Understand the essential differences between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Source: PsychMechanics Article: http://www.psychmechanics.com/2014/08/introduction-to-conscious-and.html Follow us: Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/psychmechanics/ Twitter- https://twitter.com/psych_mech Pinterest- https://in.pinterest.com/PsychMechanics

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When you first learn to drive a car
• You’re 100% focused on the activity
• Conscious mind is fully engaged in the task
• Riding a bicycle
• Buttoning a shirt

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When you become an expert in driving

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• You’re no longer 100% consciously involved in
the task
• The driving activity becomes largely automatic
• Conscious mind delegates the driving activity to
the subconscious mind
• While it listens to music or daydreams

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Our automatic responses are
controlled by the subconscious mind
• Blinking and pulling your head backward when
an object is thrown at your face
• Pulling back your hand instantly after it touches
a hot stove
• Feels as if some mysterious alien force inside
you makes you do it

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The subconscious mind is more
powerful than the conscious mind

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The subconscious controls your
• Behaviours
• Beliefs
• Habits
• Choices
• Entire life!

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Subconscious mind is a metaphor
• For your older brain structures
• Compared to your more recently evolved brain
structures (such as the prefrontal cortex)
• Older brain structures tend to be responsible for
automatic behaviours

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Research shows that subconscious
information processing has
• Clearly differentiated neural pathways compared
to conscious information processing
• Though some information processing pathways
are also shared
• This is why we can change our behaviours to
some extent and are not mere slaves to our
subconscious

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When the subconscious mind is active
• A network in the brain known as the Default
Mode Network (DMN) is active
• DMN carries out our automatic subconscious
activities while the conscious mind is set free to
attend to other tasks
• We, humans, have a limited attention span

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Conscious mind, the filterer
• Processes information from the environment
slowly and logically
• Information that doesn’t match with pre-existing
beliefs is rejected

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“Earth is flat” is rejected by your
conscious mind

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Subconscious mind, the recorder
• Records everything that happens to you without
critical analysis
• Responsible for fast, automatic responses
• Storehouse of all your life experiences,
memories, skills, etc.
• Contains behavioural programs inherited from
your ancestors by natural and sexual selection

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Human behaviour is the product of
complex interactions between
conscious and unconscious mental
processes.