Our unconscious mind

Anon La Ply

Diamond Member
*** D&M WARNING*** No responsibility will be taken for exploded brains (although dry cleaning bills may be considered)

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As we all know, at least at some level, our practice is basically the conscious mind training the unconscious mind and body to play. Hal Galper basically says as much here and elsewhere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8

Often we've talked about getting our heads out of the way when playing so we can express freely and flow with the music. That's what Zen practice is all about, along with other mental practices around.

Drumdevil9 recommended a Sam Harris video in the destiny/free will thread and while Googling some ideas SH talks about I came across this:
Dr Lipton explains that there are two separate minds that create what he calls the body’s controlling voice. There is a conscious mind that can think freely and create new ideas ‘out of the box’. Then there is the subconscious mind, which is basically a super computer loaded with a database of programmed behaviors, most of which we acquired before we reached the age of six.

The subconscious mind cannot move outside its fixed programs – it automatically reacts to situations with its previously stored behavior responses. AND (here’s the rub), it works without the knowledge or control of the conscious mind. This is why we are generally unaware of our behavior, in fact most of the time we are not even aware that we are acting unconsciously.

Studies from as far back as the seventies show that our brains begin to prepare for action just over a third of a second before we consciously decide to act. In other words, even when we ‘think’ we are conscious, it is our unconscious mind which is actually making our decisions for us.

And it seems the unconscious mind is running us on its automatic pilot mode, 95% of the time!

Neuroscientists have shown that the conscious mind provides 5% or less of our cognitive (conscious) activity during the day – and 5% they say is for the more aware people, many people operate at just 1% consciousness. Dr Lipton also says that the unconscious mind operates at 40 million bits of data per second, whereas the conscious mind processes at only 40 bits per second. So the unconscious mind is MUCH more powerful than the conscious mind, and it is the unconscious mind which shapes how we live our life.

The scientists show that most of our decisions, actions, emotions and behavior depend on the 95% of brain activity that is beyond our conscious awareness, which means that 95 – 99% of our life comes from the programming in our subconscious mind.
http://www.lifetrainings.com/Your-unconscious-mind-is-running-you-life.html (I felt the article writer jumped to some unsubstantiated conclusions at times but it's a fascinating article).

The notion of "being in the moment" when we play is about relaxing the conscious mind to allow the unconscious mind make its observations at 40 million bits per second, as opposed to the conscious mind's 40 bits per second.

I've only recently started exploring what goes on here. If you want to muck in with observations, bring it on!

:)
 
Not disputing the power of the unconscious (subconscious?) mind, but I'm wary of descriptions of brain power in bits per second, for the simple reason that our brains are analog, not digital, so bits are meaningless measures.

But, after all that, this morning I went for a MTB ride (Manly Dam for any Sydneysiders who happen to read this). The whole endeavour - from the simple act of balancing a bicycle - relies on the subconscious to make it work. This frees up the conscious mind to ponder life's mysteries. Or in my case, alternate between "Holy carp, that uphill was hard...I think I'm gonna puke!" to "Ooooohhh....that drop off...I think I'm gonna die!"
 
Someone shoot me! I feel like I just went back 25+ years ago to my college psychology classes. I hope we don't have a homework assignment due in the morning! I will say this...I believe all human behavior comes from our early childhood when our brains "soak" in surrounding behaviors. Basically people exemplify how they were raised and what they were raised around. That is all courtesy of the subconcious mind. As a police officer I see it daily. I've dealt with a lot of very bad people and I have watched their children grow up to be very bad people. As they say...the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree.
 
Fascinating stuff!

I liken this sort of thinking to what athletes call 'the zone'. When I used to snow ski about 100+ days a year once in a blue moon I would have what I call 'the perfect run'. My conscious mind would recede as it were and the body, (it seemed), just took over and I was completely flowing. Euphoric really...and very difficult to reproduce. My conscious mind would want to replicate 'the run' and I guess that's where it got in the way. I would perform well, but not like that 'perfect run'.

