I recently watched a DVD from Paul Scheele entitled “Genius Mind”. The DVD is a film of a talk he gave, presumably to his photoreading students. It covers similar ground to some of his “Natural Brilliance” book, and is centred around explaining the amazing capacity of the human mind to do, well, some really clever stuff.
It turns out that the mind is a complicated thing. No brainer for some, but to paraphrase the great Douglas Adams, the mind is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to the mind. And for all but the thickest of the thick, it’s a mechanism so complicated that it makes setting the video recorder seem like, well, blinking.
And the funny thing is, we all, have the same brain, the same mechanism for clever thought as Enstein, Newton, Bergkamp, name a genius and your brain is roughly the same as theirs. In essence we all have the same Porsche brain. It’s just that some of us don’t realise that this sexy sportscar of a processor has more than one gear.
It has thousands of gears, and no-one knows what it’s top speed is, because no-one has taken it to it’s limits yet. And we aren’t talking about ESP, second sight or all of that business, no-one has come close to making the most out of their noggin. Even the real geniuses in history are sipping at the wellspring of their possibilities.
Now I could harp on about a load of stuff that I barely understand having only watched this DVD once, but there are some very interesting points that I will think about at length.
1. Multiple intelligences.
Based on a theory by Howard Gardner, it is believed that we have 7 intelligences (or more) that all react differently to information. They are:
- Verbal-linguistic
- Logical-mathematical
- Naturalist
- Visual-spatial
- Body-kinesthetic
- Auditory-musical
- Interpersonal communication
- Intrapersonal communication
These intelligences are the channels by which we receive information. Schools are designed to appeal to logical and linguistic intelligences, which leaves people weak in these areas to struggle to take in scholarly-presented information. However, knowing this means that you can seek to acquire information by other channels, or work to develop yourself in your weak areas.
2. The unconscious isn’t unconscious!
Ever had a “hunch” about something, or found yourself making a snap judgement on someone which turned out to be right? Well there is a good chance that your “other than conscious” was telling you something. You see the “other than conscious” (or OTC for short) is a damn sight cleverer than you, the conscious mind that you are reading this with. If you are skeptical just remember that your OTC is managing your body temperature, breathing, digestive system whilst simultaneously processing everything that you see, hear, smell, feel, touch and taste, whilst deciding which information to make available to your conscious mind at any time. Your big right toe has been there all the time that you have been reading this, but you’ve only now become aware of it because your OTC is passing the data to you now I’ve mentioned it. The OTC deals with thousands of pieces of information every second, and processes it in to smaller chunks that you can deal with to keep yourself safe.
So if the OTC can do all of this and yet you can’t remember more than 7 or so things at a time, you can imagine that listening to your unconscious every once in a while could be useful. After all we would all like a really smart invisible person who knows everything we know and more, sitting invisibly on our shoulder, helping us decide the best action in any given situation, wouldn’t we? Well it turns out that we actually have one. We just didn’t know it! Our OTC is talking to us all of the time, giving us information, feelings, pointing out things, we just don’t listen to most of it because we are too busy thinking about other stuff. So I am intrigued to find out what stuff our OTC can tell us if we really listen.
This aspect fascinates me. I am determined to explore this area and understand what I need to do to hear my OTC more often. As part of the photoreading course I am practicing with listening to my OTC, but there is no clear “voice”. Sometimes words pop in to my head, sometimes it is an emotion or a “feeling”. The key point to hearing it all is accepting that it is there, and letting go of things consciously, and going with the flow. It also helps to think of the OTC as someone that you want to become friends with, so be nice to him or her.
So how do you communicate with your unconscious? Firstly you are doing it all of the time - every time you access long-term memory, you react to something new in your field of vision, a sound or smell, that’s your OTC talking to you. However if you would like to get a little more one to one, find somewhere quiet and relaxing. Take a deep breath and sigh. Imagine yourself somewhere really relaxing and allow yourself to sink in to that place for a few minutes, until you feel comfortable and relaxed.
Then say hello, perhaps you want to visualise a person and wave, perhaps you speak and listen, whatever is comfortable for you. It is likely that your OTC has many of your personality traits, so treating him \ her the way you like to be treated may well yield results. After a while of getting comfortable with this, you could perhaps ask to recall some distant memories - colours, smells or sounds from your past, and see what happens. Be very simple and clear with your language, as the OTC is very literal with words, and relax in the knowledge that the answer will come to you. Maybe not immediately, and perhaps not in the form you expect, especially if you have been a little unspecific with your questions, but the answers will come. Most of all, have fun with it, because the least that you can expect is a few minutes’ down time, from which you will emerge feeling great. Over time, as you develop a relationship, you can expect to receive information quicker and more accurately, which, as you can imagine, could have a dramatic impact on your memory, as well as being able to trust your instincts better.
So give it a go and let me know what you think of it. I’m working with this whenever I can to help improve my photoreading skills, however it is just as interesting to do this just to help you relax.
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Finally, I took this from “Training Trances” by Overdorf and Silverthorn (p66):
The conscious mind is only aware of 7 + or 2 bits of information at a time.
The unconscious mind is aware of everything else.
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The conscious mind is sequential. It likes logical order.
The unconscious mind processes simultaneously. It multitasks.
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The conscious mind is logical. It likes things to make sense to have a reason.
The unconscious mind is intuitive and can make associations of information easily.
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The conscious mind is linear thinking. It thinks in terms of cause-effect.
The unconscious mind makes associations and connections between many thoughts, ideas and feelings.
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The conscious mind seeks answers to why
The unconscious mind knows why.
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The conscious mind does your intellectual thinking. Is responsible for your self-talk.
Your unconscious mind does your perceiving and feeling.
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Your conscious mind is associated with the waking, thinking state.
The unconscious mind is associated with the dreaming (including day dreaming), reflecting, meditating and sleeping state.
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The conscious can voluntarily move parts of your body.
The unconscious can involuntarily move parts of your body.
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Your conscious mind is only aware of the now.
Your unconscious mind is unlimited in time and space. It holds all your memories and future constructs.
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The conscious mind seeks understanding of problems and reasons that if it understands them, it can make them go away.
Your unconscious mind decides what it will do about it. It can forget (amnesia), distort (make false associations) or break connections (get over it).
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The conscious mind is deliberate.
The unconscious mind is automatic.
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The conscious mind is verbal (including self-talk).
The unconscious mind is nonverbal (feeling).
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The conscious mind is analytical.
The unconscious mind is literal.
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The conscious mind is the place of cognitive learnings and understandings.
The unconscious mind is the place of experiential learnings.
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Your conscious mind uses the intellect to come up with logical solutions for problems.
Your unconscious mind can access internal resources from memories of experiences, linking them all together - creating a resourceful state.
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Your conscious mind will tell you when your right because the facts line up.
Your unconscious mind will tell you when you are right because it will feel right.
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Your conscious mind has limited focus.
Your unconscious mind has unlimited focus.
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