*snickers*

Oh, the visuals here...

/immature hijack


Nancy

i just wish humans were like the mammals we are,mate and then go on without any strings attached or feelings hurt, but yet we can some just refuse to and wait for time to fix things.

Well, like Jess Lee suggested, practice is the key.

It's just like anything else. If you want to learn to play an instrument you need to practice. If you want to get good at a sport or craft, you need to practice.

If you want to gain control over you mind you need to practice.

A good way to start is to learn to meditate. This quiets the mind and makes it easier to control it.

At one point in my life I was pretty deep into meditation. For about 3 years I lived very close to nature and meditated a lot. I was into gardening, nature photography. I had horses, I kept bees, I even used to make my own bread twice a week.

I never listed to the radio or television. Once in while I would listen to non-vocal mood music (often times oriental music).

I did think though. I studied math and physics. I just love intellectual thought and logic. I would never give those things up.

Anyway, getting to my point,...

At the end of those 3 years I things changed and I had no choice but to get back into the 'rat race'.

When I went back to work in the real world everyone appeared to be on 'fast-forward'. They sounded like a 33 rpm record played at 78 rpm. (that may not mean much to you in this day and age I guess. )

It took me a while to get 'wound-up' again. Human societies truly are a rat race, there's no question about it. It's hard to calm your mind when living within one. Especially if you watch TV and listen to radio all the time. Those things are just driving your mind into overtime.

Kewl, thx.

Just like anything... with a little practise it become a part of you, with no thought, or wrestling with oneself to get back to that place.

Being Nothing... is really being part of everything.

History shows humankind's hunger for reconnecting to an essence, a hint, a memory of something....I suspect it is remembering BEFORE this coming back into human form.
Humankind's historical grapple with creating what they think it may be... and all the fractured differences (religion), of what we have in common...

Yes Splendid, I feel all of those avenues, religion, philosophy, psychology, etc...are humankind's way of getting back to what they left behind, to be a human experience.

Why does the subconscious mind have to be separated from the conscious mind, the psyche, the ego, all of it?

That sense of peace, of coming Home, is all encompassing... it is the Who of us... all the separating is trying to define the What of us..

That sense of peace requires nothing.

Nothing.

Perhaps people could try it sometime, it is quite peaceful....Being Nothing.

Well, I certainly would never argue with semantics.

I think everyone is entitled to use words to mean whatever they want. I would also agree with you that many pscyhologists probably do use this definition for the 'subconscous'. It's a valid concept, and the word fits this concept quite well.

This is why I'm kind of amazed that the term 'supraconscious' never became popular. A word that could mean something different from the technical psychological view of the subconcious.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is the fundamental idea of whether we are just our brains (all of consciousness stems solely from our physical brains), or whether we are indeed linked to some 'higher' spiritual or collective consciouness.

When I meditate and watch the river of thoughts flow by I wonder there they all come from. They aren't 'mine'. I don't feel like I'm generating them. All I can do is reach into the river and pluck one out to ponder.

But where do they come from? And where do they go?

If I don't grab onto them they just flow away. In fact that vast majority of them do flow away. There are far too many thoughts to possibly focus on them all. They are endless! I must pick and choose.

And like Jeanniebean often suggests, whatever thoughts we grab onto similar thoughts are sure to follow. It is true that like thoughts attract like thoughts.

This is even evident between people. People who think alike are much more apt to be attracted to each other than people who think totally differently. (unless sex is involved, then all thinking goes in the trash can )

As I was reading this thread I was beginning to wonder why we call it the 'sub'conscious? Why aren't we calling it the 'supra'conscious?

Then when I got to Plainome's post I began to realize that there maybe many different kinds of 'subconscious'.

See seems to be eluding to the 'subconscious' as parts of our regular brain that we simply ignore most of the time, but that we can access if we choose to do so. She then goes on to suggest that most people simply never examine these 'issues'.

This seems to suggest that are 'subconscious' is simply anything we refuse to think about or face.

I'm not sure if I would agree with that concept. I don't think of the things that we simply don't address as being our 'subconscious'. I think what she describes is just parts of our conscious mind that we simply refuse to think about or face.

Does not thinking about something make it become 'subconscious'.

I suppose in a specific technical way that definition could be valid. If you're not currently concious (or aware) of something that you actually have the ability to know or address, then does that information reside in your 'subconscious' mind?

Like I say, from a purely technical point of view I suppose that definition makes sense and would certainly be useful jargon for psychologists.

However, for me, this view of the 'subconscious' isn't what I would consider to be the 'subconscious'. For me, this would just be a part of our concious mind. Just because we aren't currently focusing on something doesn't necessarily push it into our 'subconcious' does it?

When we are at work on our job we probably focus on things that we don't even think about at all in normal casual social situations. We can never be fully conscious of everything we know at any one point in time. Our brains simply aren't geared to be used that way. We just can't access all our thoughts at once.

When I was younger I used to be able to think quite deeply on logical matters. By that I mean that I could follow many different trains of logic simultaneously. I have always been amazed at the ability of the brain to be able to do that.

However, my brain isn't as sharp as it used to be. I've definitely noticed a decline in my ability to keep track of many different lines of logical simultaneously. This shows up most when thinking about mathematics and physics problems. I just can't keep as many simultaneous trains of logic going at one time anymore. I now need to reduce my focus to as few as two or three ideas at a time. When before I could keep track of maybe 20 or more different simultaneous logical pathways. I've found this to be so crippling that it's no longer fun to delve into the complex mathematics of things like quantum physics. I've burnt out some of the CPUs in my brain evidently.

Moving on,...

I often wonder why they never coined the term 'supraconscious'. I think what many people mean when they refer to a 'subconscious' is not the idea of parts of our ordinary brain that we don't normally access, but rather they think of it more in a mystical sense of a higher-self. More like our 'true spiritual mind'.

So I guess the very term 'subconscious' can mean different things to different people.

I agree with this actually, just look at our world now. The more we take religion, take God out of society, the worse we become as people. There's nothing to uphold, no standard for how to be.

Many... not all... but many many people act accordingly to their religions. They do what they think is right by their God. Now... this doesn't mean all atheists are running around causing chaos. I'm just saying generally speaking, with no "punishment for your crimes" such as "hell" then people would do whatever they wanted. That would lead to chaos.