Reticular Activation System - How is yours calibrated?

Hello all,

I have recently started reading a new book called “The Answer” by John Assaraf & Murry Smith. I would just like to take a minute and reprocess my thoughts on some things that I have learned.

Today I learned about the Reticular Activation System and about the information that the human brain processes. I’ll try to keep it short, though I feel like I could write all night about this.

Information is what is picked up from our senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). The author said that if the conscious brain were to process the same amount of information the non-conscious brain, you would only live for 4 seconds. The “Reticular Activation System” or “R.A.S.”, acts like a filter that picks out the pertinent information from the non-conscious mind and conveys it to the conscious mind. I will use an example similar to that which the author used; a mother that goes to pick their young child up from a daycare, through all the noise and crowding will be able to hear the distinct sound of her own crying. The RAS recognizes that specific information (the sound of her own child crying) as necessary information to send to the conscious mind for processing. You may ask, what does the RAS use to determine what it sends to the conscious mind? Well, the RAS refers to the non-conscious mind for what it needs to send. Think of it as looking or searching through all of those bits of information for something that matches well with your habits and beliefs. Habits and beliefs are something that are ingrained deep within your non conscious mind (This could warrant another whole blog). Look at it this way; compare it to a search you do on the internet. The internet is all of the information being processed by the non-conscious mind, the search engine is the RAS, the search is your habits and beliefs, and the search results are what your conscious mind ends up processing.

You may be wondering what this has to do with anything other than neural science or the study thereof. Well, to be honest it has everything to do with anything. We use and depend on our brains and conscious and non-conscious minds….. in every instant of our existence.

Real world example as used by the author:

A man may receive a 50k/yr salary. This man, in his mind thinks that he, as a person is worth 50/yr. When information containing an opportunity for him to make 1mil/yr passes through his brain, his RAS will pass by the that information because it is not a belief of his that he is anything more than a 50/yr man.

It is essential for us to take control of our habits and beliefs. We need to program our non-conscious mind. We, if we choose, can have direct control over these aspects that directly influence our RAS. … does this not sound familiar? Ever heard of a book called Think and Grow Rich? Well, not only is this (in my opinion) an absolute mandatory read for every person, it gives detailed instructions on how to program your subconscious mind.

Thanks again all for reading (if you got this far). I appreciate your feedback and comments. Again, please feel free to open up discussion.

I will end with something taken directly from the book.

“There is no more fundamental change you can possibly make in your life than reprogramming your Reticular Activation System and re-calibrating your Psycho-cybernetic Mechanism. You are fundamentally changing how your brain works by physically forging new neural pathways within the tissues of your brain. It takes imagination, will, and repetition to have new thought forge that new pathway in your brain.”