"the weakness, it spreads. So many, so useless. Unable to even confront their own mind. It controls them, manipulates them, and yet they do not even realize they are under its control." -me First, before you respond, take just one moment and try and stop all of the thoughts that come into your consciousness. You might just realize two things: one, you cannot stop the income of thought, and two, it is not you consciously creating this thought. But rather something else. Your mind. Did you ever wonder why you end up thinking about things you don't want to think about? Have you ever not been able to stop thinking about something? this is what i am talking about. The mind is the bridge which connects your physical body to whatever 'you' are. It is the relay in which the raw sensual information from the body is interpreted and thought originates. However, as valuable as the mind is, it is subsequently your greatest enemy. Your mind goes rampant, thinking about things you don't want it to and filling your consciousness with so much useless drama and mental noise that you are rendered useless and you live your life always stressed out about something and thinking about it constantly. Unfortunately, as humanity progresses in its current direction, more and more distractions are created, such as TV, computers, etc. These distractions actually make it less likely for you to realize that, in fact, it is not you that is controlling your mind, but your rampant mind which controls your life. Additionally, the vast majority of the population lacks the mental fortitude to conquer it and bring it under their control. This may be primarily because most people think their mind is THEM. but it is not. even though it may seem like it is you and therefore you should not fight it, it is not you. i post all this in a most likely futile attempt to maybe help one or two people to realize that they dont have to live in this stressful abomination of a life. If you can conquer your own mind, than you can conquer anything. Just please, for your own sake, just give it a try. Just try and control your thoughts. Try to restrict and direct them. I promise, with enough practice, you can stop all of the useless mental noise and live a better, more efficient life. Thank you for reading. Discuss if you so desire.
Is this a joke? You do realize that in order to dislike something, a conscious thought of dislike is going to be there. Your basically saying think about not thinking, which makes no sense. You say your mind controls your life. What is life? A categorization of a sub group of atoms and molecules that have characteristics that we have determined "life". Without thinking there would be no life.
nope. notice how you can intentionally think about something, like for instance, an apple. But yet, if you just sit there, other thoughts pop into your head without your conscious effort to do so. therefore these thoughts are not under your control. And no, you don't think about not thinking, because thats thinking. You just dont think. You may think i sound ridiculous, but why not give it a try? Dont overcomplicate this. I didnt start this thread to define life.
FYI keep an eye out for the life talkers... theories and others will come in. I for one, have NEVER managed to successfully shut my noise off. I tired for 3 hours once. I then killed the main switch breaker and hid in my closet to block everything out, still couldn't do it. I think I need a SD Tank.
As a process of natural selection, I think one of the adaptations we have is that we are constantly taking in our surroundings and analyzing them. Your suggesting we can turn it off, I personally don't think it's possible without removing the sensory factor by being in a sensory deprivation chamber like was suggested.
Nope. its not about removing any senses or thought, but what you have to do is just block it all out for a moment. Its a great ability to have, especially when your mind is freaking out and panicking or in some similar situation. Not hypnotrance, that involves something else. You dont shut it off. Just sit there and every thought that comes into your head, every sense that feels or hears something, just ignore it. reject it. prevent it from being anywhere near the forefront of your consciousness. the thoughts will never stop. i was wrong when i said that. but you can ignore them.
I think your talking about step 8 here. How to Meditate - wikiHow I have meditated before, it's really nice and wakes you up if you do it in the morning. I'm going to meditate all this week and see if I can make it a habit.
yup. thats what i mean. But its not like you have to spend any significant amount of time on it. Its just a nice ability to clear your mind when you are freaking out or keep thinking about something bad. Really helpful. But yeah, by all means, try it. Let me know how it works out for you.
Meditation has power, no doubt. It's one of those things I should definitely try to spend more time doing. Interesting topic, Hari, and good on you for probing one of the last great frontiers. As always, I'd like to see what research has to say, questions like these have been addressed before. I think your terminology could use a bit of refining. Instead of distinguishing between 'you' and 'your mind', think in terms of 'concious mind' and 'subconcious mind'. Another way the concept is commonly distinguished is between the 'rational' (concious) and the 'emotional' (subconcious). Over the years of being a rather solitary individual, I have become accutely aware that there are "two of us in here", so to speak. My subconcious feels like another person to me at times, but I don't think of it as something to be conquered, but understood. Learning to understand this side of your mind can be a great experience.
Ah yes indeed. We explore the external world so much but yet know ourselves so little. Research as a matter of fact is in progress. My dad is an Assistant Professor at Harvard and he's studying the effects of yoga and meditation on performance anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other such things. So far, the results look good, but nothing totally conclusive. I definitely agree that the terminology you suggest is more accurate and easy to understand. I'll make sure to use it next time i post something like this. Only after the possibility of there being two seperate 'entities' occupying my being was presented to me did i really begin to notice alot. And no, i agree. You are stuck with your mind for the remainder of your life, so as renegade as it is, don't mistreat it. But rather treat it like your constant companion. Tell it to shut up when it starts rambling on about unnecessary things, and make good use of it when it processes information and uses logic etc.
