Powers of the Subconscious (ref: Malcolm Gladwell, Jesse Schell)

I discovered my subconscious's persona. Its true. He was swimming around in my head this whole time. He is an old man with a short white beard and disheveled white hair. He has thick black rimmed glasses with a round frame. He tends to wear a purple robe and has a cartoon appearance that falls somewhere between wizard and mad scientist. He is very agile for an old man and is a mischievous prankster. I'd say he is roughly half a foot tall, lives underwater, and keeps within a turtle shell for protection.

Still with me?

I've been doing some reading lately and have been very much inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's Blink as well as Jesse Schell's Art of Game Design. I highly recommend both.

Each book touches on a similar topic: the power of your subconscious.

Gladwell focuses more on how it solves complex problems in the blink of an eye as well as impacts your daily actions without you even realizing it. Would you believe me if I told you that you would score 10% lower on a Trivia game if you spent 15 minutes before the game thinking about being a Football Hooligan? I don't have the reference in front of me, but read Blink and it has hundreds of examples like this that will make you ponder what is really going on in your head.

Schell mentions the subconscious in a chapter on brainstorming. He explains how powerful it can be at solving problems and coming up with ideas, especially while you are focusing on other things. Ever wake up and suddenly have the answer to a problem you had been working on for weeks? That is the subconscious at work.

Personally, I had always been under the impression that the subconscious does what it wants and if it speaks up, hopefully you are listening. However, both authors disagree with my assumption and they describe how you can practice, train, and hone in on your subconscious. Gladwell makes an effort to teach you how to be aware of its impact and to try to pick and choose when to let it affect your actions. Schell describes ways of keeping in touch with it, focusing it on a direct problem, and listening for the answer to pop-up down the road.

One way Schell suggests using to get in touch with your subconscious is by giving it a persona. Try to understand how it acts and picture in your mind what that person/thing may look like so that every time you want to 'use' it you can think of that image.

I tried this the other night as finished reading the chapter and was about to fall asleep. The first thing that popped in my mind was the tiny old wizard in the turtle shell I described above. Completely random, I know. Somewhat crazy, sure I admit it. But it could have been worse, it could have been...