Consciousness: And Its Relation

With Subconscious Mind

Author:

Krishanu Kumar Das

Affiliation of the Author:

Department of Medicine, HLG Memorial Hospital, Asansol, India

E-mail Address:

[email protected]
 2

Abstract

What is the nature of consciousness and how it is related to subconscious mind? The concept
of ‘the subconscious’ has not been unanimously and unambiguously defined ever. In
psychology, this term is much less used preferring the term ‘unconscious’. To many of the
academics (not all) in the related fields, it is like something different from our conscious mind.
That means they are two separate entities having different mechanisms of actions. Not only
that, many personages in scholarly academic fields as well as contemporary self-help literature
believe in things like that subconscious has some magical powers, or it is more powerful than
the strength of activities possessed by our conscious mind. That means a person representing
lower IQ in their conscious state, may have higher IQ or be more intellectual in respect of their
subconscious mind. Is it so? Our regular observations do tell that? We all experience somehow
the presence of our subconscious mind, but where in the structures of brain it resides? There
are far more questions. Can subconscious be autoactivated and act on its own? Can
subconscious create its own goal? Or can its activities be primed for a goal? In this treatise, we
reviewed different literatures and tried to give answers to these questions to demystify the
interpretations of nature and realm of activities of our conscious and subconscious mind.

Keywords: Consciousness, Subconscious, Emotions, Motivation, Emotional Adaptation,

Subliminal Perception, Priming.
 3

Introduction:

There is no authentic record when the term ‘subconscious’ was first used. Pierre Janet used
its French synonymous ‘subconscients’ in his article to designate the state of mind below our
consciousness [Janet, 1889]. Swami Vivekananda divided human mind into three planes –
‘subconscious’, ‘conscious’, and ‘superconscious’1. ‘Superconscious’ is the higher
introspective state of the mind that can control its hammering emotional desires and can detach
them from mind at its will [Vivekananda, 1896]. Sigmund Freud, at the beginning of his career,
used the term ‘subconscious’ to mean activities of mind that occur below the level of our
conscious mind. But later he preferred to use the term ‘unconscious’ for the same purpose and
abandoned the usage of the former word. In his book ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, Freud
advanced ‘Topographic theory of mind’, dividing the mind into three domains – ‘conscious’,
‘preconscious’, and ‘unconscious’, making ‘preconscious’ as a subterranean layer interposed
between the two, which has access to both of them. According to him, the contents of the
unconscious can reach the conscious only by passing through the preconscious [Freud, 1900].
In psychology, the term ‘subconscious' is much less used in preference of the term
‘unconscious'. The term rather is much used in contemporary self-help literature, which adds a
lot of myths to it rather an approach to scientific understanding.
Here in this article, we will differentiate the mind in three domains ‘conscious',
‘subconscious' and ‘unconscious' completely from a different perspective.

I. The Conscious Mind

All of ours activities of the mind can be divided into three domains, (1) Conscious (2)
Subconscious, and (3) Unconscious.
First, we will come to our conscious part of the mind. Mind’s conscious activities are those
which occur with awareness of the organism. In general sense, what we feel to be our ‘mind’,
comes under this domain. Our thinking, emotional affections, volitional activities are all part
of our conscious mind. Now, before we go to further discussion, we will describe the four
houses of mind.
Four Houses of Mind
The activities of the mind are centered in four major houses in our brain. Though, these
houses are assigned to perform in their respective areas of work, they are interconnected with
each other through a number of joining corridors or neural pathways. That means activity of
one house can influence others and vice versa. So, their actions are inter-related [Das, 2016].

1
# Swami Vivekananda was a spiritual leader, not a personage from the scientific world. Yet, parts of his works
on consciousness are very relevant to science.
 4

Not only that, though the activities of the houses can be conducted in our conscious realm
of the mind, they have a major subconscious component also. And they can regulate or
influence the centers responsible for brain’s unconscious autonomic activities also.
These four houses are:

(1) House of Memory, (2) House of Intelligence, (3) House of Emotions, and
(4) House of Physical Activities.2
All of these houses are again sub-partitioned into three faculties:

(1) Reflexive Faculty, (2) Short-term Faculty, and (3) Long-term Faculty.

Controlling cabins of all of these houses are situated in different areas of the brain (Fig.1).
The house of intelligence is controlled by the prefrontal cortex, situated in the frontal area of
the cerebral cortex of our brain. The house of physical activity is controlled by the motor and
premotor cortex of our brain. The house of emotion is maintained by the limbic system of the
brain, which is composed of limbic cortex, a rim of cortical tissue around the hilus of the
adjoining cerebral hemispheres, and a number of associated deep structures – the
hypothalamus, the amygdala, the anterior nuclei of thalamus, the para-olfactory area, the
fornix, the hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens, the cingulate gyrus, the mammillary bodies,
the orbitofrontal cortex, and the septal nuclei (Fig.1b). And the house of memory is run by
different association areas in different parts of the brain. Sensory or perceptual memories are

(a): Houses of ‘Memory’, ‘Intelligence’, and ‘Physical Activities’.

2
# The difference between a computer and a human mind is that in computer the ‘house of emotion’ is absent. –
Das, 2016. There would be no difference between a computer or robot and a human mind, if we put ‘house of
emotion’ within them that works in the same way.
 5

(b): House of ‘Emotion’.

Fig. 1: Location of Four Major Houses (a & b)

(Image in ‘a’ adapted from Blausen medical gallery)

stored in the respective sensory association areas for the senses. Like, visual memories are
stored in visual association area adjacent to primary visual cortex in the cerebrum. Auditory
memories are stored in auditory association area adjacent to primary auditory cortex; and so,
others (Fig.1a). Besides sensory or perceptual information, memories of intellectual processes
that we’ve already undergone, and memories of past emotional experiences are also stocked in
frontal association area and association area in limbic cortex respectively.
Consciousness is like a hopping monkey, hopping from one branch of tree to another
branch, looking around or doing something, then again jumping to another branch of the same
tree or another tree – as our conscious mind do – sometime recalling a memory (house of
memory), sometimes calculating a bill (house of intelligence), sometime threading a needle
(house of physical activity).
But consciousness is a subjective experience. Though writing this word may provoke
hatred, the spiritualists may invite us into their illusory world, but our consciousness is just the
developed form of the pain that first felt by a primitive organism. We unnecessarily impart
nobility and divinity upon our consciousness and make the things more complicated. The pain
first felt by an organism to withdraw from a noxious stimulus is no different from the pressure
of emotion ‘curiosity’ by which I am writing this article. Are you yours truly? The answer is
possibly ‘not’. If it were so, you would not have suffered from depression, depression, despair
or emotional blankness. But being the most intellectual animal on earth, we can manipulate
those within a boundary if we have proper knowledge. But thinking of going beyond that
boundary is just a denial and an illusion.
 6

There are also some other centers in our brain save these four houses, like the area
controlling sleep and wakefulness, or the area controlling mood; which have to be regarded as
the accessory or regulating parts of our conscious mind. The details of their mode of activities
have been described elsewhere [Das, 2016, 2017, 2018].

II. The Subconscious Mind

Now, what is our subconscious? Our subconscious though remains predominantly beyond
the reach of our conscious mind, many of our mind’s activities are processed in subconscious.
And we, sometimes, get projection of it through intuition or sudden retrieval of a memory; or
through dreams into our consciousness. We become tired to solve some problem, suddenly
solution comes to our mind in some relaxed moment or when away from thinking about it. It
means that subconscious was working on it all the time. So, it functions as a backstage to our
conscious mind where many of our conscious activities are rehearsed, evaluated, processed and
finalized for actions like – storage in long-term memory, or projection into our consciousness
through different ways. So, we may call it sub-conscious mind.
Our conscious activities of the mind, as already described, are conducted by the different
parts of our brain. So, one may wonder – ‘Where then resides our subconscious?’. To make it
easier, it has to be said that we can pay attention to on one subject at a particular time. Even if
mind thinks on different subjects, mind does it in quick succession, switching from one to
another. But that does not mean that other centers of conscious activities of our brain are shut
off at that particular moment. They all work, but are not focused at the same time into our
consciousness. So, when one was enjoying some movie, may be his house of intelligence was
working on some of his worries that he had experienced earlier. After the work-up is complete,
the resolution suddenly came up in his mind. He got surprised as he was not attentively thinking
on that problem with conscious effort.
So, our subconscious is nothing but the latent activities of all four houses of the brain,
which go on in the back stage behind our conscious mind. The functions of it continue even
during sleep and sometimes they are projected into our consciousness through dreams in sleep
[Das, 2016].
Interpretation of a dream is difficult, as the dreams are not like something that
subconscious sends in our conscious awareness in an organized way, as in intuition (a sudden,
quick subconscious activities of our house of intelligence), or sudden retrieval of a memory (a
subconscious retrieval action of the house of memory). But whatever we see in our dreams, we
must know, they are the product of our subconscious’ activities, that means the subconscious
was working on them. But the projection of the product fails to represent it in an organised
manner, for that, the dreams may not follow any logical form or proper time sequence - like
surrealistic paintings. As we will discuss later, subconscious activities are guided by the
emotional drives. For that, the subconscious projects into dreams those things which are
associates with great emotional pressures. As per many literature and also personal experience,
being naked in public, or being chased is very common in dreams. It may seem awkward, but
 7

