Understanding the Subconscious

The human brain is like a mansion that started as a cottage. Successive generations have built their additions on top of the old structure. The new parts have all the wonderful new technology, but the plumbing and air conditioning, all of the basic running of the house, still go through the old cottage.

The subconscious is in an older part of the house. It isn't conscious because it has no consciousness, no ability to experience itself. It lives in the now and experiences inputs directly. The inputs can come from the senses or from memory. It doesn't care which. If the inputs from from the senses, it reacts. It can tie those inputs to previous similar inputs, which will release memories or behaviors, allowing the person to remember or act. If the input is something new, that information gets passed to the conscious mind for processing. If the input is from memory, the subconscious will relive the moment being remembered and may change it in light of experiences that have happened since, before storing it again for later retrieval.

That explains why memories can become "rose colored" with age. It also explains why going over and over the same event in your mind can make it scarier and more traumatic (post traumatic stress disorder). Learned behavior, i.e. processes that have been repeated enough that there is a more or less permanent record of them in an easily accessible place, also goes through the subconscious so that it can be acted upon without conscious thought. That is how driving goes from being a complex process involving hundreds of individual decisions into one "easy" (i.e. subconscious) process. The subconscious does not distinguish between "good" and "bad". It also does not distinguish between "real" and "imaginary". If a process has a result that fits your purposes and you do it enough to make it subconscious, the subconscious mind will continue it automatically, regardless of new information processed consciously. For example, your smoking process will continue once it is firmly embedded, despite new information about the health risks of smoking. Think about hunger for a second. Many people get hungry at 12:00 noon. Why is that? Do our bodies suddenly need sustenance at that time or is it possible that eating lunch at 12:00 has become a subconscious habit, so that the body is made ready for food in anticipation of the event?

Does this model of the subconscious resonate with you? Please add your thoughts / experiences.