This is absolutely correct, and truly overlooked. I find myself carrying two opposite dispositions around with me at all times. I like to call them "passive" and "active" personalities. Passive living is just going through the motions of everyday existence, while active living requires effort, care, and motivation. At times passive living can be depressing. I know, the first three years of high school were like this for me, and I felt unproductive, not to mention miserable. The drone-like aura one has while living this kind of life sickens me. That's why I've been trying painstakingly to take control of my motions for the past two years. From the beginning of senior year in high school, to now, my first year of college. I have experienced the benefits of denying this meaningless tread, so the idea of relapsing back to that habit, like most have, seems absurd. It's really an excellent feeling to watch the people around you replicating each other's acts and words, and know that you aren't a part of it. My advice is to be alert, rational, and mean what you say. Don't be a follower. Mock the superficial airheads that attempt to lure you into their little playground. Do not rely on your "anti-concious" decisions or thoughts. Avoid the they, and be an individual for fxxx sake. Not a monkey in a cage.
Ah i was worried i was one of the very few. Its great to know other people have discovered this and aren't living the life of repetitive suffering that most of society lives today. Your 'subconscious mind' is a distraction from everything important in life. It relishes routine and vies to protect it by trying to win you over when you don't even realize it is. It also controls all emotion and so also fear, to protect the body. If you can conquer this fear and not succumb to the convincing arguments of your own subconscious mind, then i believe that you are capable of just about anything you want to do.
I don't know, but it seems like you are thinking of the concept in unnecessarily negative terms. I really think that if you "get to know" this side of your mind, you will find it to be just as relevant and integral as your conscious mind, rather than just a dragging distraction. I have no idea how to tell you to go about doing that right now, but it's worth looking into. You can always search the right things.
Freud You would probably enjoy reading some of Sigmund Freud's work on defining the various levels of conscious self. The part you are talking about keeping at bay and holding control over is defined by Freud as the ID. ID: The Id comprises the unorganised part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. The id acts as according to the 'pleasure principle', seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension. The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, water, sex, and basic impulses. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure–pain principle; it is without a sense of time, completely illogical, primarily sexual, infantile in its emotional development, and will not take "no" for an answer. It is regarded as the reservoir of the libido or "instinctive drive to create". "It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organisation, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle." - Sigmund Freud The other two levels are the Ego and Super Ego. The Ego being reality driven, while the super ego is striving for perfection. These three battling forces are what shapes our actions and what is responsible for the seeming arguments and involuntary thoughts happening in our own minds.
Well yes. The subconscious mind certainly has its purposes. I'm not talking about like totally killing/shutting it up. I'm just talking about having the ability to shut it up temporarily when it does become a nuisance. He certainly sounds like he was onto something, although i dont totally agree with some or maybe even most of what he said there. The conscious self is what you are and what you want to control your actions. The rest of the stuff isnt really part of your conscious mind, but it all has its uses. Its simply that you don't want those other parts of your mind to be in control as it is so for most people. They are trapped in their own mind, subject to any thoughts brought up by the subconscious, nomatter how disturbing or painful. An extreme example of this is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I am proud and content not being a prisoner of my own mind and i hope the various readers of this thread may be helped towards this same goal themselves.
Everything that I think about I'm thinking about for a reason. It doesn't randomly enter into my head. And its not that hard to block multiple things out at once to focus on one thing. So i'm a bit confused.
I think Hari's description of the process of thoughts and impulses involuntarily coming into someones mind may be a little bit exaggerated to make his point, but surely you've experienced random thoughts popping up that you didn't intentionally try and think of. It's not Skitzophrenia were talking about it's more like the way your eyelids go about blinking. It is both voluntary and involuntary at once. If you want to blink your eyelids, go ahead, and I'll bet you could even control precisely the timing and number of blinks, but when you are not thinking about them, they go about their blinking when ever they please. Thoughts are very similar. When we sleep and are no longer physically able to "purposefully blink" with our thoughts, but they are able to continue with out "us". The subconscious owns the night.
I've been told that Freud has been proven to be completely wrong about everything he ever came up with. I haven't studied psychiatry, so I'm just repeating what I've heard from one of my professors. Oh wow that makes me think of an old conversation I had about dreams at another forum. I'll have to dig up what was said, if I can. I love the topic of dreaming.
You know, sometimes i really have trouble telling whether its me or my subconscious thats actually thinking. Its times like those that i know that i really need to 'meditate' so i can get a handle on what exactly is going on in my head.