Sigmund Freud, who popularised the idea of an unconscious mind, [1] developed a model of the mind. He used the analogy of an iceberg to describe the three levels of the mind known to him.
The tip of the iceberg embodies the conscious mind. All the mental processes of which we are aware, he thought of taking place in this part of the mind.
Just below the conscious, the preconscious mind, are thoughts and feelings that one is not currently aware of, but which can easily be brought into the conscious mind. As an analogy, think of this as the mental waiting room for elements of thought. Things one is currently not thinking of, but by will is able to bring into consciousness. [2]
The lowest level, the unconscious mind, consists of mental processes that are inaccessible to the conscious part(s). [2][3] They seem automatic, taking no effort, and are mostly beyond one’s control. [4] This part unconsciously and powerfully influences judgments, feelings, and behaviour. According to Freud, the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behaviour. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see. [2]
Some researchers, like Dr Joe Dispenza, state that a healthy human brain can process 400 billion bits of information per second. We are, according to Dispenza, only conscious of about 2,000 of those 400 billion bits of information. Consequently, the unconscious mind processes most of the information one intakes. It filters out the things it deems unnecessary and translates the information for the conscious mind to experience. [5]
In general, for the reasons mentioned above, behaviours that arise from the unconscious mind are very effective at influencing how one behaves. This fact makes subliminal messages very powerful. They are sensory stimuli below one’s threshold for conscious perception, [6] i.e., stimuli that enter into the lower level of conscious awareness by bypassing the conscious part of the mind where reason or logic resides. [5]
Subliminal messages are, for instance, used by advertising agencies to influence or direct one’s unconscious mind in a way that, eventually, will lead to the approval of a product. [5][7] This is mainly done by playing with emotional messages, however, it appears to also be possible with other subliminal messages, bypassing the conscious. Subliminal messages first entered popular awareness in 1957:
Researchers stated that they had flashed words (e.g., “eat popcorn”) for just 1/ 3,000 of a second every five seconds to more than 45,000 people during screenings of a movie. After a six-week period of this experiment, they then reported significant spikes in sales of the products, which names had been flashed (e.g., popcorn), during those screenings. [7]
Furthermore, even basic human abilities like vision are under influence of these subliminal aspects. If an individual with good vision looks at an object, that person will perceive it as appearing very clear. However, if one would look at the raw data that actually is hitting the retina, the visual data without unconscious processing, the image would be clearer towards the centre, but outward it would appear to be fuzzy and unclear.
The unconscious, beyond one’s awareness, processes raw data, and, in this instance, makes the image appear clear. When it processes raw data, it uses not only the data that is collected, but it actually uses other information (e.g., one’s expectations, desires, and beliefs) to form a conclusion that will then be translated for the conscious mind to experience. [4]
One might not be able to actively experience the unconscious mind, nonetheless, these processes are part of the fundamental roots of all our conscious experiences. [8]
1. David B. Feldman Ph.D., Does the Unconscious Really Exist?, Psychology Today, 2017 (02/10/2020)
2. Dr. Saul McLeod, Freud and the Unconscious Mind, Simply Psychology, 2015 (02/10/2020)
3. Unconscious mind, Wikipedia (23/09/2020)
4. Leonard Mlodinow, How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behaviour: Leonard Mlodinow at TEDxReset 2013, TEDx Talks, YouTube, 2013 (23/09/2020)
5. Larry & Oksana Ostrovsky, How Your Subconscious Mind Controls Your Behavior, Well.Org, 2019 (02/10/2020)
6. Subliminal stimuli, Wikipedia (02/10/2020)
7. Daniel Rennie, What Are Subliminal Messages And Do They Work?, All That’s Interesting, 2018 (02/10/2020)
8. Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. Dell Publishing a division of Random House, Inc.