Curious about the Subconscious: Does It Have Power and Control? How Much?

“Whatever you determine to be true in the subconscious becomes true for you.” – Richard Hatch, American actor

“The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.” - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist

I chose The Subconscious for this blog’s theme, because I finished reading the fun and thought provoking book I wrote about last week. The Ant and the Elephant – Leadership for the Self by Vince Poscente, reinforced what I have been told about the subconscious. In this well written parable (you know how much I love stories), the ant, Adir, represents our conscious mind and the elephant, Elgo, represents our subconscious. The third character and mentor is the wise owl, Brio.

As Poscente wrote in the Afterword, “Conventional wisdom says we control our own destinies. Yet, this wisdom stops at appreciating that the mind is more than just a conscious tool. … In this story, Adir the ant is a metaphor for your conscious mind. The elephant represents the subconscious. Until the ant can learn to lead and guide his subconscious, he will not be able to attain his goal. I have yet to meet a person who does not ad it to having at least a little disconnection between ‘his ant and his elephant.’”

So, how do we connect, lead and guide our subconscious? I found many quotations that suggest the power of repetition:

• “Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.” - Robert Collier, American publisher
• “Only one thing registers on the subconscious mind: repetitive application - practice. What you practice is what you manifest.” – Fay Weldon, English novelist
• “You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.” - W. Clement Stone, American businessman
• “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.” - Earl Nightingale, American entertainer
• “We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation.” - Jane Fonda, American actress
• “You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which ‘clicks.’" - Florence Scovel Shinn, American artist

A few thoughts with a bit of a different slant:

• “I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.” - Brian Aldiss, English writer
• “One of the unfortunate things about our education system is that we do not teach students how to avail themselves of their subconscious capabilities.” - Bill Lear, American inventor
• “The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.” - Konstantin Stanislavisky, Russian actor
• “Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.” - Ellen Goodman, American journalist
• “In Buddhism there are words you can say... as you say the words with rhythm the conscious tells the subconscious.” - Tina Turner, American musician
• “That is the strange thing; I don't know if you want to call it the subconscious, but things that I don't seem to notice are getting stored away.” - Ann Beattie, American writer

And, as I close for now, think on these:

“I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious.” - Andrew Wyeth, American artist

“As soon as I became old enough to make my dreams my reality, I became a firm believer that the subconscious and the world outside of our flesh and blood is essentially the truth.” - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian musician

How do you couple your dreams and goals with your subconscious? I would love to hear your comments.