The Driver Behind You May Be Unconscious

The Driver Behind You May Be Unconscious


Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton, American author, advertising executive, politician (1886-1967)

Almost all of us believe that something inside us is superior to the circumstances of our lives. It's what keeps us sane and away from killing each other. Not so many of us accomplish something splendid. The reason may be a disconnect between what we are capable of and what we believe we are capable of.

Hold that thought for a moment while we check out that driver behind you.

Have you ever fumbled with your car radio or to take something out of your glovebox or even had a conversation with someone in the car you were driving and suddenly realized that you had absolutely no memory of driving the past few minutes? Technically you were unconscious while driving.

Unconscious? Doesn't that mean in a coma or dead, or at least asleep? Yes, but not exclusively. To be conscious means to be fully aware of your surroundings. As you were obviously not fully aware of your surroundings while you drove in our example, you could not have been conscious. So what were you?

Social science has given up on the idea formerly called the "subconscious." Mostly because there is no evidence for it. One dictionary describes "unconscious" as "that part of the mind wherein psychic activity takes place of which the person is unaware." In this example you were aware of your radio search or your glovebox search or your conversation. But you were also aware in some very different sense--psychically--of your driving.

Could you be driving "mechanically" as some used to say young adults did after a few years of driving experience? Let's put it this way, would you be comfortable driving on a highway at full speed surrounded by people who were driving only "mechanically"? The ugly truth is that many of us do. That guy behind you may indeed be driving mechanically, or unconsciously, meaning that he may not be able to apply his full attention to any emergency that may arise (such as you having to come to a sudden stop because a dog wandered onto the highway).

You dream with your unconscious mind. When you dream many of the functions of your brain you normally consider part of your waking life are shut down. The frontal lobes, for example, those brain parts that allow you to distinguish between right and wrong and that keep you on "an even keel" when you are awake, don't function. That's why dreams can be crazy sometimes, because the brain's normal control mechanisms are shut down when you are asleep.

Science doesn't know for certain why we need sleep, though recent research suggests it help us to review our activities of the previous day so we can embed them in longer term memory--that is, we need sleep to consolidate our daytime learning. You, very likely, do not know how you managed to pilot your car down the road without being aware of what you were doing while searching for a different radio station. But you are certain you weren't asleep. But were you conscious?

Any activity of the brain that does not involve the full application of all critical brain functions is an activity you do while, technically, unconscious. While unconscious your body may be in bed resting or in a hospital room in a coma. It may also be doing--indeed parts of your brain may be doing--something other than that of which you are fully aware.

What do you think when you hear an argument in a murder case that the defendant was not fully aware of what he was doing when he killed his wife? If you are involved in a collision while you are technically unconscious, the investigating police officer will consider you just as liable. We all assume that we do everything consciously. Science says otherwise, though we all hope that part of science doesn't take the stand in a court case.

Murder cases and car collisions are extreme cases. Most of our lives are lived away from extremes. Yet people sometimes do little things they may not be aware of--things that annoy you greatly or that inconvenience you--without being fully aware (conscious) of what they are doing. You don't want them imprisoned for their faults because then you would have to be behind bars for doing similar things. So, what to do?

The human brain and consciousness are, as you can see, subjects that bear much more study. We understand very little about them. Yet they govern our lives, and the brains and consciousness of others impact our lives, every day. As much as they mean to us and as much as they affect our lives, we know almost nothing about them.

We accept that we are all imperfect beings. Now you have a clue why that is. It may not solve any mysteries for you but it may help you to understand why people do or say things that simply don't seem right or in character for them, things that seem out of place.

As with many human behaviours it's best to ignore the extremes because they do not represent who these people are. Who they are when they are fully conscious. They, in turn, can be expected to forgive your extremes of behaviour.

But, just in case, if the driver behind you seems distracted, maybe you should pull over and let him or her pass before something happens you may find messy and uncomfortable. You can still drive fully conscious.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to know how their children can develop socially and emotionally in concert with their intellectual and physical development.
Learn more at http://billallin.c/om

How To Avoid Traumatic Dreams

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
- Plato, philosopher, pupil of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC)

Harkening back to our prehistoric past, as social but uncivilized dwellers of forest and savannah, we required a degree of caution and sensitivity toward activity that might take place around us at night, activity which might result in our becoming lunch for a predator.

However, why should a child be afraid of the dark today? In the womb, the fetus had nothing to fear in permanent darkness. That fear, like all fears, had to be learned after birth. In most cases, the fear would be learned as a result of something a parent did, or did not do when something alarming happened during the night.

Others, including extended family or other children, might have implanted scary stories in the mind of the child, but the parents have control of the child's activities during most of the times that he or she could experience something that could develop into a fear.

Night is also a time when most children are left alone in their bedroom, apart from the security they enjoy during the daytime with parents or other caregivers. But nothing in nature says that they should be afraid, unless something has sparked that fear.

Sure, scary dreams can produce a fear of the dark. However, dreams tend to be frightening for a reason. We have control over our conscious mind during the daytime, but our unconscious mind takes over at night. The unconscious can be just plain crazy sometimes, unfettered by norms, securities and boundaries we have during the daytime.

In general, my experience tells me that a brain that is active and learning fruitfully during the daytime seldom has scary dreams at night. If anything, the brain that is intellectually active during the daytime tends to have rather boring dreams at night, such that they are quickly forgotten. A brain that is active during the daytime with thoughts relating to emotional or social problems is more apt to have bad dreams at night.

The best way to give a child calm dreams at night is to provide a stimulating environment in which they can learn during the day. A boring daytime or an insecure one might well lead to scary dreams at night. Daytime fears or insecurities tend to develop into nighttime dramas. Small daytime experiences can become monstrous at night.

It's equally true that fears in adults are learned. Nothing in nature suggests that we are born with fears, though we might have some degree of caution built in (see above). It's also equally true that adults who lead mentally stimulating lives during the daytime tend to have fairly mundane dreams at night. Those who lead boring daytime lives may well have nightmares or bad dreams.

The whole topic of dreams is not as simple as this, of course, because science knows relatively little about consciousness or the unconscious. However, the tips given above may help you to analyze your own daytime and nighttime mental activity to determine if you need to change something about how you spend part of your daytime life.

You can as well help someone else--especially a child--who may be having trouble coping with traumatic experiences at night. It won't be the whole answer, but it could be the beginning of a solution to apply the knowledge you received here.

The brain, like the rest of the body, wants to exercise, demands to be exercised. Provide that exercise--without forcing anything that causes information overload--in the daytime and the nights should pass peaceably.

Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book for adults who want to learn why they are the way they are and how they can change themselves. And for parents who want to know how to grow their children well.
Learn more at http://billallin.com