Looking at how the subconscious manages to get the consciousness into that sleep state, there’s a 3 step process: Identification, Fascination, and Sleep. The profound sleep in which humanity lives is caused because we:
- Identify with aspects of our subconscious – we see them as part of ourselves.
- Become “fascinated” by everything – we forget our consciousness and become distracted.
A certain aspect of our subconscious creates a thought or an image in our mind, and we then identify with that thought. Then we become distracted or “fascinated“. Fascination is the process of the fantasies, the memories, the planning, the daydreaming, whatever is created by that thought. While this is happening, the consciousness sleeps.
The trigger can also be an external circumstance or situation or event like a traffic jam, or someone insulting you, etc. You would then react to this circumstance and become distracted by it, while a certain aspect of your subconscious manifests itself and your consciousness sleeps.
The subconscious plants the trigger for you to identify, which is the thought or image on the screen of your mind or the external circumstance. That’s like the bait. You then grab the bait and become “fascinated” with it. While you’re fascinated with it you’re feeding and sustaining that particular aspect of your subconscious, and your consciousness sleeps.
For Example:
- The alcoholic is fascinated by drinking, bars and his drinking companions.
- The vain woman is fascinated by her appearance. She’s constantly identified with how she looks and grooms herself with make-up etc.
- The rich are fascinated by money and possessions. They are constantly thinking about finances, and constantly strive for money and possessions.
We can be fascinated by all kinds of things, whether they seem “good” or “bad”.
- The honest worker is fascinated by hard work. It doesn’t have to be negative.
- The hardworking student is fascinated by studying and achieving high marks and grades.
Remember when we look at the subconscious as entirely negative we tend to “exclude” ourselves from it. We might think “I don’t lose my temper and get into fist-fights. I don’t have a problem with anger” or “I have an honest relationship. I don’t have a problem with lust” or “I don’t have a problem with drinking too much” or “I’m a man. I’m not afraid of anything.”
The real danger is we look at all that stuff and say “That’s not me.” But we can be fascinated by many things, they don’t have to be negative. They don’t have to be bad or problematic like alcohol or drugs or anger. There are all kinds of things that fascinate us. There’s a trigger that we react to. Our thoughts and our feelings many times are simply reactions to circumstances outside of our control.
We’ll find the process of Identification, Fascination, Sleep is what actually makes us “traumatized” or “mentally scarred” or “damaged” by our past. Our subconscious can produce bad memories where we may have been mistreated in the past. We’ll then identify with those memories and get angry. Our subconscious can produce embarrassing memories from the past. We’ll identify with those events and feel insecure. The whole time we’re distracted by those memories our subconscious is sustaining itself while our consciousness sleeps.
We carry out the same fascinations at night while we’re asleep. When we go to sleep that daydream continues on. So the daydreams that we have in the day, everything we think, the fantasies, they become the reality we experience at night. We’ve all had something on our mind when we fell asleep and ended up dreaming about it.
Fascinations are the things in life which distract and consume us and cause us to forget our consciousness. They take us away from the present moment and keep us in that profound sleep state, that lower state of consciousness. From that vantage point we can’t see many things about ourselves. So we go around walking in a daydream all the time. What we’re trying to do is elevate our level of consciousness to a different state allowing us to perceive more about ourselves.
Remember that all these “distractions” are serving a purpose. They’re all opportunities to learn and work on our psychology. The things that happen between family, co-workers, spouses, and all the circumstances of life that we have are there for us to learn from. All the thoughts, images and memories that appear on the screen of our mind are also opportunities for us to learn. They’re showing us what aspects of our psyche that we need to work on.
We have to actively engage the circumstances around us, so we can self-observe and use these opportunities. We also have to become more aware of our own thoughts and images and memories so we can see which aspects of our psyche are trying to sustain themselves. Then we can start to understand more about our subconscious, and work towards changing it.