9 Interesting Facts about Your Subconscious Mind

Here are nine mind-boggling truths regarding the realm underneath your conscious awareness. 

The power of your unconscious mind is incredible. There will be certain aspects of it that you understand and some that you don’t. 

If you’re curious about the inner workings of your mind, here are nine things about it that you might not know. 

Some of you may remember Donald Rumsfeld’s tongue-twisting statement a few years ago when he was trying to explain the limitations of intelligence reports: 

“There are known knowns.” There are some things that we are confident of. There are, of course, known unknowns, as well. To put it another way, we are aware that there are things about which we are unsure. 

However, there are also the unknown unknowns or things we don’t know that we don’t know. Our level of knowledge indeed varies. 

So, in that light, here are nine aspects of your unconscious mind that you might not have realized before.

• Our Unconscious Mind Has Nightmares

Since the dawn of time, scientists, philosophers, and theologians have investigated dreams, each offering unique theories and interpretations. 

As Sigmund Freud eloquently noted, dreams express our deepest needs and fears (often of a sexual character), as well as repressed memories or obsessions from our infancy. Though, “sometimes even a cigar is only a cigar,” as Freud himself acknowledged. 

Most modern neuroscientists accept that dreams are nothing more than the brain’s honest attempt to make sense of fleeting ideas and images from the day’s events or memories while the conscious mind is fast asleep. 

• Your Unconscious Mind dictates ninety-Five percent of Your Actions

 

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as our unconscious mind governs all of our bodily actions. Scientists now believe that as much as 95% of our mental processing occurs below the threshold of awareness. It means that our subconscious mind is mainly responsible for our conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions. 

• The Unconscious Mind is Active All the Time 

All of the body’s most essential processes and functions are managed by your subconscious mind, which works nonstop. The subconscious contains bodily functions like heart rate, blood flow, digestion, and elimination, to name a few. When we sleep, our conscious mind shuts down while our subconscious mind continues operating at total capacity. Researchers have found that our brains continue to process information even when unconscious. 

The Subconscious Mind Is Habit-Based

According to Freud, the unconscious mind is responsible for most of our daily actions. This is because the unconscious mind processes information rapidly and automatically. It’s easy to get into a pattern because the activities we repeat every day—from getting up and getting ready for the day to arrive at work to eating, drinking, and sleeping—become automatic. 

The Subconscious Mind Takes Everything Literally

The mind’s unconscious tends to take things at face value. It gives equal weight to both positive and negative feedback. If you tell yourself repeatedly that you will fail at anything, eventually, you will. A person’s unconscious mind is open to individual interpretation. It cannot reason or think for itself and instead merely follows the instructions it receives from its conscious mind. Henry Ford remarked, “Whether you believe you can or cannot, you are correct.” 

• The Unconscious Mind is focused on the Here and Now

The conscious mind is active during daydreaming and sentimental musings about the past. The mind’s conscious processing is future and past-oriented. The unconscious part of our mind is always in the here and now. The key is to replace “I will be successful” with “I am successful” in your head. 

• Comparing the Subconscious to A Computer Processor 

Early computers were modeled after brains and called “electronic brains.” The human brain is the most complicated processing unit ever created, and its operation on a computer is somewhat dissimilar to that of the human body. The subconscious is much more capable than the conscious mind and can quickly and accurately translate vast amounts of data through the five senses. 

• The Unconscious Mind is Eternally Primitive

Our unconscious mind is more concerned with conveying emotion than reasoning or reason in communication with us. Intuition is the brain’s elaborate system that mediates between our unconscious and waking thoughts. It’s a mental operation that can proceed without any deductive reasoning. 

• The Mind Operates On Multiple Levels Simultaneously

Many of us may believe we can multitask, but in reality, we cannot simultaneously maintain two separate areas of conscious attention. When we focus on two things at once, our brains shift their neuronal attention from one to the other and back again. One item at a time is all any of us can focus on properly. It’s physiologically impossible to feel joy and sorrow or rage and peace simultaneously, but we may rapidly cycle through different states of mind. But our unconscious mind can juggle multiple tasks at once. 

 

Of course, there are more than nine things you (we) may not have known about your subconscious mind, as research is constantly on the lookout for new unknowns. 

 

Here are nine mind-boggling truths regarding the realm underneath your conscious awareness.  The power of your unconscious mind is incredible. There will be certain aspects of it that you understand and some that you don’t.  If you’re curious about the inner workings of your mind, here are nine things about it that you might not…

Here are nine mind-boggling truths regarding the realm underneath your conscious awareness.  The power of your unconscious mind is incredible. There will be certain aspects of it that you understand and some that you don’t.  If you’re curious about the inner workings of your mind, here are nine things about it that you might not…