The Unconscious Mind
Also known as the Autonomic Nervous System, the unconscious mind is not "unconscious". We are just not consciously aware of it. It is our body's consciousness, and controls breathing, heart rate, temperature regulation, etc. It also generates physical "feeling" in response to emotional messages from the subconscious mind, for example the feelings of joy, alarm etc. It also generates the sensory feelings associated with heat, cold, pain, pleasure and taste.
The unconscious mind controls the "smooth" muscle in our bodies, that is, the muscle that is not under conscious control. Our digestive tract is lined with smooth muscle which moves the contents of the gut along in peristaltic waves.
The autonomic nervous system responds to hypnosis. The hypnotist can "talk to" and get responses from it. The most dramatic example of this is when hypnosis is used during surgery instead of chemical anesthetic for major dental or medical procedures.
The unconscious mind can learn through Pavlovian conditioning. For example, many overweight people habitually eat while watching TV, not realizing that they have conditioned their unconscious to expect food when they do this. They will begin to produce saliva and their stomach will churn in expectation of food - the classic hunger response - even though the client may have eaten dinner only an hour previously.
The Subconsious Mind
The subconscious mind or permanent memory is a vast database of experience that we draw on to help us operate in the world. This part of the mind communicates with us through emotion and imagery. When we are feeling or visualizing our subconscious mind is communicating with us. The subconscious is “who we really are” – it’s where our personality resides. It starts out blank when we are born and gets filled up with all the experiences that we have during out lives. All out habits and beliefs about ourselves and the world are contained in it.
The subconscious is the repository of our habits and automatic behaviors and it really is a remarkable part of us. It is the part that allows us to drive, talk on our cell phones and eat fast food at the same time - a remarkably complex (and dangerous) set of activities, all wonderfully coordinated by the amazing subconscious mind. Once an activity is repeated a number of times it becomes a habit and is then performed by the subconscious, allowing the conscious mind to focus on more important tasks, like planning what to do for the holiday weekend.
Another amazing function of this part of the mind is "belief". All our beliefs are stored there, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. The things we were told as children are all in there; our values, our prejudices, including what we believe about ourselves. For instance, if we were told we were "no good" as children - it's in there, especially if it was communicated with emotion or repetition. On the other hand, if we were told we were great as kids, and given lots of love and support - it's in there.
The subconscious mind protects our beliefs, which is a great thing until you try to change one that is clearly not helping you in your life. For instance if you have a belief that you are not good in exam situations, or that all dogs are scary, or if you believe flying is very unsafe, then you may find it impossible to change that belief on an emotional level, even though you may consciously "know" it’s not true.
The Conscious Mind
The conscious mind it that part that thinks in “words”. Whenever you are thinking in words, it’s the conscious mind that is operating. This part of the mind lives in the present. It can turn its focus to the past and the future, but it operates in the present. The conscious mind is logical and rational, and although it is a powerful part of us, it cannot hold much information. To demonstrate this, try to hold an unfamiliar phone number in your head for 30 seconds.
The conscious mind protects us from perceived dangers, as opposed to the subconscious mind which protects us from known dangers. This is an important distinction. The subconscious mind continually analyzes situations and compares them to past events. If you have a subconscious fear of dogs and you see an unfamiliar dog, your fight or flight response will instantly kick in. The conscious mind can logically analyze the situation and decide if the dog is dangerous or not. It can override the subconscious mind, but not always successfully.
The Critical Factor
This is a part of the mind that makes it difficult to make changes in our habits and beliefs. Hypnotists call it the Critical Factor. It is basically a gatekeeper between the conscious and subconscious minds. It analyses incoming data from the conscious mind and decides if it will let it make changes in the subconscious. The criteria it uses are simple; does the incoming data agree with what it already in the subconscious? For instance, imagine a little girl is spills a glass milk at dinner. Her parent gets angry and yells, “you are so stupid”!. A child at that age will usually take that suggestion to heart, and the suggestion “I am stupid” is internalized, becoming an unhelpful belief. Hypnotists call this an Initial Sensitizing Event. If this belief is reinforced by later similar events the child could end up with a learning difficulty, or have trouble in exam situations.
The problem with the critical factor is that it protects both helpful and unhelpful beliefs. Taking the example of the little girl above, it will allow the suggestion “you are kind of dumb” to reinforce the belief (even if it is a self-suggestion), but it will reject the suggestion “you are kind of smart”, because is not consistent with the internalized belief
How Hypnosis Works
The U.S. government defines hypnosis as, “the bypass of the critical factor and establishment of acceptable selective thinking”, which is another way of saying the establishment of focused attention. Hypnosis works because it allows us to bypass the critical factor, so we can have a direct and immediate effect on the subconscious mind. In the example used above the hypnotist can use direct suggestion to implant beliefs such as “I am smart”. The client, of course, is the one in control and he or she creates the suggestions with the help of the hypnotist.
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