the answer could be that if we think consciously of being naked in public, it certainly will evoke
a great emotional embarrassment. So, this information is associated with great emotional
memory. Therefore, our subconscious surfaces the fact that is associated with strong emotional
memory just to release or express out its emotions.
Compared to our conscious activities of the mind, our subconscious can be much quicker
and faster, as our subconscious’ activities do not have the need to serially inform our conscious
self. For that reason, we sometimes designate the term ‘the sixth sense of us’ informally to our
subconscious, particularly in cases where we receive its alarming projection into our
cognizance through its rapid undercurrent activities. Faster subconscious information
processing has been recorded in different studies [Lewicki et al., 1992].
Difference between our conscious and subconscious thinking is, our subconscious acts on
involving wide area basing on permutations and combinations of bits of knowledge including
emotional memories that we gathered already, in a more rapid and integrated way, the way
which our conscious mind sometimes finds difficult to follow, though logical co-relation is
also there and mechanisms of actions are the same. Subconscious can also avail comparatively
weaker memories that are consciously irretrievable, and information that have been gathered
subconsciously. So, one may not have greater IQ with respect to his subconscious, but have a
better system that can act upon a wider area. On the contrary, our conscious thinking involves
concomitant environment for rationalization of gratification of emotional desires, or to settle
futuristic goals.
That is the reason, why we remember many insignificant facts that we do not want to; or
we recall repeatedly many unpleasant emotional experiences against our will despite our strong
resistance; or we sometimes do not feel to like some person or some place though we cannot
explain why. But of course, we cannot affirm if these insignificant facts are really insignificant,
or emotional experiences are not those which have not to be urgently neutralised, or there is no
logic behind our not liking something. As in many a case, subconscious eventually comes to
have proved itself to be utter true. But yes, logic is of course there, as the processes of
subconscious follow the same mechanisms as those of the conscious mind; but they could be
more quicker and finer, and possibly more intricate than that our conscious mind can follow
through its knowledge-searching. More often than less, our subconscious finally concludes
itself to be more reliable than our conscious mind. For that, we very often may be believed that
‘our subconscious is wiser than our conscious mind’. In a considerable number of cases
probably the answer is ‘yes’. But yet, this is not always altogether true. A properly
knowledgeable mind can explain subconscious’ activities also. And there are scores when our
subconscious may be falsified, and mislead us; that what happens in obsession and seduction.
For that, it is better for us to know about different quarters of our mysterious mind and the true
views within the insides of them. Knowledge makes us wiser, that is necessary for the most
intelligent person also.
Our subconscious’ activities are run on their own by our emotional pressures, not having
the necessity of volitional command or whip of our conscious mind. But their activities can be
 8

initiated by our conscious demand also, as in the case of procedural memory which has been
described later in this article.

III. The Unconscious Mind

Brain’s unconscious activities are those which are not regulated by our conscious and
subconscious drive – like regulation of the heart beats, regulation of the visceral functions,
body temperature regulation, cerebellar maintenance of tone, posture and coordinated muscular
activities, and so others. In majority, these are mediated through the autonomic nervous system,
the higher center of which is located in hypothalamus of the brain. But any activity of any of

the houses, either conscious or subconscious, may have influence on these parts of the
brain; like emotion ‘fear’ produces dilatation of pupil and increased sweating, rigorous
muscular activities increase heart rate and respiratory rate, and so many. The unconscious
activities of brain can also be projected into conscious awareness, but not in a direct pathway.
This could be mediated through indirect sensory pathway; like palpitation, visceral pain, urges
for defecation and micturition, etc.
Reflex conditioned reactions have a major subconscious component. In some cases, it may
have all three components of mind. In Pavlov's experiment with dog, the dog salivated at the
sounds of bell when it was conditioned. Here all the three components of mind are present in
the process. Listening to the sounds of bell is a conscious activity of mind (input and
information processing in house of memory), recalling or retrieval of another associated
memory that ‘this cue usually presents food thereafter’ is a subconscious activity of mind
because the organism did not consciously try to retrieve that memory. The effect of ‘the
memory of food’ on hypothalamic autonomic neural center that controls salivary secretion, to
increase the secretion of saliva is an unconscious component of mind. The difference between
‘subconscious’ and ‘unconscious’ is that we can do the subconscious activities consciously
also. Like, when one driving a car, he can do it both consciously and subconsciously. But we
cannot do our unconscious activities of mind on our own conscious or subconscious will. We
cannot increase or decrease salivary secretion directly without any stimulus by our own will,
either conscious or subconscious. We cannot make our heartbeat faster. But we can do those
through indirect manners. Like, running a while or experiencing an emotion (e.g., watching a
horror movie) will increase the heart rate. Thinking of food or experiencing ‘hunger’ emotion
will increase the secretion of saliva (Fig.2).
In this article, I should keep away from ‘cognitive unconscious’ which means the
unconscious machineries that make our perceptions and other actions of houses functional –
like, how we process the visual images, or underlying mechanisms of retrieval of memory.
That is beyond the objective of this treatise. Again, the concept of cognitive unconscious
embraces a wide boundary taking materials from different arenas; some molecular
 9

mechanisms, some subconscious activities, some activities guided by hereditarily possessed

memories (discussed later).

Fig. 2: Schematic Diagram of Mind [Adapted from Das, 2016]

IV. Why some activities of brain are conscious and some subconscious?

All the activities of different houses of our mind do not come into our consciousness at the
same time though they are there in subconscious mind. For example, when we read a novel,
we look at the words that means our visual cortex is engaged in information processing; we
interpret the language and grammar that means our frontal lobe is engaged in intellectual
works; but their activities are all hidden. Consciously, we only imagine and perceive the events
that has been described in that novel. But we can give attention to those activities also. It is like
different tabs running different programs on a computer, but only one tab is exposed on the
 10

screen that we can watch and manipulate, others are being automatically run through some
guides in the background. What are the mechanisms by which the activities of certain part of
the brain come to our consciousness keeping the rest of the activities of the brain under the veil
in subconscious mind? There are two possibilities.
(A) One possibility is, through some unknown mechanisms, activities of some parts of the
brain become conscious, but there are no common consciousness structure(s). A popular theory
that has tried to explain this is ‘global workspace theory’ [Baars, 1988]. This theory suggests
that when the activities of different parts of the brain become integrated through workspace
neurons, then they project that into our consciousness. But there are serious questions about it.
Many of our subconscious activities are highly integrated. Procedural activities or automatism
which are subconsciously run are highly coordinated involving the activities of different parts
of brain. But they do not come to our consciousness. Global work space theory does not clearly
clarify how some organized functions of brain come to be conscious, i.e., the very nature of
consciousness or so called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Global work space theory also
does not posit the role of any specific organ for instigation and generation of contents of
consciousness. According to GWT, contents compete to come into workspace or spotlight of
theater, but the theory does not elucidate what precisely guides this competition.
Another theory in this category, forwarded by philosopher Daniel Dennett [Dennett, 1991],
is ‘multiple drafts theory’. In this theory, Dennett postulated that there are parallel processings
of interpretations and elaborations of sensory inputs at various places in brain at various stages
of editing. Some of the contents in these drafts make contributions to consciousness, some
others not. But there is no one place in the brain through which they have to pass to reach
consciousness. But Dennett’s theory is just a superficial narration and does not deal with the
core mystery of consciousness. There is no doubt that there are multiple drafts or parallel
processings in the brain. But how are they guided? If they are probed – which structure in brain
do the job of probing? And why it probes selectively some and not others? Also it does not
disclose the mechanisms of probings. According to this theory, the subjective sequence of
events is not the same as the objective sequence. To support his theory, he put forward Kolers’
experiment of color phi phenomenon.
When two different colored circles, say red and green, were lit for 150 msec, one after
another at an interval of 50 msec, the first circle seemed to move from its place to the second
one’s place as that happens in movies. But what happened to its color? The experiment showed
the first circle appeared to change its color to the color of the second one at the middle of its
illusory path.
The question is how we can see it to change the color before we see the second circle?
Multiple drafts theory explains, as already said, consciousness does not experience on the same
timeline as the things happen. But is it so?
The answer is different. Mind does not see always what eyes see. What we see partly
depends on what we want to see, or what we anticipate to see. Actually, we do not see the color
change, we only conceive it. Before seeing an object, the mind covers eyes’ vision of it with
 11

its imagination that comes from or is built upon our pre-embedded associated memories [Das,
2018a]. What happens in this case has been explained in the following diagram (Fig.3).

Fig. 3: Explanation of color phi phenomenon

Now, why mind imagines at Z time? Because we are accustomed to see motion of objects
even if they may change a bit in shapes or colors – like objects moving from shadow to light
with changed color, or moving objects changing shapes viewed from different angles or
distances. And they are all depended on associative strengths of pre-embedded associated
memories (for details see article Das, 2018a). Here guided by the previous cue, the mind
perceives motions with color change without breaking the congruity of the event as it happens
when we watch movies.

(B) The second possibility is there could be a central structure or group of structures in the
brain through which some activities of parts of the brain come into consciousness where other
activities do not. This general structure could be thalamus, basal ganglia, or upper brainstem,
because damage to these structures is mostly associated with loss of consciousness in case of
traumatic brain injuries and cerebrovascular strokes (either infarction on hemorrhage). In my
medical experience, I have seen, in case of cerebrovascular strokes (either infarction or
hemorrhage) involving wide area of cerebral cortical region, the patients have retained
consciousness though in an altered or confusional state. But intracerebral hemorrhage in
capsular region pressing thalamus and basal ganglia have sent the patients to vegetative state.
In figure 4, there are two images of CT scan of two patients. The first patient had prosthetic
mitral valve and was on oral anticoagulants. She had a large intraparenchymal hemorrhage in
 12

left fronto-parietal region with perilesional oedema. Posterior fossa structures – brain stem,
cerebellum were normal. The patient was admitted with headache and confusion and she never
lost consciousness. After 2 days, when she was stable, I checked her consciousness thoroughly.
She was well verbally communicative but a little confused and her GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale)
was E4M6V4. She could speak her name and other personal information, could count fingers,
and obey verbal commands. But she lacked in some judgemental thinking, because when I first
showed her four fingers and asked the number, she answered within seconds correctly
(probably from memory retrieval), but when I took one finger off and asked again, she got
confused and took long time before she finally answered with a smile of embarrassment for her
inability. The given CT scan was done on repeat after 5 days of incidence. The second patient
was admitted with acute infract in left parieto-occipital region and encephalomalacic changes
in right gangliocapsular region, but the patient was conscious and her GCS was E4M6V4.
Though she was also in a confusional state, she could speak her name and was verbally
communicative. The given CT scan was done at the time of admission. Most of the
neuroimaging and other researches are in favour of the fact that thalamus, basal ganglia, and
basal forebrain are the seat of consciousness [Fiset et al., 1999; Lull et al., 2010; Xie et al.,
2011; Langsjo et al., 2012; Lutkenhoff, 2015; Weng et al., 2017]. And the connections between
thalamus, cerebral cortex, and limbic system maintain the integrity of the consciousness. Karen
Ann Quinlan went to vegetative state after a cardio-pulmonary arrest and died after 10 years
while throughout this time, she never regained consciousness. Her post-mortem analysis of
brain showed disproportionately severe and bilateral damage in the thalamus as compared with
the damage in the cerebral cortex [Kinney et al., 1994].
Now, if thalamus is the central seat of consciousness, our consciousness is also unified through
intrathalamic connections, as thalamus is paired structures. Studies have shown that loss of
consciousness is more severe in case of bilateral damage of thalamus than unilateral damage
of thalamus [Moe et al., 2018].
Reticular activating system (RAS) is responsible for level of arousal and maintains sleep-wake
cycle. But sleep is not equivalent of unconsciousness. Though, some researches have found
involvement of RAS in loss of consciousness [Yeo et al., 2013], RAS is not the seat of
consciousness, because loss of consciousness can occur even without involvement of it.
Quinlan had intact arousal in spite of extensive bilateral damage in the thalamus because of
relative sparing of extra-thalamic ascending reticular activating system [Kinney et al., 1994].
 13

Fig. 4: CT scans of patients with (1) intraparenchymal haemorrhage in left front-parietal

region, and (2) acute infract in left parieto-occipital region.

