THE POWER OF OUR MIND

When I have an idea or a problem, I think about it before I go to sleep. I fall sleep thinking about it and most of the time I wake up in the middle of the night, scribble my thoughts in my notebook and go back to sleep. Numerous times, by the time I awake in the morning the solution or the idea is complete in my head…

How do I manage to find the solution in my sleep?

It seems like my subconscious is doing all the work while I am sleeping.

There has to be an explanation.

Well, bare with me, it is a complicated explanation and I will try to explain it in the simplest possible way...

Subconscious is defined as the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware of but which influences one's actions and feelings.

Bruce Lipton explains that there are actually two minds in every person, the conscious and the subconscious. He explains that 5% of our mind is conscious and 95% is unconscious. Conscious is what controls the intent and desires. It can imagine the future, and remember the past while making you aware of it. Subconscious is the hard drive with your memories and the good and bad habits. It is invisible and you are not aware of it.

When you learn a new skill like riding a bike, driving a car, lighting a match you start off by doing it all on a conscious level. You are focused. Then, after several failures you eventually learn the skill where then it becomes an unconscious habit. The subconscious takes over and you can perform the task automatically without having to think about it.  Every habit you have is driven by your subconscious mind even with the ones that harm you.

What this means is that our subconscious mind is almost in control of every behavioral choice we make. Our lives are a reflection of our subconscious habits, good and poor habits.

The good news is that we all have the power and ability to change our habits by learning how to access and use the power of our subconscious mind.

Hindu philosophy, long before Christ, was aware of the subconscious or unconscious state of mind. This concept is being revived and talked about lately. Our subconscious mind is the unconscious part of ourselves that creates and controls our life. The essential is to bring our subconscious and conscious mind in collaboration for a better health and mental wellness.

So to take control of our lives, first we need to understand who we are and what we want to become. Understanding our habits and know that we can alter them. For that, our conscious mind has to be aware of what needs to be altered, and we have to make a conscious effort of wanting to adjust.

Now, there is another theory where it states that there is a relationship between the subconscious mind and your dreams and that you can train your dreams to change your subconscious.

What is the connection between the subconscious mind and dreams?

Our experiences get stored in our subconscious mind.

When we are asleep our conscious mind sleeps as well but our subconscious mind remains awake. At this point the connection between dreams and the subconscious mind starts to appear.

If we go to sleep thinking about problem or an idea our subconscious mind will show it to us in our dreams. 

Dreams have the ability to arrange the information we received in our subconscious mind.

Dreams can also result in a change in our emotions and affect our subconscious mind.

If we had a dream that had an impact on our emotions, it might affect our behavior when we wake up.  This is the result of our dreams affecting our subconscious mind.

To recap:

1. Our mind is made up of the conscious and subconscious parts
2. Conscious mind is in control of 5%. Subconscious is in control of 95%
3. Conscious mind is aware of the past, present and future
4. Subconscious mind is not aware and bears all of our habits
   
5. Conscious mind goes to sleep, Subconscious mind does not go to sleep
   
6. Dreams can affect our subconscious
   
7. Our habits can be changed if we make a conscience effort
   

Finally, I understood how I am able to solve problems at night during my sleep.

So how does one get started? 

To get started,  Danica Collins provides three actions to alter our mind.

• Repetition: by repeating a positive action again and again until it is habit, your subconscious mind will reach for it first.
  
• Visualization: picture the reality you want to live in full color; this can be done in your mind or with the benefit of a vision board.
  
• Emotion: go through each day with the mindset that you have already achieved your goals. 
  

In order to accomplish our goals we must constantly make a conscious effort to train our subconscious mind with new habits.  

In the article "Self Improvement" I explained that  for anything to become a habit, one must practice it consistently for 21 days. When we want to start a habit, we don’t try to do it for life. We focus and convince ourself to stick to it for 3 weeks. After we see the results, our subconscious will continue with it. 

So before falling sleep, I focus on finding a solution or changing a habit  and then my subconscious will work on it during my sleep.

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” – Thomas Edison 

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