programs) and forever play them back at the push of a button. Interestingly, many people only become aware of their subconscious mind’s automated programmed behaviours when they realise they’re engaged in an undesirable behaviour as a result of someone “pushing their buttons.” 

     The power of the subconscious mind lies in its ability to process massive amounts of data acquired from direct and indirect learning experiences at extraordinarily high rates of speed. It has been estimated that the disproportionately larger brain mass providing the subconscious mind’s function has the ability to interpret and respond to over 40 million nerve impulses per second. In contrast, it is estimated that the diminutive self-conscious mind’s prefrontal cortex can only process about 40 nerve impulses per second. As an information processor, the subconscious mind is one million times more powerful than the self-conscious mind. 

 
     As a tradeoff in acquiring its computational bravado, the subconscious mind expresses a marginal creative ability, one that may be best compared to that of a precocious five year old. In contrast to the freewill offered by the conscious mind, the subconscious mind primarily expresses prerecorded stimulus-response “habits.” Once a behaviour pattern is learned, such as walking, getting dressed or driving a car, those programs are processed as habits in the subconscious mind… meaning you can carry out these complex functions without paying any attention to them. 

 
     In contrast to the massive information processing by the subconscious mind, the smaller prefrontal cortex responsible for self-consciousness is limited to juggling only a small number of tasks at the same time. Though its ability for multitasking is physically constrained, the self-conscious mind can focus upon and control any function in the human body. It was once thought that some body’s functions were beyond the control of the self-conscious mind, such involuntary functions included the regulation of heartbeat, blood pressure and body temperature, behaviours controlled by the unconscious autonomic nervous system. However, it is now recognised that yogis and other practitioners that train their conscious minds can absolutely control functions formerly defined as involuntary behaviours.

     The subconscious and self-conscious components of the mind work in tandem. The subconscious mind controls every behaviour that is not attended to by the self-conscious mind. For most people, their self-conscious minds are rarely focused upon the current moment since their mental processing continuously flits from one thought to another. The self-conscious mind is so preoccupied with thoughts about the future, the past or resolving some imaginary problem, that most of our lives are actually controlled by programs in the subconscious mind. 

 
     Cognitive neuroscientists conclude that the self-conscious mind contributes only about 5% of our cognitive activity. Consequently, 95% of our decisions, actions, emotions and behaviours are derived from the unobserved processing of the subconscious mind.

Simple Insights… Profound Consequences!

     Through the management of “programmed” perceptions, the mind controls our biology, behaviour and gene activity. The seat of thinking, freewill, personal identity, and our wants, desires and intentions is a small 40 “bit” self-conscious processor that controls our lives only 5% of the day or less. The million times more powerful subconscious mind controls 95% or more of our lives using “habits” derived from instincts and the perceptions acquired in our life experiences. 

 
     This data reveals that our lives are not controlled by our personal intentions and desires as we may inherently believe. Do the math! Our fate is actually under the control of the preprogrammed experiences managed by the subconscious mind. The most powerful and influential programs in the subconscious mind were downloaded into consciousness in the profoundly important formative period between gestation and six years of age. Now here’s the catch – these life-shaping subconscious programs are direct downloads derived from observing our primary teachers… our parents, siblings and local community. Unfortunately, as psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors are keenly aware, many of the perceptions acquired about ourselves in the formative period are expressed as limiting and self-sabotaging beliefs.

     Unbeknownst to most parents is the fact that their words and actions are being continuously recorded by their children’s minds. Consequently, when they inform their child that he or she does not deserve things, or that they are not good enough, or smart enough, or that they are sickly, these pronouncements are directly downloaded into their child’s subconscious. Since the role of the mind is to make coherence between its programs and real life, the brain generates appropriate behavioural responses to life’s stimuli to assure the “truth” of the programmed perceptions. 

