The Wonderful RAS (Reticular Activating System)

Perception, is the way that you view the world, while perspective is your opinion about it. Even though they are separate ideas, one will influence the other greatly. Perception is that element which we blame for dragging out situations we are not fond of. It is also the thing we accuse of robbing us of the time we feel we deserve, while doing something we find exciting. It is because of our perspective that we experience time stretching and bending, because perspective is not a rational element. Dale Carnegie explains in his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People," that "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity." We are emotional beings, and our emotions can either help us out, or hurt us greatly, depending on what it is we are focusing on.

The human mind is capable of holding onto only a limited number of things, at any given moment. This is a great benefit to us because otherwise we would be overwhelmed by sensory information. Imagine how irritating it would be if you were aware of the clothes you were wearing constantly rubbing up and down from side to side on your skin. If you were always being reminded of your clothes as you were going about your business, not only would it become annoying really quickly, but from an evolutionary standpoint, it would be dangerous. There is a lot of information that is coming into the subconscious mind from our senses (i.e. taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing.) Neurologists and scientists have calculated that roughly 400,000,000 bits of data per second are being handled and processed by the subconscious mind, while only 40 of those bits, are passed along into our conscious mind, which we then interpret as thought. The 40 bits of information which reaches our awareness, is quite small, compared to what’s going into the subconscious mind. The reason for this large gap is to keep our eyes on the prize and ultimately, alive.

Picture yourself sitting on your couch, reading about the stock market, when out of nowhere, an elephant storms through the side of your house, and into your living room where you are. The energy of it trampling through the walls, sends the furniture flying, and all you can hear, is a trumpeting roar of his trunk, and the crashing of debris. Although a very unlikely scenario, you would needless to say, "lose interest" in how bad the Dow Jones Industrial Average is doing, and instead focus on the giant animal that just crashed into your humble abode. After all, things just got real. The system inside of your brain that is responsible for directing your attention from the black and white print on the page, to the zoo in your house, is called the Reticular Activation System (RAS.) The RAS system is a network of nerve bundles in the brain, which are responsible for redirecting your awareness to what is most important. Out of those millions of bits of information the subconscious mind has to sift through, the RAS is responsible for the narrow view we have in the window of consciousness. It looks around for what’s most important, and when it finds something, we witness it in the cinematic experience we call “awareness.” As with anything, the mind is always most concerned with self-preservation, so if it’s dangerous, it’s important. Less dramatically, whatever we are constantly thinking about or doing is also important.

Have you ever noticed that whenever you have purchased a new car, it seems as if everyone has suddenly started driving that same make and module when you’re looking at cars on the freeway? Perhaps this experience happened to you when you bought a new pair of popular shoes, designer purse, book, movie, or even a new appliance. A shoe salesman notices people's shoes, a hair dresser notices someone's hair, and a cell phone clerk will notice what model of phone a person is using. You may have gone to someone's house and noticed that they had a particular book on their bookshelf that you had recently read, but you could have completely been oblivious to rest of the entire collection. Perhaps you have witnessed this while watching a movie for the second or third time, and started noticing that there was a scene you missed. Maybe a character used a word that you had not previously heard until recently and all of a sudden, it sticks out. It's not just what we consider important in our lives that we see all around us, it's what’s inside of our head on a continuous basis that matters. Whatever we think for any length of time about something in particular, we start to see it everywhere. In contrast, we will be oblivious to all the other stuff we could care less about. Things aren’t going your way? Opportunities never seem to come your way? What are you thinking about most of the time?

Everything we experience is so because the RAS has "learned" what is important and what is not. When you burnt your hand on the stove when you were five, it took notice. When you got sympathy for telling your friends about your problems, it was documented. When you told your crush in high school that you liked them, and then got rejected, your RAS remembered that too. All great experiences and terrifying things that have ever happened to you are responsible for what you see or don’t see right now, and by extension, how you feel and act. If you have an irrational fear of condiments such as my wife, one bad experience has painted something that is pretty innocent into something to be weary of. What you currently focus on may not make a lot of sense as an isolated thing, but when you put your life story into perspective, and consider how many things have molded your understanding of the world, it starts to. Ketchup isn’t dangerous to a person with a working immune system, but when it’s switched with mustard without your knowledge or consent (and you absolutely hate mustard,) it leaves a bad taste in your mouth from then on. Yes, my wife has a fear of condiments and… no, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but one bad experience where her grandmother put mustard (which she cannot stand) on a hot dog in the place of ketchup (which she used to enjoy) caused the unusually effect of making her become afraid of both. It quickly went from not liking mustard, into being afraid of condiments entirely, all thanks to one bad experience. It may be silly, but then again, all fear is irrational after all.