I've also had similar experiences with drumming, but felt more like an out of body experience. Kind of like I was observing myself play, and play perfectly. Again very rare, but euphoric.

I reckon that folks like Eckhart Tolle and the Zen masters et. al. had it right and that if we train ourselves to stop, or at least decrease, our incessant inner chatter (talking to ourselves) we can more freely access our subconscious mind. The path to Nirvana is, apparently, available to all.
 
So, if the subconscious mind controls that much of our activity, is the last 5% free will?

I do understand being in "the Zone" as far as drumming is concerned. It usually happens after the second hour of drumming where I'm all warmed up and all the bugs have been worked out of the system (the mind). There are moments of clarity where the mind does not get in the way and I can do impressive things I've never thought of until I was there at that point and in the moment. Then at the end of the night driving home, I wonder if I can get there again. How can I do that stuff consistently and bring that kind of drumming out of myself on a regular basis? So I am driven to tap into that excellence in my playing more often because the more times I do that, the more it becomes habit. Preparation plays a big part in it too. When I actually do sit down and wood shed on the fundamentals, it opens doors for me when I am finally in that moment or zone.
 
Great stuff Grea. It is incredible to think on where our behavior truly comes from.

On a related note, we can't even trust our senses to be giving us accurate feedback as to what is occurring in the physical world anymore. It turns out that our brain edits out most of the sensory input we receive and presents us with what evolution has decided is only the most relevant data.

Check out this video and get ready to have your foundation shaken:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0
 
Definitely something to "the zone" or a zen like state. I'm sure everyone at one point in time has been daydreaming while driving, and the next thing they know is they are miles from where they were when they last remember, have gone through a stop sign and made a few turns, but have no recollection of how they did it. Yet it was all done correctly and with other cars on the road.

When I was a kid I used to play Tetris on my Nintendo everyday for sometimes hours at a time. There were moments, more often than not, when I didn't think at all, just stared at the screen and let my hands do what they wanted. When this happened, I could continue to put blocks where they needed to go, regardless of how fast they were falling, and I was aware that this was happening. I couldn't make it happen, and when I tried to think about block placement, I never did as well as when my body just did it.
 
This is fascinating stuff! As it relates to Larry's thread, I don't think the fact that 95% of brain activity is unconscious necessarily negates free will. Influences our actions? Almost certainly.

I've tried to think of a simple analogy to explain my take on it, and the closest I can come to is an automobile.

When I drive my car, I am probably unaware of 99% of the activities taking place in the auto itself. Yet I can still choose where to drive and how fast, within certain parameters. Some of those parameters are external to both myself and the car, some are inherent in the design of the car itself. Things I do influence the performance of the car, and the cars performance influences my own decisions.

Yet, at the core of it, *I* drive the car.

OK, that's all I've got for now! lol What a wild discussion on a drumming forum!

(Oh, yeah, I definitely believe in the zone, too.)
 
Around 4m55s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8#t=4m55s, Hal Galper talks about how the unconscious mind - or as he calls it, "the intuitive level" - is so much faster than our conscious mind.

Thing is, I always hear that when playing music (or anything) the conscious mind needs to be suppressed in order to get into the zone. Yet the conscious mind is an attribute that's given humans dominance over the earth and is obviously incredibly useful. Just not when you are trying to perform at your best. The best foot we put forward always seems to be that "shadow self" - that's when you're "being yourself" ... when you are less aware of what you're doing. We seem to be designed to fly blind.

Love that McGurk Effect. Amazing how you can't adjust to it.
 
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Around 4m55s http://www.youtube.com/watch?#t=295, Hal Galper talks about how the unconscious mind - or as he calls it, "the intuitive level" - is so much faster than our conscious mind.

Thing is, I always hear that when playing music (or anything) the conscious mind needs to be suppressed in order to get into the zone. Yet the conscious mind is an attribute that's given humans dominance over the earth and is obviously incredibly useful. Just not when you are trying to perform at your best. The best foot we put forward always seems to be that "shadow self" - that's when you're "being yourself" ... when you are less aware of what you're doing. We seem to be designed to fly blind.

