Beyond the Conscious Mind: Unlocking the Secrets of the SelfOne of the most important, yet problematic of these modules is the one that rules our conscious thoughts - the self module. Planning, introspection, and interpreting behavior are among its chief specialties. However, just as a press secretary invents plausible explanations for a President's decision - without being privy to the real reasons - our self module often fabricates an explanation for our behavior when, in fact, it actually doesn't know our true motives. Since we accept its stories as true, it gives us a false sense of conscious control over all our actions and a distorted sense of reality. This distortion leads to many of the conflicts and misunderstandings that plague our relationships and work lives. Beyond the Conscious Mind helps each of us tap into and harness the natural creativity and talents of our whole mind. It is only by balancing our conscious mind with the wellspring of ideas in our unconscious that we can reach our full potential. |
Contents
The Emergence of Mind | 11 |
The Emergence of Self | 19 |
The Mind as a Computer | 26 |
The Self Module as Press Secretary | 36 |
Other Fabrications | 44 |
Time and Consciousness 51 | 52 |
Is Consciousness Continuous? | 61 |
Other Concepts of Self | 85 |
Psychotherapy | 152 |
The Infant Brain | 176 |
Language Development | 187 |
SelfControl | 193 |
Nonverbal Thinking | 200 |
The Logic of Emotions | 216 |
LoveMerging | 227 |
The Empty Self | 244 |
The Concept of Time | 93 |
False Beliefs | 110 |
Ignoring the Unthinkable | 119 |
Mental Illness | 126 |
Belief in Magic | 133 |
Hypnosis and Other | 138 |
The SplitBrain Experiments | 258 |
Notes | 273 |
| 291 | |
| 305 | |
Other editions - View all
Beyond the Conscious Mind: Unlocking the Secrets of the Self Thomas R Blakeslee Limited preview - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
ability actually amazing awareness basic become behavior belief system blind spot boundaries brain cause chaos theory child clearly cognitive revolution color completely concept confabulation confirm connections consciousness convincingly creative culture demonstration denial develop distorted effect emotional evolution evolutionary evolve example experience fact false belief feel fight module fill Gazzaniga Gerald Edelman hemisphere human hypnosis hypnotic hypnotist illusion imagined individual interpretation introspection kind language logical meaning memory mental ments Michael Gazzaniga Michelle Remembers mind movement neurons normal pain parents patients patterns perception person placebo placebo effect positive feedback positron emission tomography problem psychotherapy reality recall reinforced remember result rience seems self-concept self-control self-organization sense separate side simply specialist speech Sperry split-brain spontaneous organization subjects synapses talk therapist therapy things thinking thought tion uncon unconscious understanding unique urban legend verbal vision visual words