So, even though the parallel progress of several works – intellectual, emotional, perceptual,
and motor activities can stream in our brain at the same time, only selective of them comes into
our consciousness through thalamo-cortical network. Thalamus is also responsible for
attention, though attention and consciousness are closely similar. The drive for attention comes
from concurrent potential environmental stimuli (stimuli that either have high-graded
perceptual sensation, or stimuli that have major effects on emotions – practically these two are
inter-related) and the emotional pressure from the limbic system. And then, they are adjusted
by the intellectual works of frontal cortex. So, for integrity of consciousness, connections of
thalamus with limbic system and frontal cortex (through anterior cingulate) are so much
important. This is the reason why when certain portion of the cerebral cortex is damaged
sparing thalamus and adjacent structures, some specific functions of cortex and associative
memories are disturbed, and functions of some arena of consciousness is lost; but
consciousness, as it is, remains alive, though with confusional integrity.
So, we can hypothetically postulate thalamus play the role of central processing unit. It works
in several stages. At the first stage, it gets information from environment through sensory
organs, and gets emotional drives from limbic system. Then it determines the position about
the effects of environment on emotional drives. At the 2nd stage, it employs house of
intelligence (frontal cortex) for attentional activities and future actions in favour of emotional
drives after considering environment. In the 3rd stage, it brings necessary contents and activities
into consciousness through attention, and engage other activities in automatism without
attention. Thalamus does this by conferring special attributes (some electro-chemical changes
in state of neurons) upon destined neurons of specific regions of the cortex through thalamo-
 14

cortical pathways (Fig.5). The basal ganglia play an important role in automatic functionality.
The whole process is executed in a very short time, even within fraction of seconds, while
rendering intermediate processings subconscious. For that, while we pay special attention to
any object in our visual field, we cannot often follow why it is so special, being ignorant of the
underlying processings as described.
Split-brain experiments pioneered by Nobel laureate Roger Sperry, show our two hemispheres
act independently, like motor activities of left-sided limbs are controlled by right hemisphere,
and vice versa; visual information processing of the right-sided visual field done by the left
visual cortex and vice versa [Gazzaniga, 2005]. But even though perception is divided in split-
brain patients, their consciousness remain undivided [Pinto et al., 2017]. This emphasizes that
seat of consciousness does not locate in cerebral cortex, but it resides in much deeper structures
below the level of corpus callosum.
Unilateral neglect is seen in patients with considerable damage of one-sided cerebral cortex.
Here though consciousness remains functional, due to loss or damage of one-sided cortex, it’s
functional perimetry becomes constricted. As perceptual sensory nerve fibers decussate before
reaching thalamus, this constriction of attentional world occurs in contralateral side of the
damage. Though some studies indicate unilateral neglect can occur also in thalamic strokes
without any cortical involvement, [Karussis et al., 2000; Renzi et al., 1989], findings in most
of the researches do not support this [Bartolomeo et al., 1998; Leibovitch et al., 1998;
Behrmann et al., 2003; Hillis et al., 2005; Buxbaum, 2006 – review; List et al., 2007; Verdon
et al., 2010]. Whatever it is, the thalamo-cortical network of one-sided cerebral cortex is
disrupted in different degrees in patients with unilateral neglect. This unilateral neglect also
involves imaginary thinking. Bisiach and Luzzatti took patients with damages in right-sided
cerebral cortex and showing left-sided neglect. Then they asked them to think of the famous
Cathedral Square of Milan when they entered it from one side. They described all the things
on their right side and ignored things on left side. But when they were asked to imagine to enter
it from the opposite side, they described again all the things on there right side that were ignored
before [Bisiach & Luzzatti, 1978; Blackmore & Troscianko, 2018]. Here all the memories have
been shared and stored through corpus callosum in both hemispheres. But perimetry of
consciousness of visual field has been constricted. When right-sided thalamus probes right-
sided cortex for imagining left-sided visual field, it fails in its job.
Then again comes the question – ‘Is this consciousness-structure of brain passive or active?’.
If it is passive, then there is no control of us on that which activity of mind will come into our
consciousness. But that is not so. So, we have to presume this consciousness-structure is active.
This activity of consciousness structure is guided by environmental stimuli through sensory
perceptions, emotional pressures from limbic system, and intellectual workings and adjustment
from frontal cortex. Whenever there develops a conscious or subconscious wish (depending on
emotional pressure, environmental stimuli, and intellectual adjustment), it orders our parts of
brain to work accordingly. For example, to try to solve something this wish (conscious or
 15

subconscious) orders the house of intelligence3 or frontal cortex; to try to express emotion this
would order the house of emotion or limbic system; to try to do some motor activities it would
order the house of PA or premotor/motor cortex. Now these activities may remain subconscious
or may enter into consciousness, both by this common consciousness structure (Fig.5).

3
# Intelligence is serialization of received or stored information in such a sequence that would produce a specific
outcome towards a target [Das, 2016].
 16

Fig. 5: Thalamus, Consciousness, and The Subconscious (IC = Internal Capsule, CR = Corona Radiata)
 17

However, with further more researches, we may be able to locate the actual sites of
consciousness, but how this specific sites or structures bring certain functions of brain into our
consciousness is far more beyond our understanding. We need to go a long way for that. But
here we have provided a possible explanation of the hard problem of consciousness.
Hard problem of the consciousness:
The consciousness actually is a series of bits of feelings. The feeling that is similar to the bit of
feeling that was first felt by a primitive organism as a sense of pain that directed the organism’s
movement away from a noxious stimulus. That first felt bit of pain by a primitive organism
through some equivalent machinery to developed nervous system signalized the birth of
‘consciousness’. More the animals evolved, had the feelings been diversified in their sensations
differing in their anatomical, physiological, and biochemical properties. In man, these feelings
have been diversified into wide varieties of sensations different in their qualia – perceptual
feelings (taste, vision, audition, olfaction, somatosensation, proprioception) and emotional
feelings (love, anger, fear, etc.). These feelings are generated by certain electro-chemical
alterations of states of specified neurons. These bits of feelings can be stored as memories for
a time span by an alternate mechanism in specified neurons and can be retrieved or relayed to
other specified neurons. Memory retrieval is recollection of these information from the stores
that may or may not come to feelings depending on conscious or subconscious activity. When
we think of the letter ‘A’, we think it by the stored visual or auditory impression of it. So are
for words and sentences. Intelligence is serialization of the memories of these bits of feelings
in such a sequence that would produce a desired outcome (which is fostered by different
emotional drives). For example, when I am hungry, I get a feeling of ‘hunger’ which is
perception as well as emotion (‘hunger’, ‘thirst’, ‘sex’, and ‘love’ have both emotional and
perceptional features; Das, 2016, 2018). Next this bit of feeling invokes the bit of feeling of
visual memory of desired food. Subsequently, that bit of feeling educes the bit of feeling of
visual memory of where the food is kept. The first bit of feeling is an emotional drive, the
second two are visual perceptual feelings (retrieved from memory) serialized by house of
intelligence (frontal cortex) through cortico-cortical inter-neuron connectivities. These inter-
neuron connectivities are selectively more strengthened through repeated use in specific ways,
making our thinking more fluent. Learning of language with its rules has made the process of
memory retrieval and intellectualization more sophisticated. Thus, our consciousness is
dependent on series of multitudes of bits of feelings – coming from direct senses, memory
retrieval, and intellectual processes (Fig.6). These bits of feelings are engendered by the altered
electro-chemical state of the related cortical neurons, and as already stated this altered state is
endowed by the selective drives coming from the thalamic neurons which in turn is regulated
by emotional drives coming from limbic system. In subconscious mind, this selective drive is
absent, so, we do not experience feelings. When we are engrossed in a mind-boggling novel,
we do not feel mild pain, what sounds are around there. Similarly, we do not feel subconscious
memory retrieval or intellectualization processes.
Difference with emotional feelings from that of perceptual feelings is that emotional feelings
have been associated with motivation as described in emotion model (Das, 2016, 2017).
 18

Perceptual feelings are informative and do not have attached strong motivation, yet we do not
like excessive pressure, temperature, light, sounds, and try to avoid them. Here motivation is
engendered by the fact that the altered electro-chemical state of the responsible emotion
producing neurons is an unstable state, and this state has a propensity to change into another
more stable state, just like sodium always tends to react with water or moisture to make its
stable compound. In case of perceptual feeling, the altered electro-chemical state just dies out
after a time span. Self-consciousness only emerges because that bit of feeling of ‘hunger’ by
me can only be quenched if the food is taken through my mouth. All our emotional drives are
driving us all throughout ours lives for the maximum (? Or optimum) satisfaction of them but
not for satisfying others’ emotions; and thus create our self-identity and our selfishness. Some
may argue, but ‘love’, ‘altruism’, ‘empathy’ are also emotions, the benefits of which are
directed to others. Purposes of every emotion have been described in detail in my earlier
literature.