Love that McGurk Effect. Amazing how you can't adjust to it.

Grea- the link didn't work for me. I'm trying to recall the clip as I've seen so many of Hal's clips.

Fascinating topic. I don't have much to contribute but I am certainly enjoying the information shared here, like on Larry's thread.
 
Around 4m55s http://www.youtube.com/watch?#t=295, Hal Galper talks about how the unconscious mind - or as he calls it, "the intuitive level" - is so much faster than our conscious mind.

Thing is, I always hear that when playing music (or anything) the conscious mind needs to be suppressed in order to get into the zone. Yet the conscious mind is an attribute that's given humans dominance over the earth and is obviously incredibly useful. Just not when you are trying to perform at your best. The best foot we put forward always seems to be that "shadow self" - that's when you're "being yourself" ... when you are less aware of what you're doing. We seem to be designed to fly blind.

Love that McGurk Effect. Amazing how you can't adjust to it.

I hear you about "being designed to fly blind". Timothy Gallway, in his seminal work "The Inner Game of Tennis" does a remarkable job of illuminating the "shadow self" you refer to.

He uses the terms "Self 1" and "Self 2" to describe the two. He also has several methods in there of accessing "Self 2".

I highly recommend his work if you are looking at applying this concept to your playing/life.

And the McGurk effect is crazy. Makes one wonder what we can really be sure of if we can't even hear a simple sound correctly.
 
Grea- the link didn't work for me. I'm trying to recall the clip as I've seen so many of Hal's clips.

Whoops. Thanks for saying. Fixed now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8#t=4m55s

I hear you about "being designed to fly blind". Timothy Gallway, in his seminal work "The Inner Game of Tennis" does a remarkable job of illuminating the "shadow self" you refer to.

He uses the terms "Self 1" and "Self 2" to describe the two. He also has several methods in there of accessing "Self 2".

I highly recommend his work if you are looking at applying this concept to your playing/life.

And the McGurk effect is crazy. Makes one wonder what we can really be sure of if we can't even hear a simple sound correctly.

Dad used to have that book. I had a look at it years ago and the next time I played I stank so I put it aside :) I guess I wasn't ready for it at the time. Might be worth giving it another try.

I guess what we experience is only filtered reality anyway. All our senses are limited by strength and range. There are squillions of things going on at any given time that we fail to see, hear, smell, taste, feel or sense. We have evolved to detect most of what we need to survive and not much more. I guess there must be some evolutionary advantage in having the speech processors in our brain lack that flexibility.

When I think of the idea of "flying blind" - letting "Self 2" take over - it calls to mind ideas like trust, faith, confidence, submission, letting go and courage.

On the other hand, I find it strange and frustrating that we humans are seemingly not allowed to be fully present when we do our best work. Poor old Self 1 has to largely sit on the sidelines while Self 2 rides to glory.
 
On the other hand, I find it strange and frustrating that we humans are seemingly not allowed to be fully present when we do our best work. Poor old Self 1 has to largely sit on the sidelines while Self 2 rides to glory.

This is why I love the Tao. And I suppose to really be switched on you need to switch off as it were. Everything appears to be contradictory. Humans are the most wonderful beings that are simultaneously the very best and the very worst thing to ourselves and or surroundings.

But I think the argument goes that we are completely present when we do our best work...it's just not necessarily how we experience our day to day lives. But I believe you always get what you want, but never how you expect it, and rarely in the form that you thought you wanted it in.
 
But I think the argument goes that we are completely present when we do our best work...it's just not necessarily how we experience our day to day lives.

Guess it depends on how you define "completely present". When I'm in the flow I play things that, for the life of me, I can't remember afterwards unless it's recorded. Of course it's possible that I've never been completely present ... if I'd never experienced it I wouldn't know, would I? :)
 
Was just thinking after replying to the alcohol thread how the "mind" threads are never all that popular. I get the impression that people avoid heady subjects for exactly the fear of over-activating the conscious mind and having it interfere with the unconscious one.