 
     Let’s apply this understanding to the behaviour in one’s life. Consider that you were a 5-year-old child throwing a tantrum in Walmart over your desire to have a particular toy. In silencing your outburst, your father yelled, “YOU don’t deserve things!” You are now an adult and in your self-conscious mind you are considering the idea that you have the qualities and power to assume a position of leadership at your job. While in the process of entertaining this positive thought in the self-conscious mind, all of your behaviours are now being automatically managed by the programs in your more powerful subconscious mind. Since your fundamental behavioural programs are those derived in your formative years, your father’s admonition that “you do not deserve things” may become the subconscious mind’s automated directive. So while you are entertaining wonderful thoughts of a positive future and not paying attention, your subconscious mind is automatically engaging self-sabotaging behaviour to assure that your reality matches your program of not-deserving. 

 
     Now here’s the catch – Behaviour is automatically controlled by subconscious mind’s programs when the self-conscious mind is not focused on the present moment. When the reflective self-conscious mind is preoccupied in thought and not paying attention, it does not observe the automatic behaviours derived from subconscious mind. Since 95% or more of our behaviour is derived from the subconscious mind… then most of our own behaviour is invisible to us! 

 
     For example, consider you intimately know someone and you also know his or her parent. From your perspective you see that your friend’s behaviour closely resembles their parent. Then one day you casually remark to your friend something like, “You know Mary, you’re just like your mom.” Back away! In disbelief and perhaps shock, Mary will likely respond with, “How can you say that!” The cosmic joke is that everyone else can see that Mary’s behaviour resembles her mom’s except Mary. Why? Simply because when Mary is engaging the subconscious behavioural programs she downloaded in her youth from observing her mom, it’s because her self-conscious mind is not paying attention. At those moments, her automatic subconscious programs operate without observation.

         Another familiar example of how “invisible” behaviour operates: You are driving your car while having an intense conversation with a friend in the passenger’s seat. You become so involved in the discussion that only later, when your gaze returns to the road, do you realise that you haven’t paid attention to the driving for the last ten minutes. Since the self-conscious mind was preoccupied with the conversation, the car was being driven by the subconscious mind’s “autopilot” mode. However, if you were asked to describe your driving behaviour during that ten-minute hiatus, you would be forced to say, “I don’t know… I wasn’t paying attention.” Aha! That’s the point – when the conscious mind is busy, we do not observe our own programmed subconscious behaviours. 

 
     Consequently, when life does not work out as planned, we rarely recognise that we were very likely contributing to our own disappointments. Since we are generally unaware of the influence of our own subconscious behaviours, we naturally perceive of our selves as victims of forces outside of us when things don’t work out as desired. Unfortunately, assuming the role of victim means that we assume we are powerless in manifesting our intentions. Nothing is further from the truth! The primary determinant in shaping the fate of our lives is the database of perceptions and beliefs programmed in our minds.

Where Did That Behaviour Come From?

     There are three sources of perceptions that control our biology and behaviour. The most primitive perceptions are those we acquire with our genome. Built into our genes are programs that provide fundamental reflex behaviours referred to as instincts. Pulling your hand out of an open flame is a genetically derived behaviour that does not have to be learned. More complex instincts include the ability of newborn babies to swim like a dolphin or the activation of innate healing mechanisms to repair a damaged system or eliminate a cancerous growth. Genetically inherited instincts are perceptions acquired from nature.

     The second source of life-controlling perceptions represents memories derived from life experiences downloaded into the subconscious mind. These profoundly powerful learned perceptions represent the contribution from nurture. Among the earliest perceptions of life to be downloaded are the emotions and sensations experienced by the mother as she responds to her world. Along with nutrition, the emotional chemistry, hormones, and stress factors controlling the mother’s responses to life experiences cross the placental barrier and influence fetal physiology and development. When the mother is happy, so is the fetus. When the mother is in fear, so is the fetus. When the mother “rejects” her fetus as a potential threat to family survival, the fetal nervous system is preprogrammed with the emotion of being rejected. Sue Gearhardt’s very valuable book Why Love Matters reveals that the fetal nervous system records memories of womb experiences. By the time the baby is born, emotional information downloaded from the life experiences in womb have already shaped half of that individual’s personality. 