Fig. 6: Mechanisms of Action of Consciousness

 19

Our life can easily be compared with that sodium craving for water or moisture to get its
stability through making a stable compound, but there is a leak. Think there is a cistern whose
utmost desire is to be filled up with water at its brink. And it has engaged you to the task of
fulfillment of its desire. But there is a leak at its bottom. So, you are laboriously trying to fulfill
its desire to fill it up at the brink, but can never be satisfied that your work has been done even
at the endpoint of your life, because the leak is always draining. Today you are hungry, and
treated yourself with a grand feast, tomorrow you will again feel the pang of hunger. Once
billionaire man is still searching for happiness, fulfillment. Your work could only be done
either if this cistern is destroyed, or you are disengaged from the task of fulfilling its desire.
But to what extent is this cistern necessary for our consciousness? The answer is ‘to a great
extent’. Schizophrenic patients suffering from emotional apathy cannot execute goal-oriented
thinking, they are automatically obedient to others’ orders (automatic obedience), and show
poor self-care and self-hygiene. Their conscious world is different from ours, though it is not
possible to experience their inner world by others.

V. Procedural Memory: An example of Subconscious’ Latent Function

Usually memories, upon their mode of retrieval, has been classified into two groups.
(1) Declarative Memory - the memories which we recall consciously. It includes all
conscious recollection of facts and events. (2) Procedural Memory - the memories whose
retrieval occurs unconsciously, and which come effective without awareness of conscious
mind; like riding a bicycle, playing a musical instrument etc.
But there is some misconception about procedural memories.
Procedural memories very often have been linked to those memories which have been
learned or acquired through repetitive processes over time, or through different phases. But
that is not true.
The true fact is –
Procedural memory is recalled subconsciously. But we can recall it consciously also.
While one is driving a car, he recalls how to drive a car subconsciously. But he can perform
the task recalling it consciously also.
(1) Procedural memory does not mean learning only motor skills. When someone is
reading a novel, he visualizes the facts in it without giving attentions to the
language and grammar. The comprehension of language and grammar is being
accomplished in his subconscious mind automatically.

(2) The automatic performance of recalling of memories is not only applicable to the
memories which has been consolidated by the repetitive processes, but automatic
activation is also applicable to the memories which has been consolidated through
emotional charges. As learning to drive a car may involve great emotion. It may not
be a memory that has been consolidated through repetition. An enthusiastic student
may learn it very quickly and then can perform the task automatically and
subconsciously. Even one single event of learning, consolidated by great emotional
 20

changes, can make a process feasible for automatic performance. It all depends on
the association strength between stimulus units and target activities in the process.
So, there may not be serial phases in associative learning, to render a learned activity
automatic.
(3) Besides recalling of memory, intellectual processes, emotional adjustments can also
be performed automatically. In case of comprehension of language and grammar
while reading a novel, there is automatic performance of ‘house of intelligence’ and
‘house of memory’. In case of riding a bicycle, there is automatic performance of
‘house of memory’ and ‘house of physical activity’. As we have already said, our
conscious thinking can focus only on one subject at one time, but all other activities
of the houses continue in our subconscious mind.

(4) Automatism of motor activities involve corpus striatum (caudate nuclei and
lentiform nuclei), because involvement of corpus striatum in pathogenic lesions
tends to lead disappearance of associated movements, e.g., swinging of arms while
walking [Koshi, 2018]. However, basal ganglia may play roles in automatism of
other houses also [Packard, 2002; Lanciego, 2012].

So automatic recalling of memories, which according to the popular notion is known as

procedural memory, is nothing but the subconscious activities of any one or more of the houses
of our brain initiated by our conscious demand, being effective in a practical way [Das, 2016].
And it carries all the features of subconscious’ activities.
Whenever our conscious mind chooses to pursue a goal, it automatically involves our
subconscious mind also. When one chooses to read a novel, he automatically involves his
subconscious mind also to interpret the grammar and language (subconscious activities of
‘house of memory’ and ‘house of intelligence’), when one chooses to drive a car, he
automatically involves his subconscious mind also to regulate the motor activities
(subconscious activities of ‘house of memory’ and ‘house of physical activities’).
But subconscious is always being auto-activated also. But for that, emotional pressure is
essential (elaborated later). For example, someone is driving a car, his conscious desire has put
subconscious to take the necessary actions. Now, if suddenly a car from sideways comes in
front of it, he will startle in fear, and automatically press the brake or take whatever actions
taking help of the stored memories. No conscious intervention is needed for that immediate
reflex reactions. Here, the subconscious is automatically activated and guided by the emotional
subjugative impact on ‘fear’ emotional scale.
All sudden reflex activities of subconscious are guided by emotional stresses. As seeing
another car in front, we automatically press on brake; watching a snake before us we reflexively
jump back. All these are the activities of subconscious. Here, they are guided by sudden impact
on ‘fear’ emotional scale. Visual memory subconsciously put subjugative threat on a particular
emotional scale ‘fear’, and stress or pressure derived from it instantly direct further
subconscious activities of ‘house of intelligence’ and ‘house of physical activities’. These
 21

emotional pressures can lead to positive activity also. For example, seeing our beloved ones
after a long time, we jump up in exhilaration. Here, subconscious activities are guided by
upjugative pressure on ‘love’ emotional scale. When there is a threat on AR (adaptive range)
for moving to negativeward direction, we act negatively to resist it, when there is a chance for
AR to move to positiveward direction, we act positively to support it. Otherwise, a constant
emotional pressure for moving AR from negativeward location to positiveward location on all
emotion scales builds our general motivation. The emotional world of our mind is like a spring
in watch. When greatly coiled or pressed, it produces driving energy of life. And our happiness
is related with it. More the spring is released, or more the ARs move to positive direction, more
we become happy. But our happiness is differential in respect of different emotions. A person
could be happy with all other emotions, but unhappy concerning a particular emotion if on that
emotional scale AR is still sitting on negative location. Like that old story – the king was happy
in everyways, only grief was the king had no children (depleted in ‘love’ emotion).
But can subconscious be primed with any goal? Though, Bargh and his colleagues [Bargh
et al., 2001] reported success in their experiments of high-performance goal priming, later
many experimental works failed to replicate their findings, making their literature vulnerable
to skepticisms [Harris et al., 2013; Shanks et al., 2013]. To explain and elaborate this issue, we
will discuss it under next heading ‘priming’.

VI. Priming

What is priming? Priming means exposure to a particular stimulus may also influence a
person’s response to a subsequent stimulus without the person’s any conscious application of
efforts or intervention.
Now priming is a part of implicit memory, or it is the work of subconscious for retrieval
of memory. Whenever we consciously recollect any memory or do anything that evokes our
past memories, that retrieval affects our subsequent actions. This is true for actions of all of the
houses, whether they are in conscious state or subconscious state.
Before going to deeper discussions, we will categorize memories a little bit. House of
memory includes perceptual memories – the memories of our perceptions, and factual
memories that include all of our factual knowledge through vision and audition. But besides
these, house of memory also includes stored memories of activities of other houses. For
example, we remember our emotional feelings, our intellectual activities (how we solved a
math), and also physical memories (how to walk, ride a bicycle or play a guitar). From this
perspective, we can categorize memories in four broad classes – (1) Informational memories
(2) Intellectual memories (3) Emotional memories (4) Motor memories.
Informational memories can again be subclassified into two sections – (a) Factual
memories, and (b) Perceptual memories.
Factual memory is composed of that which we receive as facts and concepts through vision
and audition that constitute our general knowledge. Perceptual memories are composed of that
 22

which we receive through our different senses – like (i) visual memory, (ii) auditory memory,
(iii) gustatory memory, (iv) olfactory memory, (v) tactile memory, (vi) stereotactic memory.
Now, all these memories are connected with neural interconnections as already said all of
the four houses are connected with each other through neural pathways. So, arousal of any
informational or factual memory can also induce the arousal of an emotional memory. If
someone once suffered and injured by ‘fire’, just visual exposure to the word ‘fire’, would also
educe emotion ‘fear’ from memories of his past sufferings of pain by it. If someone is
romantically related to one, just visual exposure to her name would flare up his past romantic
feelings associated with the name.
Even if, we were not exposed to something in past, yet we conceive new emotions from
our general knowledge. For example, one even if never confronted with a ‘tiger’ before, will
also form a weak emotional memory of ‘fear’ from general knowledge and concepts.

Сan some memories be hereditary?

Every house of the mind can achieve some memories through the heredity of the organism.
It is clearly visible if we watch behaviours of animals. We had pet dogs at our home – Germen
Shepard and Spaniel. We brought them when they were only two or three weeks of age. After
that, they seldom saw their own species. Yet when they grew up, they showed behaviours (way
of sitting, greeting, waving tails, and many other minute and specific ones) that could be
typically found in the same species anywhere in the world. They did not learn it through
observations of parents and others in the species. It intrigued my mind how it is possible if
some part of our memory and subsequent behaviours is not hereditary.
This example asserts that some memories of us we receive through our genetical heritage.
And it could be true to all types of memories, even emotional memories. Fear of water for cats
is universal. We do not learn to walk watching how other walks. This motor memory expresses
itself automatically as we grow up. In ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s famous experiment with
ducklings, ducklings followed Lorenz instead of their mother as they first saw him in a specific
stage of development. But the instruction of following was hereditary.
Now, the arousal of any memory of a particular house as well as related or associated
memories from other houses, would all influence our subsequent actions, may it be conscious
or subconscious. We call priming when it occurs subconsciously.
It is noteworthy that arousal of a memory of a particular house by a stimulus also affects
subsequent actions of that house. If one word is recollected, it becomes easier to subsequently
recollect that word or related words. When we try to do a mathematics on a particular field
after a long time that we learned very well, at first instance, it seems to be difficult, but in the
following instances it becomes easier again. When we try to play a musical instrument after a
long time that we learned it, initially we feel a bit awkward. But subsequently it becomes again
fluent. All these examples relate the actions of a particular house. But the evoking a memory
of a particular house by a stimulus can also evoke related memory from another house – that
 23

means any visual memory can educe any associated emotional memory also which similarly
influences subsequent actions of that house.
Bargh and Chen, in their famous series of experiments, showed that exposure of the
participants in a specific way (e.g., scramble-sentence task) to some words related with
particular concepts (e.g., rude, polite, old age), also modulated the subsequent behaviours of
the participants [Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996]. Here the visual memories of words related
to old age also induced weak emotional memories associated with those words. Those
emotional memories were constructed based upon knowledge of facts and concepts. For that,
this arousal of memories worked for not just recollection of related words, but also worked for
their emotional feelings. And all collectively influenced their subsequent actions and
behaviours; just like reading a ghost story, our mind becomes fearful, and that affects our
subsequent actions also.
Now, we come to the goal-oriented priming. Why many researchers failed to reproduce the
positive results? Before that explanation, we will have to clarify what makes our goal or what
directs our motivation. We will discuss it under the following heading.

