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So now we have a list of probable left and right brain functions – probable. There is always someone who breaks the rule, so there is nothing 100% about this. Therefore from now on I will refer to the two sides of the brain as the “analytical side” and the “creative side”.
Research varies – some shows that the Analytical Side is on the right side of the brain for over 17% of people (most left handers would fall into this category). Many people who suffer from dyslexia have their dominant brain on the same side as the dominant hand (with which they write). How do we know about the two sides of the brain? There is a machine called the electroencephalograph which scientists use to measure the impulses that are in the brain. In fact, the left brain and the right brain have actually been cut in half. This has occurred when someone has had a tumour for instance, or severe and constant epileptic fits which cannot be controlled by the usual drugs.
Generally speaking the left and right brain constantly communicate with each other, but when the brain is cut in half the two halves can not communicate with each other; also, once cut, the two sides can never grow back together again. In this way, scientists have actually been able to measure what a person does with the left brain and with the right brain. These different activities can physically be measured on the electro-encephalograph.
Most of you have probably seen the electroencephalograph on television – it's that machine on the back of the hospital bed in the doctors' series – the one that looks like a TV set. There are wavy lines going up and down and across the screen. When there is no energy in the mind and when you're dead the wavy line is gone. The wave becomes a straight line across the screen – waaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You're dead. We've got a machine (the electro-encephalograph) to tell us when we're dead – science tells us! Your heart can still be beating, your blood can still be flowing, everything in your body can still moving, but when you're brain dead – you're dead. That's when the life support equipment can be unplugged, everything turned off, because you're brain dead, and without the life support equipment your heart stops beating, and your blood stops flowing. So we have a machine to tell us when we're dead. The difference between dead and alive is the energy measured by the machine. When you're dead that energy has gone; it's gone somewhere but we don't know where. Science hasn't told us where it's gone; we can speculate, but that is not part of what I am getting into in this book. (I welcome talking about it and do so in the book Switch On to Your Inner Strength).
REVIEW OF CHAPTER 2
Chapter 3: The 88% Power – Your Subconscious Mind
Your Subconscious Mind
The circle in the diagram on the next page represents the mind. The shaded area shows the 12% which is the conscious mind – the remaining 88% is the subconscious mind. Between the conscious and the subconscious mind there is a “filter” (dotted line) which is the Reticular Activating System.
This filter is very useful, in fact it keeps us sane by protecting our minds from superfluous, unnecessary information. We can certainly use it to our advantage. We do use it naturally, but we can use it more, and you'll learn exactly what its function is and how you can use it.
The deeper mind, the subconscious mind, deals with our memory, all our habits, all our personality, and our self-image. What a fabulous mind! As I said, we use it automatically, or naturally, for memory and habits. What we must learn to do is to use it deliberately, so that we use more of our power.
Some people say we have a mind that has a conscious part and a subconscious part. That's OK too. It's just semantics. I choose to call it conscious mind and subconscious mind.
Programming the Subconscious
When I was eight years old classrooms consisted of desks and chairs that were bolted to the floor. The teacher generally spoke from a desk at the front of the room near a huge blackboard. One day I was called on to draw an elephant on the blackboard (it must have been nature study or perhaps geography). I heard quite a bit of muffled laughter behind me and I don't blame them now for laughing, because it was probably the funniest elephant anyone had ever seen. I was really embarrassed when the teacher smiled. “Even the teacher laughing at me as well” I thought. Thank goodness it was break time, but the kids in the playground didn't let up. “You can't draw, you can't draw” with an accusing finger levelled at me. At that time I told myself “I can't draw”, and “I hate drawing” and “I'll never draw again!”.
Does it sound at all familiar? Have you ever had a humiliating, embarrassing situation like that? It's a classic case of self esteem being damaged (by my classmates and the teacher laughing at my drawing) followed by my damaging self talk (I can't draw – I hate drawing – I'll never draw again). All this, done in an atmosphere of great embarrassment and emotion so that my self image (I can't draw) was indelibly
imprinted on my subconscious mind. So strong was this, and done with such emotion that when I was 15 years old doing a social studies project, my subconscious mind overruled my conscious mind by saying “What are you trying to do? – you know you can't draw! Put that pen down!” I remember it vividly even to the extent of going to find a picture of a seal that I could trace.
True for some of you I am sure – that some time in the past you had something similar happen, whereby your self esteem was punctured and this was reinforced by your own self talk. It's the way things can happen, but the good news is that you can reprogram something like that. Remember, self image is caused by self esteem, and self esteem commences with self-talk, firstly by telling yourself (for example) “Hey I can't draw”. Self talk either boosts or lowers your self esteem. It's how you think about yourself that goes into your sub-conscious mind and then bounces it back to you: “Hey you can't draw”. That then becomes your self-image. Your subconscious mind takes over from that moment onwards and it lets you know that you can't draw. Every time you take up a pen that's exactly what comes from your subconscious mind up into your conscious mind. However, as I said before, that can be reprogrammed by using Alpha techniques. Alpha is the scientific name given to the level of energy in your brain when you are in a state of light relaxation.
The conscious mind is the “doing”, “action state”, where we spend most of the time. Those of you who have never before done conscious relaxation and “gone into Alpha” when reading are probably now in the Beta state – the state where you are only using your conscious mind. It is a state in which we can think of many things and do many things at once. However, to work with the subconscious mind you think of only one thing at a time – this is the Alpha state.
Real learning takes place when the conscious mind directs the subconscious mind to receive information and store it in a part of the brain from which it can be easily recalled. We will learn how to activate the subconscious mind and have it directed by the conscious mind.
Limbic
