Recently, I watched an episode of Nova ScienceNow on sleep that demonstrated some of the power and mystery of the unconscious mind. In the episode the host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, reports on some of the latest research that shows a strong link between learning and sleep.
Sleep and Learning
Photo courtesy of pedrosimoes7(CC Attribution)
There is a great deal of evidence showing that the learning we do during the day is consolidated and strengthened during periods of sleep.
In one study, by Harvard researcher Matthew Walker, people are taught a simple action, like typing a particular sequence on a keyboard over and over again. They are asked to perform that sequence as quickly as possible, eventually hitting a natural plateau at which they can’t type any faster. After a night’s sleep, they are asked to perform the sequence again.
On average, subjects improve their typing by 20 percent after a night’s sleep. In other words, they begin the task typing at a faster pace than the one at which they had stopped the night before.
Somehow, during sleep, the ability to perform an action just learned is improved. Some kind of practice, some kind of learning, is taking place while we sleep. According to Walker: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. It seems to be practice with a night of sleep that makes perfect.”
The Unconscious Mind
These studies, by themselves, are quite amazing, and it brought to mind this verse by the Sufi poet, Rumi:
Who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
Clearly some kind of practicing is taking place in the unconscious mind while we sleep. Reflecting on this idea, I find myself wondering, “Who is doing the learning? Who is doing the practicing?”
It’s not the person. At least, not the part that we would recognize as the person—the conscious, willing, striving, reflective, rational part of the person. In fact, the person doesn’t even know the practicing is taking place.
We might say it’s the brain, but that doesn’t really explain anything. How does the brain know to do that? Is it merely an automatic and mechanistic process? But if it’s just an automatic process, how do we understand the fact that it has such a clear and meaningful effect on our conscious existence? Is there another consciousness beyond our daytime consciousness?
The Tip of the Iceberg
For Jungian Psychology, the idea of a consciousness below the conscious mind is not surprising. Jung was very clear that our waking consciousness was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The rest of the iceberg is the vast realm of the unconscious mind.
So much of what happens in the mind and the body happens without the participation of consciousness, of the ego. “I” don’t heal my own cuts and scrapes. “I” don’t digest my food. “I” don’t make my dreams or consolidate my own memories during sleep.
At times, it seems like the ego is, at best, capable of assisting natural processes that are occurring on their own. Too often, however, it tends to interfere with those processes.
Much of the time the ego is simply an observer of what is happening in body, mind and soul. The role of observer is an extremely important one, related to assisting the natural processes of the unconscious. However, this kind of humble attitude tends to be perceived as too passive in an age and culture committed to the belief that “where there is a will there is a way.”
Getting Out of Our Own Way
I don’t have any earth-shattering conclusions to make about all of this, except to say that if the brain, or the unconscious mind, or the soul, or whatever you want to call it, is so powerful, then maybe learning to get out of the way is the most important thing that we can do for our own physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
This is hard to do, since the ego tends to prefer to harbor grandiose fantasies about itself. We like to believe that we are the masters of our own fates.
Jungian Psychology does not confuse the ego–the part that most people consider the self–with the true Self. The larger Self not only contains the rational, conscious part of experience, but the depths of the unconscious mind, as well. The task, then, is to learn to stop identifying ourselves exclusively with consciousness, and to open to the influence of the Self.
As the Tao Te Ching teaches:
The reason you have trouble is that
you are self-conscious.
No trouble can befall a self-free person.
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