VII. What Makes Our Goal?

All of our four houses of mind are guided by emotional drives as emotion has been defined
as “a specific sensation or feeling in the mind that provides directional drive to the other
faculties of the mind – memory, intelligence, and physical activities – for their actions to be
performed to pursue a specific goal” [Das, 2016]. This emotional drive comes from the pressure
on an emotional scale (Fig.7) either from subjugation or upjugation, as our mind’s goal is to
move the adaptive range (AR) from its negativeward location towards positiveward location
on an emotional scale or increase the mental status of the organism in respect of any emotional
scale (consult emotional subjugation and upjugation in emotion model) [Das, 2016, 2017].
For example, we desire to eat when we feel hungry (i.e., subjugated on ‘hunger’ emotional
scale). We desire to take revenge when we feel angry (subjugated on ‘anger’ emotional scale).
 24

Fig. 7: An Emotional scale: The location of AP and AR is not fixed on an emotional scale. The
tendency of AR to move from negative to positive direction establishes our goal (both
conscious and subconscious) and designates the driving force of our entire life.

These emotional impulses created out of emotional stresses on different emotional scales
drive all of our activities of four major houses of brain (memory, intelligence, emotion, and
physical activities), and determine our conscious as well as subconscious desires and
motivation. A person when hungry or subjugated on ‘hunger’ emotion scale, will desire to take
food. When his hunger has been adequately satisfied there would be no desire till further
subjugation occurs. Whenever you think of an interesting topic like as you are reading about
subconscious now, you are driven by your emotion ‘curiosity’ of your mind. Without it, you
would not feel to read it, unless you are reading it for other purposes. This is true for all other
emotions also. Emotional expression is also part of these activities (house of emotion), where
emotional drives try to express it out to combat subjugative stresses. For example, someone
took out his ‘anger’ on his spouse and got relieved. All these emotional stresses on different
emotional scales collectively determine our desires, motivation and future activities. And this
is true equally for both of our conscious and subconscious mind.

Now, how our conscious mind works?

Our consciousness is like wandering flow of thoughts, thinking on one topic at one
moment, again shifting to another topic in next moment. This stream is guided by two factors.
One is emotional pressure; another is environmental stimuli.
(1) First, we will come to the emotional pressure. There are different emotions in ours
mind. And every moment, they are in different adaptive conditions. Depending on
these adaptive conditions, emotional pressures are created. The adaptive ranges (AR)
are not fixed locations on emotional scales. They are always changing their positions
depending upon various emotional stimuli (derived both from present environmental
stimuli and past unneutralised emotional memories) acting upon that emotional scale
for that moment (Das, 2016, 2017, 2018). And the location of the AR on any emotional
scale at any moment determines the emotional pressure at that moment. More the AR
located towards negative side, more emotional pressure would be produced by that
emotional scale.
Our conscious thought is primarily guided by these emotional pressures. For example,
A hungry person would try to think over getting food. His ‘hunger’ being satisfied, he
would switch his thinking to other issues propelled by other emotional pressures. For
example, one reading a knowledgeable book searching for knowledge driven by his
passion of ‘curiosity’; one thinking sexual thoughts driven by sexual emotion; and so
on other emotions – ‘love’, ‘anger’, ‘fear’, ‘utsaha’. But the seriality of conscious
thoughts is not always concomitant with severity of emotional pressures.
 25

Environmental stimuli or contexts play a great role in case of conscious thinking. And
that would come as a second guiding factor.
(2) If one introspects, he would find that he does not think the same way when he is in a
family or friends gathering and when he is alone in an isolated room. When
environmental stimuli act upon, conscious thinking becomes prone to be influenced by
them to a certain extent disregarding the seriality of severity of different emotional
pressures. But whenever environmental stimuli are absent or minimal, the severity of
emotional pressures start to act upon. For example, any humorous and buoyant family
or friends gathering may divert a person’s thought about any underlying severe worry
or ‘fear’. But whenever the person gets alone, the thought about his ‘fear’ recurs to
him.
Conscious mind takes into account the availability of the situation to serve emotional
pressures or fulfill wishes, can adjust activities for future better gratifications of them,
and to a certain extent suppress or compromise with its desire considering social and
moral obligations. For example, someone is hungry and he sees there is a shop where
low quality meal is being served. But he knew that if he could take few steps, there was
another shop where high quality meal was available at the same price. In this case, his
conscious mind would delay his desire being fulfilled for better gratification. If anybody
is angry on someone, but the situation says that it is not wise to express his ‘anger’, he
would consciously inhibit his desire for future fulfillment. However, here should be
added that delaying of emotional pressure, can initiate adaptation procedure. For
example, if someone neglects his ‘hunger’ for a time, after a time, he would feel reduced
hunger. Though ‘hunger’ has perceptional stimuli coming from hypothalamic receptors
that would act continuously, it is more prominent in case of other emotions (for details,
see Das, 2016, 2017).

Now we will come to how subconscious’ activity is different from conscious

thought or activity.
(1) The primary drive of conscious mind is equally applicable to subconscious mind.
Emotional pressures act on in the same way as they act on in conscious mind. But
subconscious is less inhibited by the environmental contexts. If someone is
profusely drunk, that blunts his consciousness, subconscious may resurface, and we
do things or express our emotions that we would not usually have done in a fully
conscious state. Our conscious mind, without neglecting the emotional stress, can
emotionally neutrally assess the future outcome, and adjust activities.
Subconscious' activities are devoid of these features, and though environmental
contexts modify our conscious activities, our subconscious relentlessly works upon
our emotional stresses. As already said, a humorous or buoyant friends or family
gathering can obliviate many underlying severe stresses of ours. But the
subconscious remains active on those. Whenever the person is alone, relaxed, or in
 26

sleep, subconscious resurfaces with its processed products of activities to

consciousness through intuitions, emotional urges or expressions, sudden retrieval
of memories, or through dreams in sleep (though in surreal ways). Usually, strong
environmental stimuli inhibit resurfacing of subconscious’ activities into
consciousness. Whenever environmental stimuli are absent or minimal, that means
the person is alone or in relaxed condition, there is a greater chance of subconscious’
resurfacing or projecting of its activities into our conscious mind.
However, environmental stimuli can act on subconscious only, when those stimuli
also exert great emotional impact, and create new emotional pressures; like jump
back in fear watching a snake, or jump in exhilaration seeing someone beloved. In
those cases, conscious mind does not give order to act in that way.
Our conscious and subconscious goals are not fixed. It depends on the severity of
emotional pressures. A malnourished child of a poor family would do many things
to get some food either consciously or subconsciously, a well-fed child of rich
family would not. When one emotion is adequately satisfied on continual basis, our
goal (both conscious & subconscious) also changes with regard to that emotion.
Some literatures have argued [Shiffrin & Dumais, 1981; Schneider & Fisk, 1982]
that specific situations or stimuli, strengthened through consistent encounters, can
initiate automatic subconscious processing and engender our subconscious goals.
But it is not completely true. It is acceptable to some extent that consistent training
makes any of our mental processes regarding certain stimuli easier and improved in
functioning. But emotional charges play a great role for it. An enthusiastic and
motivated student would learn many things even through single exposure. A non-
enthusiastic, unmotivated student would find difficulty in learning even after
repeated trainings. In Schneider & Fisk’s experiment, they selected target stimuli
as upper-case letters from English alphabet, which were emotionally neutral. So,
they found expected result.
In case of retrieval of that mental function either consciously or subconsciously, or
in automatic initiation of subconscious processes, it is not just the consistency of
the stimulus, but how the stimulus would relate to the then concomitant emotional
pressures of mind, is also important. In a hungry or thirsty state, we would be caught
by the sight of food or water more intently, even subconsciously (consider the
experiment by Strahan) [Strahan, 2002].
When we choose to fix consciously a long-term goal (like becoming a doctor, or
lawyer, or film star), we assume that reaching that goal would give us the chance to
serve better our emotional desires. And this positive thinking elevates our ‘mood’
or energy level of mind (‘mood’ is different from ‘emotions’, for details see Das
2016, 2017, 2018). This hunch equally works for our subconscious activities also.
And we work with elevated energy level or elated ‘mood’ towards that target. But
the drive comes from emotional desirous pressures acting behind. When we
 27

conceive that reaching that target would not satisfy our emotional desires, that
negative thinking depresses our ‘mood’ or energy level of mind and we experience
a feel from elation to depression.
(2) Some memories we can consciously retrieve. But there are many memories in our
mind that we cannot consciously retrieve though their impressions are still there in
our mind. When we consciously try to do something (like to recollect memories, to
solve any problem, to decide future activities), we can take only those memories
that are retrievable. On the other hand, our subconscious mind to do the same
activities can take help of the fairly faintest irretrievable memories also, and can
project its processed products into consciousness through intuition, sudden retrieval
of memory, dreams, etc. For example, in case of intuition, the solution suddenly
flashes in our mind, or intuition tells us to avoid something. But we fail often to
recognize how the solution flashed or why the urge for avoidance is. Whenever we
consciously try to do something, we engage concurrently our subconscious also,
only we are not aware or its undercurrent activities till its processed products
resurface to our conscious mind.
(3) Sometimes, our conscious activities are guided by socially imposed moral
obligations, taught principles etc. And we subdue our desires to a certain extent
from this perspective. Our subconscious activities are less propelled by such moral
obligations or preaching, if not these obligations impose threat or reward, i.e.,
pressure on emotional scales. From that respective, we can say our subconscious is
less moral than our conscious mind. In dreams, drunken state, or in many medical
conditions, where consciousness becomes clouded or blunted, we do talk or behave
like such that we would not have done if we were in fully conscious state.
(4) In nutshell, both of our subconscious and our conscious mind are very closely
related and works hand in hand, as both are the same activities of our four houses
of mind. Difference is the activities of subconscious involve wider area of inner
mind talking account of both consciously retrievable and irretrievable memories.
Whereas, our conscious mind takes into account the present surrounding situations
and concurrent environmental or sensory stimuli to adjust and compromise with
their activities. Subconscious only affected by environmental or sensory stimuli,
when they impose emotional pressure, either subjugative or upjugative. So, it could
be said, our subconscious mind takes more care of our inner world of mind and our
conscious mind take more care of our outer world.
 28

