The human mind has been a focal point of research for many scientists throughout history. It always intrigued so many questions: How does it function? Does it have any limits? Do our dreams send messages about our future? Is déjavu a sign of past life?... Well, as humankind, we still cannot fully define and explain our conscious and subconscious minds and their concepts, but we managed to collect some useful data that might help us through our journey of interpreting the human mind.
Our very first stop, the core: Subconscious.
It is a massive, unlimited memory bank that continuously stores everything in our lives. People, images, emotions, beliefs… Even the memories we no longer remember, for instance, from our childhood, even from infancy, have been stored there and affect our lives more than we think. With time, these stored beliefs become our comfort zones, and the people become the symbols of our issues. All of our past traumas, emotionalized thoughts, hopes, and desires form a pattern in our subconscious and eventually become our reality. However, the subconscious is a self-programming mechanism that obeys our conscious mind. This means that things we say, things we write down, are actually transforming and shaping our subconscious pattern, changing our settled reality. That’s the reason why positive daily affirmations are thought to be highly effective when it comes to achieving goals and attracting the positive. (1) (2)
Second Stop: Dreams.
Dreaming is a way that our subconscious mind uses to communicate with our conscious mind. Even though we do not remember every dream we had, we all dream approximately 3-6 times per night. There are various causes and functions of dreaming that can be listed, such as representing unconscious desires and offline memory processing, however as dreaming is a hard concept to study, we can not come up with an exact single meaning or purpose.
Yet, we can list some facts that usually impact the theme or the people appearing in our dreams:
What or whom we think before sleeping affects our dreams: People and events that occupy our minds before we fall asleep are likely to escort us all night.
Emotionally Unresolved Business: At first, sleeping might sound like a good idea in order to forget unwanted memories; however, on the contrary, it makes them more accessible for retrieval and makes you confront your past traumas. This might be a reason why you keep dreaming about your ex-friends, lovers, or relationships.
People may be symbols of your issues: No matter how intimate you are/were with a person, they might represent a sort of fear (socializing, embarrassment, being bullied, etc.) in your lives. Thus, for example, when you dream about a person that seems quite irrelevant to appear in your dreams, instead of perceiving the meaning of that person individually, try to focus on the things and feelings they remind you of. (3) (4) (5)
Third Stop: Déjavu
A French phrase, meaning already seen, déjavu is also one of the most mysterious events of the human mind. Circa 60-80% of the population experience a déjavu; however, like dreams, it is a very difficult concept to study; hence, dozens of theories try to explain what that actually is. Well, one of the most accepted theories describes déjavu as:
People experience a situation that is akin to an actual past memory that cannot be fully recalled. However, the brain recognizes the similarities in both situations; thus, we are left with an awkward feeling as if we are “re-living” a memory. (6) (7)
To conclude, the human mind, as well as the entire human body, is a mysterious mechanism that still waits to be discovered. Although we do not have definitive explanations or definitions for the human mind and the subconscious, it is evident that a positive mindset brings positive outcomes. None of us shall hesitate to set up high goals. If we believe in ourselves, everything is possible since our subconscious is capable of doing everything we wish.