RRROLL UP THE RIM TO WIN: THE CONSCIOUS CADGER

Rrroll Up The Rim

“The conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions” (American theologian, E. Stanley Jones, 1884-1973).

The conscious mind is the one that most people associate with who you are, the one most people present  in their day-to-day lives. The conscious mind is like your Zen, where you are at in the present moment. 

But by no means is this where ALL the observable action takes place.

It is generally agreed that we have three minds, the conscious mind, the

subconscious (or pre-conscious) mind, and the unconscious mind.

Fact: Our brains consume about 20% of the energy our bodies use.  But as far as actual brain space, the conscious takes up just 10%, the subconscious a majority 60% and the unconscious a significant 30%.

The conscious mind is our Captain, our logic and gloze-interface to the outer world.  Our conscious mind takes in EVERYTHING, while filtering what is only necessary for manipulating the moment.  However, it is our crew, our subconscious, based upon a lifetime of training and experience, that scrubs the deck and guides the ship.  Our subconscious is our fountainhead of memory upon memory, filled with faces, phone numbers, and gimcrack facts and facts and facts.

The subconscious, just below the conscious mind, is our memory recall.  The subconscious stores our accessible information, anything we can recall with ease. In

Psychology the subconscious refers to that part of the consciousness of which we are unaware, information that is not in our active awareness.  The subconscious only refers to information not consciously processed.  Such information can include the things we hear, the things we see, and the things we seem too insignificant to remember.

The unconscious mind is the storehouse of ALL our memories, which includes all our primitive instinctual wishes, all things we are not likely to readily access.  The unconscious is where we’ve stored our sometime-you-just-know kind of intelligence.  I’m not referring to those faces and phone numbers and gimcrack facts mentioned a couple paragraphs previous.  From either a repetition of past experiences (faces, phone numbers, and facts) or from our archetypical collective unconscious also comes for example (pun intended), the knowing of how to dance and how to make love.  

(For the record and for the procreation of the human species, I’ve a couple definitions:  

 Dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire; Love-making is the horizontal expression of vertical desire.)

During our lifetime, from birth until right now, we have acquired and will continue to acquire countless experiences and countless memories.  Most of this we cannot begin to remember and some of this we’ve repressed due to trauma; yet all of these acquisitions determine who we are, what we believe, and how we behave.

Some psychologists suggest that our conscious and subconscious, and unconscious communicate with one another in the forms of emotion and imagination and dream.  (On a side note for Freudians, the unconscious mind contains our biologically based instincts, the infra dig duality in our nature, our primitive urges for sex and aggression, Eros and Thanatos.  Eros represents our drive for attraction and reproduction; whereas, Thanatos represents our drives for repulsion and death.)

While we are fully aware what is going on in the conscious mind, we’ve really no idea how much knowledge, how much we’ve repressed in our unconscious mind.  The unconscious (mind), as coined by Freud, refers to that part of the mind that cannot be known by the conscious mind, all things sublimated, especially and including our socially unacceptable ideas, our reprehensible wishes and desires, and of course including memories that have traumatized us and given us the greatest of mental anguish and pain.

And this is where HYPNOTHERAPY comes into the picture.

People, generally, seek hypnotherapy to help them change some present and undesirable behavior.  People seek hypnotherapy to help change the patterns in their lives; eating less and quitting smoking being two such examples.

Some people believe that the unconscious mind can be accessed through hypnosis, setting the conscious mind to rest, allowing the brain to access repressed thoughts.  Some people believe that hypnotherapy can be used to access and recreate the moments and pictures in the album of one’s life, and therefore influence present patterns, and therefore changing any future undesirable behaviors.

Hmmm … I like HYPNOTHERAPY … but I’m not sure of the distinctions between conscious and unconscious.  Methinks Carl Jung’s COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS and ARCHETYPES make more sense, especially for the sake of humanity and hypnotherapy. 

And thus the reason for my blog title this week, RRROLL UP THE RIM TO WIN: THE UNCONSCIOUS CADGER.

This morning after my workout at the university followed by a long slow run around Wascana Lake, as is my habit, I stopped by TIM HORTONS for my familiar Steeped Tea with two creams and one sugar.  When it was finally my time to be served (I’d stood in quite a long line for considerable minutes) I realized I did not have my wallet.  Exiting immediately, I was stopped by a cadger standing outside TIMMY’S (which we affectionately refer to TIM HORTONS in Canada), who said, Hey mister, I’ll buy you a coffee.  I just found the cup in the garbage and I rrrolled up the rim to win.  And I’d like to give it to you!  (Atop this blog is a picture of the real rrroll up.)

Those marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

My Friend, ADAM, and his son, JACK CONSCIOUSLY CHANNELING SIMON and GARFUNKEL

My Complicate Friend, ROBIN, CONSCIOUSLY AND POSITIVELY CHANGING HER PERSONA