In fact, I suspect much of our lives is spent running away from directly facing our mental circumstances for fear of messing through overthinking. Yet if we rationally face our circumstances instead of hiding behind the unconscious mind's "apron strings" (usually with distractions like TV to keep the conscious mind away) there is nothing to fear. Thoughts are harmless if you don't take them to heart and just look at them dispassionately as objects of consciousness.

Just thinking aloud again ...
 
Thoughts are harmless if you don't take them to heart and just look at them dispassionately as objects of consciousness.

Just thinking aloud again ...

There's the rub, I believe. Many people can't seem to help taking them to heart, and can't separate the thought from their identity. You know - I had an evil thought, so I must be evil.

I'm not sure if that is a skill everyone can learn despite being difficult, or if some are simply incapable.
 
All I can say about the mind is that it, like land, sea and space, is a frontier, and like space and sea, it is mostly uncharted. You can see how much we've ventured into outer space. We don't know even half of what the government knows about outer space. I believe the same things are true about the human mind. we are just barely tapping into its regions (I guess that's the right word). There is so much yet to discover and I hope we allow ourselves enough time to evolve enough to explore it deeper before we destroy ourselves completely. There are other things like asteroids that can destroy us, but that stuff is beyond our control at the moment unless we collectively decide that we are one race, the human race, and we need to collectively work together. If we can figure out how to quit destroying ourselves or keep from destroying ourselves, we can work together and focus our energy on trying to keep this planet from destroying us, or external forces from outer space from destroying us. This is all just brainstorming ideas though. Not much you can do about a polar shift. It's just gonna happen when it does. The sun does it all the time.

Sorry, my main point is that the mind is a frontier.
 
this is a GREAT post ! i have been into Hal Galper's improv & performance concepts for about a year now. this stuff will absolutely change your playing in incredibly profound ways. you can literally watch "the instrument is an illusion" on youtube, run down to the woodshed & hear the results just goofin. i continue to work this stuff & "stay in the zone" when i play w/ my internal dialog as dormant as possible. i am working on memorizing tunes more for reading gigs as this helps the process. reading gigs are an odd mix of logical / intuitive, something i am always struggling with.

anyhow, Vinnie has been talking about this concept for years & his 2012 quote from MD sums it up nice. "thought is the enemy of flow" (love this!). i think of intuitive playing like an app running in the background on a iPhone set to "do not disturb". :-D

"...it's called flow. Our ability to control things and analyze things is in direct opposition to a mantra that I have: Thought is the enemy of flow. People ask me, “What do you think about when you’re playing?” The answer is basically nothing. Thought happens in a completely different way out of flow. It’s contemplative and analytical and problem solving. In flow, it’s completely different. It’s like a real-time program running in the background that doesn't interfere with what’s going on. The ability to adapt in a given moment is beyond the scope of another type of focused thought process.” -- Vinnie Colaiuta (from Modern Drummer, Jan 2012)
 
Around 4m55s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8#t=4m55s, Hal Galper talks about how the unconscious mind - or as he calls it, "the intuitive level" - is so much faster than our conscious mind.

Thing is, I always hear that when playing music (or anything) the conscious mind needs to be suppressed in order to get into the zone. Yet the conscious mind is an attribute that's given humans dominance over the earth and is obviously incredibly useful. Just not when you are trying to perform at your best. The best foot we put forward always seems to be that "shadow self" - that's when you're "being yourself" ... when you are less aware of what you're doing. We seem to be designed to fly blind.

Love that McGurk Effect. Amazing how you can't adjust to it.

I can't access the link from work, but I think this is probably what we mean when we talk about "overthinking" something. That's the conscious mind f***ing up the subconscious mind. When the term "choking" is applied to someone botching up a performance in a pressure situation, I think it's the same thing. Learning NOT to let that happen is important to success, I think.
 
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