Buses and blind spots

Nothing for years then two in one day...

Nearly 10 years ago (what!?!!?!) I wrote about the mental tunes my brain randomly served up to me in the mornings, the blog is still there it's called mentaltunes.blogspot.co.uk

The irony is I can look back now and see the slow descent I was making into what became a terrible phase of my life,  ultimately ending in divorce and me becoming a generally unpleasant angry and very hurt human being. I've been punishing myself for five years, all the while telling me that it was true about life beginning at forty. It's amazing how easy it is to get into the habit of self deception.

I've come to understand that the subconscious does indeed try to get our attention but it does not have language -  the amygdala is the root of the subconscious in my unscientific view and only records what the senses report and any internal reaction to those senses, it very effectively does pattern matching of any current moment to every past moment and responds accordingly, and so i think it's where our core personality is stored - have a look at a brain, our personality is stored in a tiny bit of the brain stem. It's also prone to error, which it reinforces unless the frontal lobes override it, the journey is to teach the frontal lobe to spot what the amygdala is saying and to interpret using higher form language.  The higher brain is very complex but very slow compared to the lower brain which is why we often don't see the line until we are way past it already.  If you're interested in this stuff there's a great book called thinking fast and slow which I heartily recommend. 

Anyway, the amygdala is very good and very fast, the fight or flight response... But can also get things wrong. The much slower frontal lobes can learn to override the amygdala and gradually therefore reprogram the "faulty" patterns but only once the higher brain becomes aware there is a problem at all. So it usually takes quite a few pattern failures to create a significant enough problem for the higher brain to work out there may be a fault. Only if the higher brain is willing to work out what it doesn't know that it doesn't know do things start to improve. Still following?  

In short, we each have a blind spot, and it's caused by a combination of faulty programming in the amygdala compounded by a lack of alternative override thinking in the frontal lobes.  Because we don't know what we don't know.  

So how to rid oneself of blind spots? Simple, talk to someone about it and ask them to tell you the truth. A friend can help, but if the faulty pattern is causing a big enough balls up then an independent counsellor might be the best bet.  When you ask a friend to tell you the truth, see if you can allow yourself to listen to everything they're telling you, this is tricky because we naturally discount anything that doesn't fit our patterns. 

The amygdala is programmed to protect us. It will attempt to keep us alive at all costs, fight or flight reflex for example

So here's where the mental tunes come in, these are more commonly known as ear worms. Except they're not in the ear. 

Any more than dreams are in the eyes, even though REMs happen. 

Both dreams and ear worms are, I think, the subconscious trying to do its best to protect us and keep us alive. 

So pay attention to both. You may discover your subconscious is telling you something you should pay attention to. It may be that it's starting to realise that a pattern it applies is shaky and is referring it up the chain of command.  

 I've been having some very powerful dreams of late. With the help of another, I've come to place a frontal lobe interpretation on the dream and modify my higher thinking as a result.  This is what people usually refer to as going on a journey of self discovery. 

I may even start making a note of any mental tunes again. There are patterns. I recently found myself humming the same snippet of Starlight Express that I'd been humming all those years ago.  And I can confidently say this time i paid attention and realised what I had missed all those years ago. I guess the timing wasn't right then. My subconscious was inviting me to build my self awareness.  

Some of those other posts from back then are very telling now i have greater perspective. But that's all a long time ago so I won't be digging up the past again. 

Anyway, next time a tune pops into your head, and it seems genuinely random, give it space, your subconscious is hoping you'll allow yourself to pay attention to something important.

Good luck, may you be at peace.