Fig. 8: Mechanisms of Activity guided by Primary Drive in both Conscious and Subconscious
Mind

So, emotional stresses on different emotional scales drive and determine equally both of
ours conscious and subconscious desires, motivation and future activities (Fig.8); but conscious
mind can adjust this drive considering the concurrent environment or surrounding situations
and compromise to a certain extent with social and moral obligations, whereas our
subconscious is less judgmental and less moral. But the ultimate goal of both is to derive the
greatest fulfillment of emotional desires out of life. Generally speaking, these emotional
stresses for moving AR from negative to positive entity on different emotional scales actually
direct all of our conscious and subconscious activities of brain as well as our entire active life.
There is no demarcating mark on an emotional scale beyond which a person can be called
either subjugated or upjugated on a particular emotional scale. But the mind works according
to the location of adaptive ranges on different emotional scales. For example, a person’s hunger
being satisfied, he will seek for other pleasurable activities, i.e., upjugation on other emotional
scales. But it should be asserted that this seriality of activities does not always depend on
severity of subjugation on different emotional scales. It depends also on availability for
upjugation on different emotional scales considering the concurrent environmental stimuli or
situation.
Our conscious and subconscious mind has influences on our unconscious activities of brain
also as explained earlier, but the emotional stresses or drives do not directly influence the
unconscious activities of brain. Like, urges for defecation and micturition, visceral pain, heart
rate and breath rate, cerebellar maintenance of posture and balance not dependent on emotional
drives. But their activities can be modulated by conscious and subconscious activities of four
 29

houses of mind, and thus they are indirectly dependent on emotional pressures through the
activities of conscious and subconscious mind.
Now, I will come to a serious question. Is it possible for our mind (either subconscious or
conscious) to deny our emotional drives or pressures?
To answer this, I should say we all in our civilized world live with some subjugations
coming from different quarters and subsequent adjustments. We cannot expect the adaptive
ranges (AR) on all of our emotional scales will stand on the extreme positive point. That would
throw us in a state or condition of extreme happiness with regards to all emotions. And I also
doubted in my previous articles whether the tendency of AR is to move from negativeward to
positiveward location or it is to move towards the center. Because in case of physical
perceptions we see, we do not like too much hot condition or too much cold condition, but
between the two – to an optimum condition. So is true for lights, sounds, pressure. Adaptational
processes for emotions and perceptions are not two much different in that sense. But the
difference comes from the idea that in case of both, if we are forced to stay with some points
of their degrees, we gradually get adapted with those points and when the AR resettles their
location, we do not feel any more sense from that. So, when we are forced to stay in hot climate
or noisy surroundings, we gradually perfectly fit with those and after a time, we do not feel any
distress. Similar things happen with emotions. We can adapt with a subjugative state. If we
work in an office, we will have to be subjugated to our higher authorities on ‘fear’ emotion
scale. We all units of social beings are subjugated on different emotions in different degrees in
different arenas or social world. For that, ARs on all of our emotional scales cannot stay on far
positiveward locations. But the difference with perceptions is that the subjugated location of
AR on any emotional scale produce an underlying sense of unfulfillment that leads to a feeling
of unhappiness. A person perfectly adapted to a hot climate, may not feel any desire to migrate
to a cold climate. We do not feel normal barometric pressure, but for that we do not show any
desire to move to a place where the pressure is less. But though an emotionally subjugated
mind at adapted state where AR has been completely relocated would not feel any emotional
destress, yet it would feel a sense of unhappiness towards life.
Now the initial question was – ‘Is it possible for our mind (subconscious or conscious) to
deny the emotional drives or desires?’ We can deny consciously our emotional drives and that
would initiate subconscious adaptational processes, eventually making us indifferent (not
feeling any distress) towards the situation. But if we ask introspectively ‘are we perfectly
happy?’, the answer would be most probably ‘no’. Through denial, we can get stability, but it
will incur some kind of unhappiness. So, to my view, it is better to adopt emotional control
than emotional denial. Again, over-happiness not all the time ensures subjective well-being. A
person will feel most emotionally stable and sufficient when his ARs would locate on the
midpoints of all emotional scales and fluctuate a little towards both sides of that point.
So, sometimes it is wise to say to your mind ‘Go there’, Enjoy yourself’, but not all the
time. Don’t eat all the time whatever you like or whatever you wish. But eat balanced food at
specified time. These are good for your mental as well as physical well-being. This
 30

superconsciousness is least prominent in animals; they are mainly guided by the primary drives.
Even in human, it is not equally dominant among all. I would not divide conscious mind into
another compartment of superconsciousness, but I would say it is just the higher form of
consciousness. Our conscious experience when we enjoy some movie or devour some tasty
food is at one form of consciousness. But whether we should watch that movie or discreetly
think about whether the food is healthy or not is another form of consciousness at a step higher.
However, the ultimate goal of our mind whether it is subconscious or conscious, is to serve our
all emotions adequately and sufficiently to attain sustained happiness in our life. And that effort
leads our life.
Also, I should add that this superconsciousness though minimal in animals, yet is not
altogether absent in them. A cat from my adjacent house was disturbing greatly, stealing foods
from kitchen. So, I put some poisonous powder inside a fresh fish and I put it on the way of it.
The cat when saw it, it smelled it, showed some features of suspicions in mind, and left. It did
not eat it.
Now, why did this superconsciousness develop? Obviously for its evolutionary advantage.
An organism with superconscious mind would live longer and achieve more success.
Now, what happens to goal-oriented priming?
In high-performance goal-oriented priming experiment, Bargh et al. used words like ‘win’,
‘compete’, ‘succeed’, ‘master’ etc. to prime the subjects. But do these words arouse any
emotions of us? – Possibly not. Our positive thinking cannot be forcibly induced. Positive
thinking depends of our thoughts conceiving of that fact that there is possibility of gratification
of our emotional desires. If our mind cannot conceive it itself; it also cannot do positive
thinking. It could be done through persuasion. For that, gurus, mentors, self-help literature are
so popular. But without that, just visual exposure to the word ‘success’ cannot induce positive
thinking or create elevated ‘mood’ in a mind4.
But if we feed our mind with such information that are emotionally related, or will help
our concurrent subjective emotional goals or stresses, the subconscious activities will be
certainly guided by them. Theses emotional goals or stresses are both person-specific and time-
specific. A person may have some emotion with greater magnitude; but his emotional stress
could be neutral, or less, or great depending upon on what position of emotional scale his
adaptive range (AR) is lying in a particular moment [Das, 2016, 2017]. And the emotional
stress of that emotion of that particular time will guide our subconscious mind accordingly for
that moment.
Have you ever experienced that when you had been very hungry but slept, you saw the
dreams of food, but not in the case when you slept in well-fed state? Dream is projection of
subconscious’ activity on conscious mind. So, a depressed mind’s goal cannot be primed with

4
# “Positive thinking causes ‘mood’ elevation or elation, negative thinking causes ‘mood’ degradation or
depression” – Das, 2016, 2017, 2018.
 31

a positive word without persuasion, and that raised the question for the success of goal-oriented
priming.
Goal-oriented priming is possible only with emotionally related stimuli and of course, if
there is emotional pressure in mind in that direction at that moment. If you have a strong desire
to do something, like writing this article for me, just feed your mind with necessary information
the mind will automatically and subconsciously work upon it.

VIII. How Subconscious Influences Our Attitude, Behaviours, and

Personality?

“Every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought that we think, leaves
such an impression on the mind-stuff, and even when such impressions are not obvious on the
surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, subconsciously. What we are
every moment is determined by the sum total of these impressions on the mind. What I am just
at this moment is the effect of the sum total of all the impressions of my past life. This is really
what is meant by character; each man’s character is determined by the sum total of these
impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good; if bad, it becomes bad.”
– Swami Vivekananda [Vivekananda, 1896]
Swami Vivekananda was a spiritual leader, and this article is pursued based on naked
science, leaving no space for spirituality. Yet his above-mentioned words have much truth than
anyone else’s.
What makes our personality? It has been discussed in details in the book [Das, 2016], and
the article [Das, 2017]. I will briefly enumerate that here.
As already said, our behaviours are guided by the emotional pressures. But how these
emotional pressures are exerted? The same emotional stimulus makes a person angry but may
not make other. And that differentiates the personalities of the two. But why same emotional
stimulus affects differentially different persons? It depends on the position of AR (adaptive
range) on that person’s that particular emotional scale. Any stimulus evoking on the negative
side of the AR would evoke negative response (e.g., the person would be angry), and if it
evokes on the positive side of the AR, the person would be satisfied. If it evokes response
within AR or adaptive range, the person would remain neutral.
Now, how this position of AR is determined on different emotional scales? It depends on
our unneutralised emotional memories. Memories of different types have already been
described earlier in this article. Of all memories, only emotional memories determine the
position of AR. Many factual memories in our lives are associated with emotional memories
like feelings of first dating, feeling at some beloved one’s death. The difference between factual
memory and emotional is on repeated recollections, factual memory gets stronger but the
emotional memory becomes weaker. The reason is at each recollection the subject expresses
 32

out some of the emotion. So, in subsequent recollection, a person feels lesser degree of emotion.
And after a number of recollections, the emotional memory virtually dies out.
Now all these emotional memories of different strengths either positive or negative of a
particular emotion ultimately fix the position of AR or adaptive range. And with respect to
these ARs on different emotional scales, a person’s behaviours and attitudes are discerned
when new emotional stimulus is inflected on him. And as a whole, that builds the personality
that we hold.
But here must be added that genetical heritage of emotions is also important. If one does
not possess an emotion at all, or possesses an emotion with minute magnitude, emotional
pressure created by it will also be of lesser magnitude.
According to Sigmund Freud, the ‘unconscious’ is a dynamic system. Its contents and
processes are kept from conscious awareness through the force of censorship or repression of
instinctual drives which are primarily the derivatives of sexual instincts. The unconscious
activity is guided by the ‘primary process thinking’ aimed at fulfillment of wishes and governed
by pleasure principle. It lacks logical connections and denies the existence of negatives. It is
unnecessary to say how close Freud grasped the true essence of unconscious more than a
century ago.
But there are some flaws in his theory of unconscious.
(1) Freud’s tendency to orient present behavioural or personality problems with hidden
sexual thoughts in childhood is not proper. ‘Sex’ is just one of the emotions. And it is
also not a complete emotion. Like ‘hunger’, ‘thirst’ it is also half-emotion and half-
perception. ‘Hunger’, ‘thirst’, ‘sex’, have both features of an ‘emotion’ and ‘sensory
perception’ [Das, 2016, 2017]. Whatever it is, any particular emotion cannot determine
our present personality, it depends on aggregation of impulses from all the emotions.
(2) Freud’s theory particularly emphasizes on memories suppressed in distant past or
childhood. But any emotional memory whether it is stored unneutralised in distant past
or it is stored moments ago, would equally affect our behaviours and personality. How
they would affect that depends on their strength rather than the time of their being
stored. As already said, with repeated recollections, emotional memory dies out little
by little because with each recollection, it expresses out some of its emotions. And
after a time of repeated recollections, only the factual memory will stay there in the
mind, but associated emotional memory will be lost.
For example, if you were greatly shocked at the loss of your romantic partner, or at the
death of someone beloved of yours, and after that you repeatedly recollected those,
your emotional feelings would gradually be diminished. And after a time, you would
remember only the fact of loss of them, but would not feel the associated emotions.
Besides repeated recollections, emotional memories also die out over time because of
subconscious expression of emotions.
 33

So, there is less chance of memories repressed in distant past compared to recent ones
to affect your present personality and behaviours. You would not be the same person
as you were in your childhood, if there are lots of ups and downs and many changes of
surroundings in your life. Any major emotional impact would change you a little to
make you a bit different person from your previous self.
(3) Freud also did not differentiate the types of memories. It is not the factual memory but
the emotional memory that determines our attitude and behaviours. But the factual
memories help in other ways. For example, if you see a tiger in front of you, you will
be greatly afraid. Here no past emotional memory is involved unless you fought with
a tiger in past and won against it. The knowledge about a tiger what it can do to you
would create new emotion of fear within you. Again, if you see it in a cage in the zoo,
you would not be afraid at all. Here also your knowledge that it has not the power to
break the iron bars of cage, keeps you indifferent.

(4) Freud differentiated between primary and secondary process thinking as the features
of unconscious and conscious mind. According to him, primary process disregards
logical connections and existence of negatives. But in true sense, there are not many
differences between our subconscious and conscious thinking as they are conducted
by the same areas of brain. They both follow logical connections and abide by
existence of negatives. Practically, emotional pressures by whose direction
subconscious (also the conscious) acts are determined by the positions of AR (adaptive
range) on emotional scales. And this position is fixed by both positive and negative
impulses acting on the emotional scales. Only difference is conscious mind can adjust
their activities considering the concurrent environmental context, and to a certain
extent, inhibit its desirous activities against social and moral obligations.
Subconscious’ desirous activities can also be checked by morality, if they pose with
threat or reward.

Yet, accepting all these flaws, Freud’s concept of unconscious mind and its recesses of
repressed thoughts, desires, and memories more than a century ago has always stood as a
lighthouse to direct the curious perusal of under-covered mind by the following academics.

IX. Can Subconscious Perceive Subliminal Stimuli?

Every moment hundreds of stimuli are impinging on our different senses (visual, auditory,
olfactory, gustatory, tactile, stereotactic). But we consciously perceive those stimuli which we
give our attention to. We pay attention to those stimuli depending upon either its severity of
strength or for other reasons. It is not the fact that the strongest stimulus we will perceive first.
It goes also with our intention derived from our emotional pressures or wants. Even in loud
noise, we can read an interesting book.
 34

So, the meaning of ‘subliminal’ here becomes confusing. What should we call
‘subliminal’? – The stimuli whose strength is so low that it cannot be perceived by the
conscious mind or the stimuli that we do not pay attention to through our conscious mind?
Regarding the strength of the stimuli, the concept of objective and subjective threshold
had been postulated [Cheesman & Merikle, 1986]. An objective threshold is such that a
stimulus with strength above it can be perceived by our sensory system. A subjective threshold
is that a stimulus with strength above it can be perceived by or can enter into our conscious
mind. So, the minimum strength of a stimulus required for our conscious perception is greater
than that of subconscious perception. Is it so? Can our subconscious perceive weaker stimuli
than our conscious mind? Though it was a matter of hot debate for many years, some recent
studies have provided evidences in support of it [Dijksterhuis et al., 2005].
But it has also been argued that if we do not pay enough attention to a stimulus, we will
soon forget about it. That does not imply that the stimulus was perceived subconsciously
[Holender, 1986].
Secondly, our conscious perception is not just depended on the strength of stimuli, but far
more it is depended upon emotional driving pressures through which we pay our particular
attention to. A hungry person would notice the view of food, not a full-fed person. So, a
stimulus with a particular strength one time may enter our consciousness and other time may
not.
Strahan et. al conducted some studies on subliminal priming and persuasion. One set of
studies was to examine whether beverage choices could be influenced by brief exposure to
thirst related words [Strahan, 2002]. In their experiment, the participants were asked to look
intently on the screen where words were flashed for 16 milliseconds. Afterwards, it was found
the subjects who were shown thirst related words, chose thirst-quenching beverage more,
whereas the control group preferred to choose other more. In this study, the visual stimuli were
not that weak that our conscious mind cannot perceive. Instead, visual stimuli were such that
our conscious mind would differentially pay attention to them.
Considering the success of this study, we should better say subliminal stimuli are not
always weaker in strength (as many literatures have explained them so), rather they are those
that our conscious mind usually does not intend to pay attention to, at least for that time being.
Here it should be also added that sometimes we pay brief attention to stimuli which are
not of great worth for attention. And we soon forget about those stimuli, sending memories of
them to the irretrievable vault of the memory storage. Later on, our conscious mind cannot
retrieve them and cannot take them in consideration for their activities.
But as already explained earlier, our subconscious mind can take these consciously
irretrievable memories out if they are still there present in the storage, and can involve them in
carrying out its subconscious activities. And that is what actually happened in that experiment.
There is another great outcome of this set of experiments that further asserts this
explanation. The influence of the subliminal persuasion was found particularly among the
 35

subjects of the test group, those reported being thirsty before the start of the experiment. So,
emotional subjugative pressure on ‘thirst’, as explained throughout this article, was working
on their mind, proving it as a typical example of emotion driven subconscious activity.

X. Subconscious in Sleep:
In sleep, conscious activity of memory, intelligence, and emotional centers are stopped.
New information gathering, intellectual efforts, or voluntary muscular activities do not happen
in sleep. But though in this stage all activities of our conscious mind stop, our subconscious
remains awake. On the contrary, it is the time for the highest activity of our subconscious mind.
Subconscious process of memorization of important information, long term memory
potentiation, intellectualization of recent experiences, emotional shuffling and re-shuffling, all
run on in sleep.
Subconscious also acts in wakeful state, but it is less active then than in sleep. For that,
sleep is so much necessary for higher evolved brain, where a significant factor for survival
depends on the higher brain functioning pivoting on experience, knowledge and learning.
In sleep, subconscious reframes our mind by analysing recent experiences, newer data;
potentiating newer memories; expressing out some emotions; and others. Dreams occur usually
in ‘REM’ stage of sleep. Though dreams are always not easily interpretable, but they occur in
shallow stage of sleep, rather than deep stage. To be precise, they occur just in the previous
stage of wakefulness before awakening from the sleep, where subconscious merges with the
conscious mind to act as a backstage of the conscious mind in the wakeful state. So, dreams
are actually the projection of subconscious’ product, or outcome of works into the awakening
conscious mind.
When a person sees a dreadful dream, then he must know that there in his mind are stress
factors, which were masked under in his conscious state. But dreams do not represent the proper
frame of these stress factors, instead takes a surreal route. The reason behind it could be some
improper functioning in integration of conscious and subconscious mind that occurs when a
person is in sleep state, particularly just before awakening, when consciousness begins to
gradually come into its usual existence.
In our conscious life, we are involved in so many activities and attached emotionally with
so many relations, that we often forget or remain indifferent to many factors that eventually
may be harmful for our existence. A good joke, or buoyant friends or family gathering may
obliviate many matters of worry for a time. But those remain latent in subconscious. In sleep
subconscious resurfaces them, assesses them, judges their gravity on the pretext of the present
situation and projects them in dreams, if necessary. Emotional expressions also occur in a great
degree in sleep through subconscious activity. For that, besides dreams, after a good sleep, we
feel fresh with new hope, can think of new possibilities, new ideas and new strategies. In sleep
the subconscious sets the mind on right track, detects masked factors that should be corrected,
facilitates emotional expressions of harmful emotional experiences, potentiates useful
 36

memories; and gives hints for future activities when resurfaces into consciousness in awaken
state.
In one sentence, subconscious’ activity in sleep is essential for higher functioning of the
highly developed brain.