 
     However, the most influential perceptual programming of the subconscious mind occurs in the time period spanning from the birth process through the first six years of life. During this time the child’s brain is recording all sensory experiences as well as learning complex motor programs for speech, and for learning first how to crawl and then how to stand and ultimately run and jump. Simultaneously, the subconscious mind acquires perceptions in regard to parents, who are they and what they do. Then by observing behavioural patterns of people in their immediate environment (usually parents, siblings and relatives), a child learns perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable social behaviours that become the subconscious programs that establish the “rules” of life. 

 
     Nature facilitates the enculturation process by developmentally enhancing the subconscious mind’s ability to download massive amounts of information. EEG readings from adult brains reveal that neural electrical activity is correlated with different states of awareness. Adult EEG readings show that the human brain operates on at least five different frequency levels, each associated with a different brain state:

Activity          Frequency          Brain State 
delta                0.5-4 Hz               sleeping/unconscious
theta                4-8 Hz                      imagination
alpha               8-12 Hz           calm consciousness
beta                 12-35 Hz              focused consciousness
gamma                >35 Hz            peak performance.

     EEG vibrations continuously shift from state to state over the whole range of frequencies during normal brain processing in adults. However, brain frequencies in developing children display a radically different behaviour. EEG vibration rates and their corresponding states evolve in incremental stages over time. The predominant brain activity during the child’s first two years of life is delta, the lowest EEG frequency range. In the adult brain, delta is associated with sleeping or unconsciousness. 

 
     Between two and six years of age, the child’s brain activity state ramps up and it operates primarily in the range of theta. In the adult, theta activity is associated with states of reverie or imagination. While in the theta state, children spend much of their time mixing the imaginary world with the real world. Calm consciousness associated with emerging alpha activity only becomes a predominant brain state after six years of age. By twelve years, the brain expresses all frequency ranges although its primary activity is in beta’s state of focused consciousness. Children leave elementary education behind at this age and enter into the more intense academic programs of junior high. 
     A profoundly important fact in the above timeline that may have missed your attention is that children do not express the alpha EEG frequencies of conscious processing as a predominant brain state until after they are six years old. The predominant delta and theta activity of children under six signifies that their brains are operating at levels below consciousness. Delta and theta brain frequencies define a brain state known as a hypnogogic trance, the same neural state that hypnotherapists use to download new behaviours directly into the subconscious mind of their clients. 

 
         The first six years of a child’s life is spent in a hypnotic trance. Its perceptions of the world are directly downloaded into the subconscious during this time, without the discrimination of the, as yet, dormant self-conscious mind. Consequently, our fundamental perceptions about life and our role in it are learned before we express the capacity to choose or reject those beliefs. We were simply “programmed.” The Jesuits were aware of this programmable state and proudly boasted, “Give us a child until it is six or seven years old and it will belong to the Church for the rest of its life.” They knew that once the dogma of the Church was implanted into the child’s subconscious mind, that information would inevitably influence 95% of that individual’s behaviour for the rest of their life.

     The inhibition of conscious processing (alpha EEG activity) and the simultaneous engagement of a hypnogogic trance during the formative stages of a child’s life are a logical necessity. The thinking processes associated with the self-conscious mind’s processing cannot operate from a blank slate. Self-conscious behaviour requires a working database of learned perceptions. Consequently, before self-consciousness is expressed, the brain’s primary task is to acquire a working awareness of the world by directly downloading experiences and observations into the subconscious mind. 

 
     HOWEVER, there is a very, very serious downside to acquiring awareness by this method. The consequence is so profound that it not only impacts the life of the individual, it can also alter an entire civilisation. The issue concerns the fact that we download our perceptions and beliefs about life long before we acquire the ability for critical thinking. Our primary perceptions are literally written in stone as unequivocal truths in the subconscious mind, where they habitually operate for life, unless there is an active effort to reprogram them. When as young children we download limiting or sabotaging beliefs about ourselves, these perceptions become our truths and our subconscious processing will invisibly generate behaviours that are coherent with those truths. 

