We often talk about our subconscious and the effect it can have on how we interpret information. Exactly what information is stored in our subconscious and what does it do? Do the memories of our ancestors or past lives influence our subconscious?

We often talk about our subconscious and the effect it can have on how we interpret information. A lot of people seem to think that the memories of our ancestors and our past lives may influence our subconscious. So what exactly what is our subconscious and what does it do?

What does our subconscious do?

The human mind is said by some to be broken into 3 categories: The conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind.

Sectioning the mind off is something that was first made mainstream by Sigmund Freud. It is something that is disputed within psychology as it cannot be scientifically proven. It remains theory, and a popular one at that so that is what we will work with for this article. The conscious mind of course is what we are using in our day to day life and most importantly we are aware of it. The conscious mind is defined by many people with the word 'awareness'. We are aware of our thoughts. The conscious mind is however somewhat limited. Can you remember what you did last week? Can you remember what you did last year? Can you remember what did 10 years ago? Your conscious mind needs some help to access this information, so it looks to your subconscious for help. Your subconscious mind has limited access to these memories. More often then not, they are short term memories. It however can retrieve them from your unconscious memory which can remember all of these events with complete clarity. The unconscious mind stores your deepest memories. The unconscious mind holds your beliefs, your fears and your emotions. It uses your subconscious to communicate these to your conscious mind, which influences how you live your every day life. Put simply:

Conscious – defines all thoughts and actions within our awareness.
For example, the beauty and pleasance of the smell of a red tulip
Subconscious – defines all reactions and automatic actions we can become aware of if we think about them.
For example, our ability to drive a car: once we get skilled we stop thinking which gears to use, which pedals to press, or which mirror to look at, yet can always become aware of what was done once we think about it.
Unconscious – defines all past events and memories, inaccessible to us no matter how hard we try to remember to bring things up.
For example, the first word we’ve learned to say, or how it felt to be able to walk on our own.

The job of your subconscious to ensure that you react, think and live your life according to your belief system and the things that make you...... well you! Your subconscious mind does not think for itself, it is merely the hub of accessing information. It obeys the instructions that your conscious mind tells it. It is your subconscious that makes you feel fear when it is confronted with something it knows scares you. It your subconscious mind that makes you feel happy when you around something that it knows you like. It can also react when it experiences something unknown by making you feel anxious or uncomfortable. Your subconscious is almost one big comfort zone. It all has to do with the information that is sitting in your unconscious mind which is where it draws this information. It is why we talk about unconscious bias and the effect it can have on paranormal investigating. You may not think you are being influenced, but your experiences from the past are subconsciously influencing you thanks to your unconscious mind. You may think you are in control, but it controls how your body reacts. Your conscious mind has no say in how your subconscious reacts. There is work you can do such as hypnosis and saying affirmations and generally changing your mindset, but it doesn't happen overnight. The older you are, the more memories and information you have stored and the harder it can be to change the way your subconscious thinks. Ever heard the phrase 'Set in their ways?'. That is your subconscious at work. One question I have come across quite a lot is, what information exactly is in there? Do we have the memories of our ancestors? Are our past life memories embedded in there? If so, does that mean that these memories influence our subconscious?

Do the memories of our ancestors or past lives influence our subconscious?

Straight off the bat I am going to state here that of course I don't know this for sure. I don't even know if it is something that I believe so this is literally me sitting here asking the question. A lot of people I talk to seem to believe that yes the memories us in our past life is sitting there in our unconscious mind. It means that it has an influence on our subconscious and in turn affects how we live our every day lives. To look into it further, first let's look at the concept of a past life and what we call past life regression. It works with the pretense that the soul of a human not only lives on after we die, but is reincarnated in a new host body to live a new life. As our memories are embedded deep within our unconscious mind, we don't remember our past lives and we live each life as if it were new. In order to access this information, there is a technique called past life regression. Through hypnotherapy, it allows a person to access this information deep within their unconscious mind. It is said that we can sometimes carry the trauma and lessons from our past lives into our new ones. By having past life regression and working through this information, it can allow you to work through these issues and confront how they are affecting your everyday life. Think of it as a therapy session with you from your past life. While some find this enlightening, others claim that it is simply hallucination or creative imagination. Some don't care where the information comes from, as it has allowed them to work through issues they were having regardless of whether they believed it was from a past life.

It can be taken a step further when we look at our DNA or genetic memory. Famous psychologist Carl Jung theorizes that we are born with the memories and experiences of our ancestors which are imprinted within our DNA. While it isn't necessarily information we can access through our unconscious mind, it still influences us. Perhaps some of our basic survival instincts come from our ancestors.

Man’s unconscious… contains all the patterns of life and behaviour inherited from his ancestors, so that every human child, prior to consciousness, is possessed of a potential system of adapted psychic functioning. Carl Jung

I myself have often wondered about this. A perfect example I will give is my son Jake. He never met his Great Grandfather and he died long before he was born. One of the prominent things I remember about him was the way he whistled. He was always walking around whistling. His whistle was very recognizable as it was quite wispy. One day when he was about 5 years old, my son one day out of blue started whistling. Not just whistling, but it sounded like the same wispy whistle my Grandfather used to make. It was even the same tune. When I asked him where the whistle came from, did someone teach him or how did he learn to do it, he just said he suddenly knew how to do it. I have very often wondered, was there are part of my Grandfather in there? Is this character trait embedded in his DNA?

Some believe that consciousness does not conform to the laws of space and time. We don't know what happens after we die, but when looking at consciousness and all of the possibilities, our past lives certainly shouldn't be discounted. I have actually seen some people debate that when we use items like a Ouija board or a pendulum for divination, the responses are not coming from spirit, they are coming from our subconscious. Our subconscious mind could be answering the questions using knowledge from our past lives. I found this to be quite an interesting concept. More and more my research is pointing towards us ourselves being the ghosts we are chasing. If the information of our past is already in our minds, are we somehow unknowingly manifesting it? If our subconcious has the ability to access information from our unconscious mind and it is not bound by time, is that how people get visions of the future?

I want to hear from you! Have you done past life regression? What did you find out? Do you believe our ancestor's memories are in our DNA? What are your thoughts on the subject? Tell me in the comments below!

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