Unconscious Driving

One of my favourite columns is written by a psychologist/hypnotist. He covers some very interesting subject matter that serves to remind me of how complex we humans are.

He was trying to make the point that most people go through life in two forms. There is our conscious mind that drives us to do things when we are fully involved and perfectly aware of what we are doing. For the most part the sorts of things we are likely to do under this state are new things; current challenges; problems to be worked out on the fly. We have to be involved with these matters, as we have never encountered them before, so they require our full concentration.

Then he said that there is the other state of being that operates under our unconscious mind. I’m going to make bold and suggest that he may have intended to say our sub-conscious mind, because that seems more appropriate with what he suggested we do under this state.

Our sub-conscious accounts for our other personality. It deals with all the many things that we have learnt over the years that we now do without giving any thought. For instance, the simple typing of this piece involves both parts of me. I don’t have to think as I type, but I do have to think about what I’m typing. This is a new thread that requires my concentration, but the computer is something known to me.

When we eat we do so without thought, but what we eat does provoke us into being critical, praising, or just neutral. When it comes to riding a cycle, or horse, or driving a car, we go onto auto-control. However, while we really don’t have to think about the gear we just changed into, we do think about road conditions. It is entirely possible that many people end up in car crashes because they trusted too much to the sub-conscious.

I have written before about driving habits while we are too distracted. The trick is to remember that our car and our living room are two distinct entities and must never be confused. To mistake the situation when driving is potentially deadly. Have you ever come across a one-car crash along a straight road? The problem there was most likely that the driver turned his head to talk to his front seat passenger and simply drove off the road.

The rule to keep in mind is to pay attention to what you are doing that is of the primary purpose. Keep your eyes on the road and never let too much responsibility slip from your conscious to your sub-conscious mind.

If we do actually drive in an unconscious state, that might explain all those ridiculous crashes. Many people do seem to drive like that.

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael