The Conscious And Subconscious Mind: Everything You Need To Know

Why your conscious mind only processes 0.0004% of reality

weeks of reading condensed into one post.

books scattered across my desk right now, pages marked with sticky notes, sections highlighted until the ink bled through to the next page.

“the power of your subconscious mind” by joseph murphy, “thinking fast and slow” by kahneman, “the user illusion” by tor norretranders, jung’s collected works on the unconscious, and freud’s complete psychological works.

that smell of old paper mixed with black coffee steam filling my room.

yellow sticky notes covering my wall like some conspiracy theorist’s murder board, connecting concepts, drawing lines between ideas separated by decades of research.

brain flooded with dopamine and norepinephrine from the fourth cup of coffee, mind firing faster than i can type.

been living inside these concepts for weeks and i’m about to download all of it into your brain in one sitting.

this is everything you need to know about how your mind actually operates.

the conscious, the subconscious, and the mechanisms between them that control literally everything you do.

most people will never come across this information in their lifetime.

they’ll live and die not understanding the system running their entire existence.

not you though.

THE CONSCIOUS MIND: THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

we will start off simple.

your conscious mind is what you think of as “you.”

the voice in your head reading this right now.

the part that makes decisions, analyzes information, thinks logically.

it’s your working memory, your rational thought, your deliberate focus.

here’s the thing though, it’s tiny. like really tiny.

smaller then you can even imagine.

your conscious mind can only hold about 7 pieces of information at once (plus or minus 2).

it processes about 40-50 bits of information per second.

sounds like a lot right?

until you realize your total sensory input is about 11 million bits per second.

meaning your conscious mind is processing 0.0004% of the information hitting your senses right now.

the rest? that’s going straight to your subconscious.

your conscious mind is slow, effortful, and limited.

it’s the part of you that struggles with complex decisions, gets tired from thinking, and can only focus on one thing at a time.

when you’re deliberately trying to solve a problem or make a decision, that’s your conscious mind grinding away.

and it’s exhausting because conscious processing burns a shit ton of glucose.

this is why thinking hard makes you physically tired.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND: THE OPERATING SYSTEM

your subconscious is everything else.

and it’s fucking massive.

the conscious mind is simple, the subconscious is so much more complex.

it processes 11 million bits of information per second effortlessly.

it’s running your heartbeat, your breathing, your digestion, your immune system.

it’s storing every memory you’ve ever had, even the ones you can’t consciously recall.

it’s executing learned behaviors - walking, driving, typing, speaking.

it’s making snap judgments about people based on micro-expressions you didn’t consciously notice.

it’s filtering all 11 million bits of sensory data and deciding what’s important enough to show your conscious mind.

the subconscious is fast, automatic, and operates below your awareness.

it’s pattern recognition on steroids.

your doing all this without even knowing on a DAILY basis.

freud called it the unconscious and thought it was full of repressed desires and trauma.

jung expanded it into the collective unconscious shared human experiences and archetypes.

modern neuroscience just calls it implicit processing all the shit your brain does without conscious awareness.

but they’re all describing the same thing: the massive processing system running underneath conscious thought.

and here’s what fucks with people when they first understand this.

your subconscious is making most of your decisions.

you think you’re consciously choosing things, but your subconscious has already decided and your conscious mind is just rationalizing it after the fact.

there’s actually a delay studies show your brain makes a decision up to 7 seconds before you’re consciously aware you’ve decided.

meaning “you” (the conscious you) we mentioned before, isn’t actually in control most of the time.

some of you might be thinking “does that mean we have no free will?”

it’s complicated.

but think of it like this.

you’re more like a passenger being driven by your subconscious, occasionally grabbing the wheel.

some may find that terrifying but trust me it doesn’t really matter.

either way humans are always gonna operate on the assumption that we DO have free will.

HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER

think of your mind like a company.

your conscious mind is the CEO.

makes big decisions, sets direction, handles complex problems.

but it can only focus on a few things at once.

your subconscious is everyone else in the company.

thousands of employees running operations, executing tasks, keeping everything functioning.

the CEO (conscious) relies on employees (subconscious) to handle 99.9% of operations.

only gets involved when something new or complex comes up.

here’s how it actually works:

new information comes in through your senses.

your subconscious instantly filters it, compares it to stored patterns, generates an emotional response.

if it’s routine and matches known patterns, subconscious handles it automatically.

if it’s novel or complex, it gets flagged for conscious attention.

your conscious mind then analyzes it deliberately, makes a decision, creates a new pattern.

that pattern gets stored in the subconscious for faster automatic processing next time.

this is learning.

conscious struggle → subconscious automation.

when you first learn to drive, it’s all conscious effort.

steering, accelerating, checking mirrors, signaling each action requires deliberate thought.

exhausting.

but after enough repetition, driving becomes subconscious.

you can drive home while having a conversation and barely remember the drive because your subconscious handled all of it.

i had highway hypnosis one time and it scared the shit out of me.

i genuinely think i ran like 5 red lights that night but i have absolutely no recollection of it at all.

it’s possible that my subconscious was playing tricks on me, but that day really fucked with me and made me start to research this stuff

how can you drive 10+ miles and not remember shit?

anyways back to the learning.

to get good at anything it’s simply this pattern below.

conscious practice → subconscious competence.

the goal isn’t to use your conscious mind more.

it’s to train your subconscious to run better programs.

but like we talked about in the behavioral conditioning post, some of these programs have be instilled in us since a childhood.

between the third trimester of pregnancy and 7 years old, our brains are in theta state and absorb everything.

it’s the reason you find most peoples political opinions are either directly in line with someone they were involved with in childhood.

parents, sibling, uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa, maybe even a friend.

SUBCONSCIOUS & EMOTIONS

now that we have the surface level understanding complete, lets get a little bit more in depth here.

here’s where it gets deep.

your emotional reactions come from subconscious programs, not conscious choice.

someone insults you, you feel anger immediately - that’s not a conscious decision.

you see a spider, you feel fear, you didn’t choose that response.

you smell something, suddenly you’re nostalgic, you didn’t consciously trigger that.

these are subconscious programs running automatically.

and they were installed without your conscious permission.

childhood experiences, trauma, conditioning, beliefs - all downloaded directly into your subconscious.

your parents’ relationship patterns? you absorbed them subconsciously and now they influence how you relate to partners.

got screamed at for making mistakes as a kid? your subconscious built a “mistakes = danger” program that creates anxiety around imperfection.

praised for being quiet and well-behaved? subconscious learned “expression = risk” and now you struggle to voice your needs.

all of this is running in the background, generating emotions and impulses before your conscious mind even knows what’s happening.

this is why some fears feel automatic and irrational.

your conscious mind knows the spider can’t hurt you.

but your subconscious has a “spider = danger” program running, probably installed in childhood, and it triggers fear automatically.

conscious knowledge can’t override subconscious programming easily.

because the subconscious is older, faster, and stronger.

it’s been running these programs for years, reinforcing the neural pathways every time you react emotionally.

by the time your conscious mind catches up and says “wait, this isn’t logical,” the emotion is already flooding your system.

this is why you can know something intellectually but still feel something emotionally.

conscious understanding vs subconscious programming.

two different systems operating on different information.

THE RETICULAR ACTIVATING SYSTEM (RAS)

reticular activating system (RAS)

this is the bridge between conscious and subconscious that most people don’t know about.

your RAS is a bundle of neurons at your brainstem that filters information.

remember how you’re getting 11 million bits of data per second but only consciously processing 40-50?

your RAS is what’s deciding what gets through.

and here’s the wild part though, you program it with your conscious focus.

whatever you consciously focus on, your RAS marks as important and starts showing you more of it.

this is why when you buy a new car, suddenly you see that car everywhere.

the cars were always there, but your RAS filtered them out as irrelevant.

now that you own one, your RAS flagged that car model as important and starts bringing it to your conscious attention.

algorithms have done a great job at doing this.

you every say some shit randomly then you open your phone and get a video/ad about it? it’s not a coincidence.

same mechanism explains why when you’re thinking about getting pregnant, suddenly everyone around you seems pregnant.

or why when you’re afraid of something, you start noticing it everywhere.

your RAS is confirmation bias on autopilot.

it shows you what you’ve told it is important.

this is actually incredibly powerful once you understand it.

you can deliberately program your RAS by consciously focusing on what you want.

focus on opportunities, your RAS starts filtering for opportunities.

focus on problems, your RAS shows you more problems.

focus on reasons why you can’t do something, your RAS finds evidence to support that.

focus on solutions, your RAS starts spotting potential solutions you would’ve otherwise missed.

this isn’t woo-woo manifestation bullshit.

it’s neuroscience.

your RAS is literally filtering reality based on what your conscious mind has marked as important.

so if you’re constantly thinking “i’m broke, everything is expensive, i can’t afford anything,” your RAS filters reality to confirm that.

it’ll show you prices, it’ll make you notice what you can’t have, it’ll filter out opportunities because they don’t match your programmed focus.

but if you consciously focus on “i create value, money flows to me, opportunities are everywhere,” your RAS starts filtering FOR those things.

shows you chances to make money, highlights opportunities, notices resources you were blind to before.

same reality, different filter.

your conscious focus programs your subconscious perception.

COGNITIVE BIASES: SUBCONSCIOUS SHORTCUTS GONE WRONG

your subconscious runs on patterns and shortcuts to process information faster.

these shortcuts are called heuristics.

most of the time they work great, they helped our ancestors survive by making split-second decisions.

but in modern life, these shortcuts create systematic errors in thinking called cognitive biases.

and you have hundreds of them running right now, completely outside your conscious awareness.

confirmation bias - your subconscious seeks information that confirms what you already believe and filters out contradicting information.

this is why people with opposite political views can watch the same event and see completely different things.

their RAS and subconscious are filtering reality through existing beliefs.

availability heuristic - your subconscious judges likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.

if you’ve recently heard about plane crashes, flying feels more dangerous even though the statistics haven’t changed.

your subconscious is using “easy to recall” as a proxy for “likely to happen.”

anchoring bias - the first number you hear becomes the reference point for all future judgments.

this is why retailers show you the “original price” crossed out next to the “sale price.”

your subconscious anchors on the higher number, making the sale price feel like a better deal even if it’s still overpriced.

sunk cost fallacy - your subconscious hates admitting past decisions were wrong, so it keeps investing in failing situations.

stayed in a bad relationship too long because you’d “already invested so much time.”

that’s your subconscious trying to justify past choices rather than cut losses.

fundamental attribution error - when others fuck up, your subconscious blames their character.

when you fuck up, your subconscious blames circumstances.

someone cuts you off in traffic? they’re an asshole.

you cut someone off? you were distracted, running late, didn’t see them - circumstances.

your subconscious protects your self-image by attributing your failures to external factors.

these aren’t character flaws, they’re built-in features of subconscious processing.

your subconscious is optimizing for speed and pattern matching, not accuracy.

the only way to combat them is conscious awareness.

deliberately catching your subconscious making these shortcuts and questioning them.

but that’s exhausting to do constantly, which is why biases persist.

REPROGRAMMING THE SUBCONSCIOUS

so if your subconscious is running old, shitty programs installed in childhood, can you change them?

yes, but it’s not easy.

in fact it will be the hardest thing you have ever done.

your subconscious learns through repetition and emotion.

conscious knowledge alone doesn’t reprogram it.

you can read 100 books about confidence, understand confidence intellectually, but still feel insecure.

because knowing ≠ reprogramming.

the subconscious needs:

repetition, not just a couple of times, but doing something over and over until it becomes automatic.

this is why affirmations can work if done consistently, despite how cringe they feel.

you’re literally trying to overwrite old neural pathways with new ones through repetition.

it’s the reason why subliminals work.

but it takes thousands of repetitions, not ten.

emotion - experiences with strong emotion get encoded deeper in the subconscious.

this is why trauma programs are so powerful, they came with intense emotion.

to reprogram, you need to create new experiences with similarly strong positive emotion.

this is why peak experiences, breakthrough moments, and intense positive events can shift subconscious programming faster than years of therapy.

hypnosis - bypass the conscious mind’s filters and speak directly to the subconscious.

i mentioned how i had highway hypnosis before

this actually works because you’re accessing the programming layer directly.

but most people have resistance to it because their conscious mind doesn’t trust giving up control.

visualization with feeling - your subconscious can’t tell the difference between vividly imagined experiences and real ones.

if you visualize an outcome with enough sensory detail and emotional involvement, your subconscious encodes it as real experience.

this is why athletes use visualization, they’re programming their subconscious nervous system to execute movements they’ve only imagined.

meditation - creates conscious awareness of subconscious programs as they run.

instead of being lost in thoughts and emotions, you observe them.

this creates space between stimulus and response, giving you conscious choice over subconscious reactions.

the key is understanding that reprogramming takes time.

your current programs have been running for years or decades.

they’re deeply myelinated neural pathways that fire automatically.

new programs need thousands of repetitions before they become automatic.

most people try something for a week, don’t see instant results, and quit.

then wonder why their subconscious is still running old shit.