XI. How Much Is Our Subconscious Reliable?

Subconscious' activities with respect to memory, intelligence and physical activities is
indispensable for higher functioning of brain. With respect to emotional urges, our
subconscious’ instincts are also very essential for our survival. In too many acute exigencies,
we act on our immediate instincts, rather than by planningly thought out actions of our
conscious mind. These types of actions are more prevalent in animals who are mainly guided
by subconscious' instincts, rather than conscious decisions. But the fact is in human civilization
in various situations our mind's subconscious urges to actions are not always justified morally
or acceptable socially. In this regard, man, being a moral animal, lies on a step behind the
animals who are predominantly guided by the animals’ subconscious instincts or simply
animal’s instincts rather than moral obligations. So, to reconcile our behaviour and actions, we
should know that in one hand, subconscious’ urges or instincts are devoid of moral obligations,
thus it is less biased and more accurate than our conscious decisions. But on the other hand,
subconscious can misdirect us which occurs in severe emotional subjugations – like obsessions,
addictions, and seductions – to take harmful activities because as already said subconscious’
activities are maintained by the subjugative stresses on different emotional scales, not abiding
by concurrent moral or social surroundings if not they do pose threat or reward for any emotion.
Not only that, ‘subconscious’ is also unable to emotionally neutrally assess the possibility of
future outcome, whether it would be better or worse. And thus, is incapable of direct itself by
goal-oriented wise decision making. So, in those situations, subconscious can misdirect the
person with urges for actions incurring future catastrophes and even self-danger. So,
considering subconscious' urges, there are both positive and negative aspects, and that should
be weighed and justified by an intellectual mind as is the case of a human mind. But for that, a
person should have proper knowledge and power of introspection in a correct manner.

XII. Conclusion:
This article has described the nature and functions of our conscious and subconscious
mind. There are myths about our subconscious mind. Proper scientific approaches and
experimental works will only disclose the truth and give us precise knowledge to explain our
minds, rather than believing in myths.
 37

References:
1. Bargh J A, Chen M, Burrows L (1996). “Automaticity of Social Behaviour: Direct Effects
of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action”. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology; 1996, 71(2): 230-244.

2. Bargh J A, Gollwitzer P M, Lee-Chai A, Barndollar K, Trötschel R (2001). “The automated

will: nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals”. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology; 2001 Dec, 81(6): 1014-27.

3. Baars B J (1988). A cognitive theory of consciousness; 1988, NY: Cambridge University

Press.

4. Bartolomeo P, D’erme P, Perri R, Gainotti G (1998). “Perception and action in hemispatial

neglect”. Neuropsychologia; 1998, 36(3): 227-237.

5. Behrmann M, Ebert P, Black S E (2004). “Hemispatial Neglect and Visual Search: A Large
Scale Analysis”. Cortex; 2004, 40: 247-263.

6. Bisiach E & Luzzatti C (1978). “Unilateral neglect of representational space”. Cortex; 14,
129-133.

7. Blackmore S & Troscianko E T (2018). Consciousness: An Introduction. 3rd Ed, 2018;

London & NY: Routledge.

8. Buxbaum L J (2006). “On the right (and left) track: Twenty years of progress in studying
hemispatial neglect. Cognitive Neuropsychology; 2006, 23(1): 184-201.

9. Cheesman J, Merikle P M (1986). “Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual

processes”. Canadian Journal of Psychology; 40: 343-367.

10. Das K (2016). MIND: A Comprehensive Study on Mind and Its Dynamics. February,
2016; Kolkata: K P Basu Publishing Co. ISBN-13: 978-1539394396.
(https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Comprehensive-Study-Its-Dynamics/B01M20Y9ON).

11. Das K K (2017). "A Theoretical Approach to Define and Analyze Emotions".
International Journal of Emergency Mental Health; 19(4): 374, 1-14.

12. Das K K (2018a). “Role of pre-embedded associated memory in generation of optical

illusions”. Journal of psychology and cognition; 2018, 3(2), 37-49.

13. Das K K (2018b). "Therapeutic Reprocessing of Association of Memories (TRAM)".

International Journal of Emergency Mental Health; 20(2): 376, 1-7.

14. Dennett D (1991). Consciousness Explained; 1993, Penguin Books.

15. Dijksterhuis A, Aarts H, Smith P K (2005). “The power of the subliminal: On subliminal
persuasion and other potential applications”. In R R Hassin, J S Uleman, J A Bargh (Eds.),
 38

Oxford series in social cognition and social neuroscience. The new unconscious (p. 77-106).
Oxford University Press.

16. Feinstein J S et al. (2010). “Bilateral limbic system destruction in man”. Journal of
Clinical and Experimental Neurophysiology; 32(1): 88-106.

17. Fiset P, Paus T, Daloze T, and others (1999). “Brain mechanisms of propofol-induced loss
of consciousness in humans: A positron emission tomographic study”. The Journal of
Neuroscience; July, 1999, 19(13): 5506-5513.

18. Freud S (1999). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud. (Editor and translator: James S), Vintage.

19. Gazzaniga M S (2005). “Forty-five years of split-brain research and still going strong”.
Nature Reviews/Neuroscience; August, 2005, 6: 653-659.

20. Greenwald A G, Klinger M R, Schuh E S (1995). “Activation by marginally perceptible

(“subliminal”) stimuli: dissociation of unconscious from conscious cognition”. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General; 1995 Mar; 124(1): 22-42.

21. Harris C R, Coburn N, Rohrer D, Pashler H (2013). “Two Failures to Replicate High-
Performance-Goal Priming Effects”. PLoS ONE; 2003 Aug, 8(8): e72467.

22. Hillis A E, Newhart M, Heidler J, and others (2005). “Anatomy of Spatial Attention:
Insights from Perfusion Imaging and Hemispatial Neglect in Acute Stroke”. The Journal of
Neuroscience; 2005, 25(12): 3161-3167.

23. Holender D (1986). “Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic

listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal”. The Behavioral and
Brain Sciences; 1986, 9: 1-66.

24. Horga G, Maia T V (2012). “Conscious and unconscious processes in cognitive control: a
theoretical perspective and a novel empirical approach”. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience;
2012 Jul, 6: 199.

25. Janet Pierre (1889). L’Automatisme Psychologique. 1889, Paris: Félix Alcan.

26. Karussis D, Leker R R, Abramsky O (2000). “Cognitive dysfunction following thalamic

stroke: a study of 16 cases and review of the literature”. Journal of the Neurological Sciences;
2000, 172: 25-29.

27. Kinney H C, Korein J, Panigrahy A, and others (1994). “Neuropathological findings in the
brain of Karen Ann Quinlan: The Role of the Thalamus in the Persistent Vegetative State”.
The New England Journal of Medicine; May 26, 1994, 330(21): 1469-1475.

28. Koshi R (2018). Cunningham’s Manual of Practical Anatomy. Volume 3, 16th Edition,
2018; UK: Oxford University Press.
 39

29. Lanciego J L, Luquin N, Obeso J A (2012). “Functional Neuroanatomy of the Basal

Ganglia”. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med; 2012, 2: a009621.

30. Langsjo J W, Alkire M T, Kaskinoro K, and others (2012). “Returning from Oblivion:
Imaging the Neural Core of Consciousness”. The Journal of Neuroscience; April, 2012,
32(14): 4935-4943.

31. Leibovitch F S, Black S E, Caldwell C B, and others (1998). “Brain-behavior correlations

in hemispatial neglect using CT and SPECT: the Sunnybrook Stroke Study”. Neurology; 1998,
50(4): 901-908.

32. Lewicki P, Hill T, Czyzewska M (1992). “Nonconscious acquisition of information”.

Review Article, American Journal of Psychology; Jun 1992, 47(6): 796-801.

33. List A, Brooks J, Esterman M, and others (2008). “Visual hemispatial neglect, re-
assessed”. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society; 2008, 14: 243-256.

34. Lull N, Noe E, Lull J J, and others (). “Voxel-based statistical analysis of thalamic glucose
metabolism in traumatic brain injury: Relationship with consciousness and cognition”. Brain
Injury; 2010, 24(9): 1098-1107.

35. Lutkenhoff E S, Chiang J, Tshibanda L and others (2015). “Thalamic and Extrathalamic
Mechanisms of Consciousness after Severe Brain Injury”. Annals of Neurology; July, 2015,
78: 68-76.

36. Moe H K, Moen K G, Skandsen T, and others (2018). “The Influence of Traumatic Axonal
Injury in Thalamus and Brainstem on Level of Consciousness at Scene or Admission: A
Clinical Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study”. Journal of Neurotrauma; April, 2018, 35: 975-
984.

37. Packard M G, Knowlton B J (2002). “Learning and Memory Functions of the Basal
Ganglia”. Annual Review of Neuroscience; 2002, 25: 563-593.

38. Pinto Y, Neville D A, Otten M, and Others (2017). “Split Brain: divided perception but
undivided consciousness”. Brain; 2017, 140: 1231-1237.

39. Renzi E D, Gentilini M, Barbieri C (1989). “Auditory neglect”. Journal of Neurology,

Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry; 1989, 52: 613-617.

40. Schneider W, Fisk A D (1982). “Degree of consistent training: Improvements in search

performance and automatic process development”. Perception and Psychophysics; 31, 160-
168.

41. Shanks D R, Newell B R, Lee E H, Balakrishnan D, Ekelund L, et al. (2013). “Priming

Intelligent Behavior: An Elusive Phenomenon”. PLoS ONE; 8(4): e56515.

42. Shiffrin R M, Dumais S T (1981). “The development of automatism”. In J R Anderson

(Ed.), Cognitive skills and their acquisition; 111-140. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
 40

43. Squire L R, Adam J O (2015). “Conscious and Unconscious Memory Systems”. Cold
Spring Harbour Perspectives in Biology”; 7(3): a021667.

44. Strahan E J, Spencer S J, Zanna M P (2002). “Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking
while the iron is hot”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; 38(2002): 556-568.

45. Verdon V, Schwartz S, Lovblad K O, and others (2010). “Neuroanatomy of hemispatial

neglect and its functional components: a study using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping”.
Brain; 2010, 133: 880-894.

46. Vivekananda S (1891-1902). The Complete works of Swami Vivekananda. 1st Ed.;
Vedanta Pr.

47. Weng L, Xie Q, Zhao L, and others (2017). “Abnormal structural connectivity between
the basal ganglia, thalamus, and frontal cortex in patients with disorders of consciousness”.
Cortex; 2017, 90: 71-87.

48. Xie G, Deschamps A, Backman S B, and others (2011). “Critical involvement of the
thalamus and precuneus during restoration of consciousness with physostigmine in humans
during propofol anaesthesia: a positron emission tomography study”. British Journal of
Anaesthesia; 106(4): 548-557.

49. Yeo S S, Chang P H, Jang S H (2013). “The ascending reticular activating system from
pontine reticular formation to the thalamus in the human brain”. Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience; July, 2013, volume 7, article 416:1-5.