Primal Desires And Psychological Manipulation
Speaking to the subconscious: how to influence without resistance
warning: this post contains psychological tactics most people would consider manipulative.
i’m not teaching you this to make you a better person. i’m teaching you this so you understand how influence actually works.
what you do with this knowledge is on you.
but you should know how the game is played. because everyone else already does.
notepads and pencils out ladies and gentleman, let’s get into this.
i want you to picture this.
you’re at a crowded bar with your friends. it’s a friday night. loud music, packed bodies, everyone trying to be heard over the noise.
you’ve been standing for an hour and your feet are aching. you’re holding your drink awkwardly because there’s nowhere to sit.
there’s this girl next to you that has been chatting with her friends, barely noticed you exist.
she’s in a similar situation as you probably, feet hurting due to prolonged standing
then out of nowhere, a chair opens up behind her. she doesn’t see it because she’s facing the other direction.
you tap her shoulder, point to the chair. “hey, there’s a seat behind you.”
she turns, sees it, looks back at you with genuine surprise. “oh my god, thank you.”
sits down. relief washes over her face.
five minutes later, she’s the one starting a conversation with you. asking your name. laughing at your jokes harder than they deserve.
what just happened?
what you did is you gave her relief from discomfort. you solved a problem she didn’t even articulate yet.
pain point: feet hurting, physical discomfort, standing in a crowded space.
transformation: sitting, relief, comfort.
and now she associates that relief with you. you’re the person who made her night better with one simple gesture.
your mind is now in her head. she’s thinking about you. she’ll remember you.
not because you said something clever or impressive. because you fed into a primal desire for physical comfort.
and that’s more powerful than any pickup line ever could be.
that’s just one example, this happens everyday, all the time.
it’s 6:47am as i write this.
first cup of coffee today sits on my table. my eyes light up every time i glance at it.
john coltrane playing low through my speakers today. a love supreme. something about that spiritual jazz that somehow makes everything feel more profound than it is.
this post has been brewing for a while. kept adding notes, examples, psychological mechanisms.
because if you want me to be honest, this topic is dangerous. genuinely dangerous if you understand it deeply enough let alone apply it.
primal desires are the literal backdoor to human behavior.
i’ve made posts previously on the subconscious and conscious, many of which are the reason why a lot of you have subscribed to me
but the subconscious drivers that control decision making before conscious thought even kicks in?
today you will learn about them.
once you learn this, you can influence people in ways they’ll never consciously recognize.
this is not about being a good person or a bad person. it’s about understanding the mechanism that people can use to hijack your mind or others.
what you do with that understanding is your choice.
but you should know how it works. because other people already do. and they’re using it on you every single day.
let’s break down how to hijack someone’s mind by speaking to their primal wiring.
THE EVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATION
i’ve mentioned this many times before but i can’t stress it enough.
humans evolved in small tribes for hundreds of thousands of years. our survival depended on meeting specific needs consistently.
stuff like physical safety. social acceptance. status within the group. resources. reproduction.
these needs got essentially hardwired into our psychology at a level deeper than conscious thought. it’s buried deep in the subconscious but it’s active.
your brain is still running software designed for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. but the drives remain.
when someone speaks to those primal drives, your brain responds automatically. before your conscious mind can analyze or resist.
it’s not manipulation in the sense that you’re tricking someone. it’s communication optimization.
what you’re really doing here is speaking the language their subconscious understands. and the subconscious is what drives behavior.
this is what all good sales people do.
most people think they make decisions rationally.
in most peoples head they think “oh ok let me analyze the options, weigh pros and cons, and i’ll choose logically.
bullshit.
decisions are made emotionally, subconsciously, based on primal drives. then your conscious mind invents rational justifications after the fact.
so if you want to influence someone, you don’t argue with their logic. you speak to their primal drives.
and they’ll come up with the logical justifications themselves.
“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
THE CORE PRIMAL DESIRES
free subscribers this is as far as you get.
paid subscribers let dive deeper into the most mind altering information you will hear today.
i want to start simple so let me lay out the main primal desires. the drives that control human behavior at the deepest level.
physical comfort and safety. this is the drive to avoid pain, discomfort, threat. the need for warmth, food, rest, physical security.
this is the most basic. the foundation everything else builds on. if someone is physically uncomfortable, that’s all they can think about.
solve their physical discomfort and you have their attention. you’ve met a primal need.