DREAMS & THE SUBCONSCIOUS

“Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” - Sigmund Freud

dreams are your subconscious processing information without conscious interference.

when you sleep, your conscious mind shuts down but your subconscious keeps working.

it’s sorting through the day’s experiences, consolidating memories, working through emotional content.

this is why you dream about weird combinations of recent events mixed with old memories.

your subconscious is making connections, finding patterns, processing shit your conscious mind didn’t have time for.

freud thought dreams were wish fulfillment and just your subconscious expressing repressed desires.

jung thought they were messages from the deeper self, using symbols and archetypes.

modern neuroscience thinks they’re mostly random neural firing that your brain tries to make sense of.

probably all true to some degree.

your subconscious is definitely working through unprocessed emotional content in dreams.

this is why trauma survivors often have recurring nightmares and the subconscious keeps trying to process and integrate traumatic experiences.

but dreams also seem to solve problems.

there are famous stories of scientific breakthroughs coming through dreams.

dmitri mendeleev saw the structure of the periodic table in a dream.

august kekulé discovered the structure of benzene after dreaming of a snake eating its tail.

elias howe invented the sewing machine after a nightmare gave him the solution.

your subconscious can work on problems while you sleep, making connections your conscious mind missed.

this is why “sleeping on it” actually helps with difficult decisions.

your subconscious processes the information overnight and often delivers insights in the morning.

you can also use dreams deliberately through lucid dreaming becoming conscious while dreaming.

lets you interact with your subconscious directly, ask it questions, work through fears in a safe environment.

but most people never learn to do this because they don’t understand dreams are accessible.

in fact most people don’t even remember their dreams anymore.

as people get older especially in adulthood, they report that they don’t have dreams anymore.

we all have dreams, it’s simply a matter of recollection.

with everyone walking around with calcified pineal glands, and hitting their eyes with blue light right before bed, it’s no wonder people can’t remember their dreams.

THE SUPERCONSCIOUS (THEORY)

now we’re getting into territory that’s more theory than proven science.

some psychologists and spiritual traditions talk about a third level: the superconscious.

this would be something beyond individual consciousness a level of awareness that connects to something larger.

jung called it the collective unconscious shared human experiences and archetypes that exist beyond individual memory.

explains why different cultures separated by thousands of miles develop similar myths, symbols, and stories.

some traditions call it the higher self, universal consciousness, or source.

the idea is that beyond your individual conscious and subconscious, there’s a level of awareness that has access to information beyond your personal experience.

now, this isn’t proven scientifically.

could be real, could be your subconscious accessing information in ways we don’t understand yet.

could be confirmation bias and pattern recognition making random events seem meaningful.

but enough people throughout history have reported experiences that suggest something beyond individual consciousness exists.

einstein talked about it.

tesla claimed to access it.

every major creative breakthrough seems to involve some moment of insight that feels like it came from outside the person.

whether you call it superconscious, flow state, divine inspiration, or just deep subconscious processing doesn’t really matter.

the experience is real even if the explanation is debated.

and practically, you can access these states through:

deep meditation - quieting conscious and subconscious mind enough to access something deeper.

flow states - becoming so absorbed in an activity that individual consciousness dissolves.

psychedelics - temporarily disrupting normal consciousness patterns (not recommending, just stating fact).

extreme experiences - moments of crisis, breakthrough, or peak experience that jar you out of normal consciousness.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

apologies for the long post, minds racing.

but if theres anything you can take out of this post, let it be the following:

your conscious mind is the small part you think of as “you.”

your subconscious is the massive processing system running everything automatically.

they work together, but your subconscious is doing most of the heavy lifting.

your emotions come from subconscious programs, not conscious choice.

your RAS filters reality based on conscious focus, showing you what you’ve marked as important.

you have hundreds of cognitive biases creating systematic errors in thinking.

you can reprogram your subconscious through repetition, emotion, and deliberate practice.

your dreams are subconscious processing, and you can learn to use them.

there might be something beyond individual consciousness, but that’s theoretical.

the practical takeaway: most of your life is being run by subconscious programs you didn’t consciously choose.

but now that you understand the system, you can start programming it deliberately.

your conscious mind can’t control everything, but it can set direction.

choose your focus carefully, it programs your RAS.

choose your inputs carefully, they become subconscious patterns.

choose your repetitions carefully, they wire your automatic responses.

you’re not just your conscious thoughts.

you’re the entire system, the conscious, subconscious, and whatever lies beyond.

understand the system, and you can start actually using it instead of being used by it.