Sunday, July 31, 2011

Hypnosis

A well known experiment, which many physicians have taken part in, if they studied medical hypnosis, is carried out this way: A person is hypnotized and told that when he wakes up he will close the window that stands ajar. He is also told that he will not remember this suggestion at all.

Then, when he has awoken, he will after some time rise from his seat and go to the open window and close it. The other participants in the class then ask him why he closed the window and he will come up with a sensible answer, for example that it is too cold in here. Then they ask him again if he is sure that this is the reason he closed the window and he will answer yes. They can keep on asking him till they are blue in their faces, but they will still get the same answer. He closed the window because it was too cold.

This is proof that unconscious ideas can influence our conscious actions. This is also proof that the conscious mind can come up with sensible explanations which are completely wrong.

The conscious part of our mind is just the tip of an iceberg, said Freud. He was, what I understand, wrong about what is going on down there. Jung had other theories and so had Viktor Frankel. Maybe only God knows what is going on in the underworld.

Anyway, how do you know that your actions are initiated by you, and not by someone else? What if your actions are determined by unconscious childhood conditioning without you being aware of it? What if your actions are initiated by some weird religious programming?

2 comments:

:Doreen said...

there are no conscious actions, only being aware of awareness, itself... awakening is becoming conscious of the fact that your functioning happens, automatically... always has, and always will... only now, you, through awareness can BE aware of that!!...Life, indeed, *lives* us!
Unconsciousness is just believing that you are the driver of your life experiencing...easier to let Life, unfold, through You...

? said...

I think there are conscious and unconscious actions.