 
     As an important point for personal reference, it should be noted that acquired perceptions in the subconscious mind could even override genetically endowed instincts. For example, every human can instinctually swim like a dolphin the moment they emerge from the birth canal. This might prompt you to ask, “Why is it that we have to work so hard at teaching our children how to swim?” The answer lies in the fact that every time the infant encounters open water, such as a pool, a river, a bathtub, the parents freak out in concern for the safety of their child. However, in the baby’s mind, the parent’s behaviour causes the child to equate water as something to be feared. The acquired perception of water as dangerous and life threatening, overrides the instinctual ability to swim and makes the formerly proficient child susceptible to drowning. 

 
     The following is further reference to the fact that our unconsciously acquired cultural beliefs control biology and behaviour. Through our developmental experiences we acquire the perception that we are frail, vulnerable organisms subject to the ravages of contagious germs and disease. The belief of being frail actually leads to frailty since the mind’s limiting perceptions inhibit the body’s innate ability to heal itself. This influence of the mind on healing processes is the focus of psychoneuroimmunology, the field that describes the mechanism by which our thoughts change brain chemistry, which in turn regulates the function of the immune system. While negative beliefs can precipitate illness (nocebo effect), the resulting dis-ease state can be alleviated through the healing effects of positive thoughts (placebo effect). 

 
     Finally, the third source of perceptions that shape our lives is derived from the self-conscious mind. Unlike the reflexive programming of subconscious mind, the self-conscious mind is a creative platform that provides for the mixing and morphing a variety of perceptions with the infusion of imagination, a process that generates an unlimited number of beliefs and behavioural variations. The quality of the self-conscious mind endows organisms with one of the most powerful forces in the Universe, the opportunity to express freewill.

Taking Personal Responsibility

     The conclusions of the “new” biology provide a radical departure from our conventional beliefs of how life works. In contrast to the notion that we are biochemical automatons driven by genes, the new insights reveal that it is the mind that controls genes, which in turn shape our biology and behaviour. The self-conscious mind, associated with our individual identity and the manifestation of thoughts, is guided by our own personal desires and intentions. 

 
     While we generally perceive that our self-conscious mind is “controlling” the show, neuroscience has established the fact that 95% of our behaviour is under the control of the more powerful subconscious mind. As most of our personal and cultural problems arise from the fact that behaviours derived from the subconscious mind are essentially invisible to us, we rarely observe our automated behaviour. 

 
     Compounding the problem is the fact that fundamental programs in the subconscious mind are derived from others, people who generally do not share your personal goals and aspirations. While our conscious minds are trying to move us toward our dreams, unbeknownst to us our subconscious programs are simultaneously shooting ourselves in the foot and impeding our progress. 

 
     The subconscious mind is simply a “record-playback” mechanism that downloads experiences into “behavioural tapes.” While the self-conscious mind is associated with creativity, the subconscious mind’s function is to engage previously recorded programs. Unlike self-consciousness that is overseen by an entity (you), the subconscious mind is more closely related to a machine, meaning there is no thinking, conscious entity controlling the subconscious programs. 

 
     We have all been shackled with emotional chains wrought by dysfunctional behaviours programmed by the stories of the past. However, the next time you are talking to “yourself” with the hope of changing sabotaging subconscious programs, it is important to realise the following information. Using reason to communicate with your subconscious in an effort to change its behaviour would essentially have the same influence as trying to change a program on a cassette tape by talking to the tape player. In neither case is there an entity in the mechanism that will respond to your dialogue. 

 
     Subconscious programs are not fixed, unchangeable behaviours. We have the ability to rewrite our limiting beliefs and in the process take control of our lives. However, to change subconscious programs requires the activation of a process other than just engaging in a running dialogue with the subconscious mind. There are a large variety of effective processes to reprogram limiting beliefs, which include clinical hypnotherapy, Buddhist mindfulness and a number of newly developed and very powerful modalities collectively referred to as energy psychology. 

 
     For a list of resources, visit: www.brucelipton.com.

BRUCE H. LIPTON, Ph.D. is an internationally recognised cellular biologist who taught cell biology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and later performed pioneering studies at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. His breakthrough research on the cell membrane in 1977 made him a pioneer in the new science of epigenetics. He is author of The Biology of Belief and a sought after keynote speaker and workshop presenter. He also created a full-length audio course The Wisdom of Your Cells: How Your Beliefs Control Your Biology.