When the RAS developed in our brains over thousands of years, its functionality was very useful at keeping us safe from eminent threats, but it was never considerate enough to consider our feelings and finances when evolving. Its purpose, is not to keep you in a good mood; it’s to direct your attention to what you chronically think about. As you can imagine, this can be a double-edged sword. If we are always focused on how many opportunities there are out there, they keep showing up. When we focus on how poor we are however, it always seems hard to save some money. When we are always thinking about how people are deceitful, dishonest, or cruel, it will look like everyone is out to get us. We will constantly be noticing information from around us that will validate whatever we belief. Since we aren't physically capable of viewing a great majority of the information which flows into the subconscious mind at once, we will be directed to specific details that are congruent with how we feel at the moment, but more importantly what we think is true. We will constantly be bombarded with observations which confirm our opinions, but will become blind the contradictory information that could change our mind about a situation. It’s important to remember this little detail next time when you feel strongly about someone. There is a highly probable chance that you are missing all the signs that suggest they are different from what you believe.

The implication of what you think about is incredible, because when you have a belief, it will in a sense, force you to make decisions that are congruent to that belief rather than congruent with what’s best for you. If we believe we are poor, our impulses to waste money on food, alcohol, and frivolous things will be heightened and we will often make purchases on things we regret later on. If we identify as being fat, and always say stuff like "I wish I were skinnier," we are identifying with being overweight, and we will have stronger cravings to eat food which isn't conducive to our health. It's a tricky mechanism in our mind that makes it impossible to lose weight, quit drinking, put down the cigarettes, or quit a habit which we aren't happy with. The RAS does not discriminate between positively or negatively charged emotions; it focuses on what it knows. That’s why it’s so vital to observe our thoughts as much as possible and keep our intention on desirable aspects of our life.

It's very possible to have the best intentions of controlling our thoughts, and believe we are making positive changes in our thinking, but the RAS can be deceiving in the way that it works. We could make goals that appear to be leading us on a positive path but find that we are getting few or no results. The main idea is that you want to focus on what you want, and try not to worry about what you lack because whatever you have your focus on with most feeling, is going to be the winner of your future. Let’s say that you want to quit smoking; take the focus off smoking and instead decide that you would prefer to live a healthier lifestyle. After all, healthy people don't tend to smoke, do they? If you wanted to shed off a couple pounds, instead of worrying about being fat, how about you just focus on how nice it will be to be full of energy and fit. "I am fit" is better than "I don't want to be fat." "I want to be rich" is better than "I want to pay off my bills.” Think about it, if you want to pay off your bills, this automatically suggests that you must be in debt… Not a very motivating place to think from.

Conclusion

If we view the world and our life as being anything but desirable, then it may be necessary to reprogram out brain. The natural state of life isn’t supposed to be misery, so if you find yourself being miserable every day, something is wrong. Retraining the RAS system isn't difficult. It has a very simple operation. It establishes what is important by indication of what you focus on. What we focus on is always in our control, but it takes the will to actively work on our thoughts to do anything about it. If you want to perceive the world as a beautiful place, then the first place to start is to focus on what is beautiful. In doing so, your awareness will become directed to more beautiful situations and it will become more a part of your life. Our mood and our state of mind completely affects our perspective, and thus, our perception is clouded by how we feel.

Being able to observe your feelings but not act out through them, requires discipline that most people are not well-versed in. It requires accepting that you are being emotionally irrational and have lost control which isn’t appealing to the ego. We as a society, have a deep-rooted instinct to always want to be right and we may find ourselves lashing out at others in attempt to justify our positions regardless to if they are accurate. Unfortunately, we rarely ever have enough information to make any reasonable claims about things we think we know because we’re so stuck in our ways in how we think. The stronger an opinion we have about something, the less likely we will notice anything that exists beyond that mental veil we create. There will, of course, always be things that we are unaware of because people aren’t omnipotent, however as long as we continue to challenge our beliefs and expand our knowledge, we will find that we will be surprised by less and less. If you are having difficulty on changing the direction of your focus, don't fret; things don't change overnight just because you’re sick of them. Just always keep in mind that holding onto any belief too strongly makes you blinded by everything beyond it.

Break free, and thanks fro reading!