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Subliminal Messages
2014/02/22 4:01 PM
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Do you know what exactly subliminal messages are?
Is there a way that subliminal messages can help you in your life?
Just keep reading and you will understand:
- What is a subliminal message
- What is the psychology behind subliminal messages
- How you can benefit from subliminal messages
Last year I become more interested in understanding the power of the subconscious mind so I was investigating different ways how we can use the power of our minds to create a better life.
I found many interesting ways describing how we can improve our lives just with a better understanding of psychology.
One technique that we can use to change our beliefs is to use positive affirmations as subliminal messages.
Let’s start with explaining subliminal messages definition.
Subliminal Messages Definition
Subliminal messages are messages that we are not consciously aware of and we can’t become aware of (even if we try).
Subliminal means that something is beyond the reach of our conscious perception. That means that it is below the threshold of awareness (Latin word “sub” means below and “limen” means threshold).
There are two means of subliminal stimuli:
- Audio – low volume sound that we are unable to hear
- Visual – quickly flashed messages or pictures that we are unable to see
Even though we don’t hear or see subliminal messages, our mind still can register it.
On the other hand, supraliminal messages are messages, which we are not aware of, but we can become aware of if we pay attention.
For example, maybe you didn’t notice the “arrow” shape in the FedEx logo, but if you pay attention, you can see it. The arrow can be interpreted as “moving forward” or as “speed” and “motion” which can subconsciously influence your opinion about FedEx.
People often use the term subliminal message for both subliminal and supraliminal because both messages are used on an unconscious level.
The idea of the unconscious mind was developed and popularized by Sigmud Freud. It refers to the part of the mind that can’t be known by the conscious mind, like thought processes, memory or our biologically based instincts.
Subconscious mind are our feelings and memories which we are not currently aware of, but can easily become aware of. For example, maybe you are not currently thinking about you home address, but if I ask you to tell me your home address you can easily remember it.
Both unconscious and subconscious is something that we are not aware of so it’s often mixed up and used as the same term.
Sometimes hidden fears and negative emotions and attitudes can be repressed deep in our unconscious mind and influence our behavior without us being aware of it. Many forms of psychotherapies have the same goal to bring them to the conscious awareness so we can recognize the negative emotions and deal with them.
We won’t go any deeper in psychology. It takes more than one article to understand the principles of the human mind.
But what we will focus on here is how messages that we are not consciously aware of can influence our lives.
It is very interesting that something that you are not aware of can influence you so greatly. That’s why subconscious messages are so powerful.
What about subliminal messages? Those are messages that we can’t see or hear. Can something what you can’t even recognize influence your behavior?
Let’s take a look at the history of subliminal messages to understand how the idea of subliminal messages was born.
History of Subliminal Messages
In 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that Coca-Cola and popcorn sales in theater was increased after he had flashed subliminal messages to eat popcorn and drink Coca-Cola.
In following years, subliminal messages were used in many radio and TV commercials.
In 1974, the FFC (Federal Communications Commission) banned subliminal advertising.
In the meantime, there were many researches to understand if subliminal messages could really influence our behavior.
In 1989, a study done by the Department of Psychology, University of Hull, showed positive effects of subliminal stimuli on memory. After 15 min exposure to the subliminal memory-improvement affirmations, participants significantly improved their performance on recall of names.
In 2007, one study showed that students who were exposed to subliminal messages related to intelligence achieved higher grades than others.
In 2012, a study showed that subliminal stimuli can activate specific regions of the brain even if participants are not aware of it.
Subliminal Messages Psychology
If subliminal messages can activate specific regions of the brain even if we are not aware of it, does that mean that someone else can control our mind through advertising?
If we take a look at some of the studies, we can better understand the psychology of subliminal messages.
According to study done by the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2011, subliminal messaging advertising can be feasible but only if it is goal-relevant.
In their experiment, they flashed subliminal messages of ice tea “Lipton Ice” and then offered participants to choose between two brands (Lipton Ice and Spa Roods). There were 146 participants and result showed that subliminal messages influenced participant’s choice, but only if the participant was already thirsty. Overall, 71% of participants chose Lipton Ice over Spa Rood.
That means that subliminal messaging is effective if the message is according to the goal of that person.
So you don’t have to be afraid that someone else will control your mind through subliminal messages.
The question is, can you control your own mind through subliminal stimuli?
Are Subliminal Messages Illegal?
50 years ago, people were afraid that someone else would control their mind through advertising and that’s why the FFC banned subliminal messages in advertising.
Since then, there has been a negative connotation related to the term “subliminal message.”
Instead of thinking about whether someone else is controlling us, let’s think about how we can use subliminal power for our own personal benefit.
How to Use Subliminal Messages in Everyday Life
If we look at the 40-year history of subliminal messages, people didn’t have the opportunity at that time to use subliminal messaging for their own personal benefit. They didn’t even consider this as an option for subliminal messaging.
But due to the advantage of technology and computers, today we have different possibilities.
According to the latest researches, subliminal messaging is effective as long as it matches our goals.
Based on this fact, we can use subliminal messages to help us with our choices on the way to achieving our personal goals.
Wouldn’t be great if we had the opportunity to use subliminal messaging to encourage ourselves to make better choices in life?
The good news is that you do have this opportunity and you can get it immediately.
Here you can download the free application that has an option to blink messages with different durations, from every 10 ms to 1 s.
Message duration of 10 ms is completely subliminal and it’s below our threshold of awareness but still it can be registered by our mind.
As long as you are blinking something that is according to your personal goals (lose weight, stop smoking, eat healthier, be happy etc.) you have a greater chance that subliminal messages will help you to make better choices in your life and help you to remove negative habits.
You can even set the duration for 80 ms but then you will see the blinking messages, which then means the messages are not subliminal. They are just positive messages blinking on your computer screen, so we can call them positive affirmations.
So what is the difference between a subliminal message and positive affirmation?
Actually positive affirmation can become subliminal if it’s flashed fast enough so you don’t have time to register it.
Subliminal Messages as Positive Affirmations
Maybe you heard about term “positive affirmation” and maybe you are already using positive affirmations in your life.
But in case if you don’t understand what positive affirmations are, I will give an example.
If you want to be more confident you can repeat to yourself short sentences like “I am self-confident,” “I love and accept myself,” “I am successful,” etc.
These short positive sentences are called positive affirmations.
Can We Really Improve Our Life Using Positive Affirmations?
Some proponents of positive affirmations claim that affirmations when practiced regularly make the connection between two neurons stronger.
That means if you repeat often enough to yourself, “I am self-confident,” eventually you will start to believe it.
On the other hand, the Journal of Social Psychology published a study which found that people who are used to negative thinking can feel even worse when they receive feedback which they view as overly positive.
That means that someone who lacks self-confidence can feel even worse after saying, “I am self-confident.”
In that case, it is very likely that the person will quickly give up of positive affirmations.
One of the possible solutions in this case would be to use subliminal message as positive affirmation.
If you are using positive affirmation as subliminal messages, that means that you need to blink it very fast, so fast that you don’t even have time to read it.
Since you don’t have time to read the message, you won’t have time to judge it either.
There is another advantage of using positive affirmations as subliminal messages. You can repeat the messages as many times as you want in short period without putting forth any effort.
Subliminal messages can easily be flashed on the computer screen 1000 times.
If you blink a single message every 4 s, that means that in 1 minute you can blink it 15 times and 900 times in one hour.
That’s why using software for blinking positive affirmations can be convenient.
The main benefits of using positive affirmation as subliminal message are:
- You don’t have time to judge it (messages are blinking very fast)
- You don’t have to put effort in repeating positive affirmations because the software is doing this for you
- You can work normally on your computer and at the same time, reprogram your mind
Why Would Anyone Want to Use Software For Subliminal Messages?
If you read this article and you:
1. Still don’t see why would anyone want to send messages to himself, or
2. You think that the whole idea of positive affirmations is stupid
let me ask you two questions.
Is there any goal in your life that you still haven’t been able to achieve?
What is the main reason why you haven’t achieved this goal?
If you are completely honest with yourself, you will admit that the reason why you haven’t achieve the majority of your goals is because you:
- Lack self-disciplined, or
- Have limiting beliefs.
Maybe you will say, “I don’t have money,” or “Life wasn’t easy for me.”
If you don’t have money that means you need to discipline yourself to spend less and to find creative ways to earn more.
If you think that your life wasn’t easy or fair, that means that you have limiting beliefs.
If you eat too much or drink too much, that means that you need to discipline yourself to eat less and exercise more.
Maybe you already know all that, but why you are not doing it then?
The main purpose of using subliminal positive affirmations is to remove your negative beliefs.
That means that you switch your focus from what you CAN’T do to what you CAN do.
Sometimes we just need a little push to start moving forward.
You need to start believing that you can do something and then you will take action to do it.
Positive subliminal messages are a good way to start doing something for yourself. This is the way to program your mind for goals you want to achieve.
If you don’t convince yourself to spend less, then strong marketing will convince you why you should spend more.
Even though the messages that you are receiving every day through advertising are not subliminal, they can still influence you subconsciously.
Imagine how many different ads you see every day, from FB ads, Google ads, TV ads, radio, billboards… They are everywhere.
Our subconscious mind is super powerful and you should use that power in the best possible way.
Now you know the meaning of subliminal messages, the history and psychology of subliminal messages, and the personal benefits of them – by blinking them on the computer screen through a simple software program or by listening subliminal audio (visual or audio stimuli).
Just for your reminder here you can download free subliminal software for visual subliminal stimuli – you can blink short messages or pictures on your computer screen. You can use default messages or create a custom message depending on what your goals are.
Announcement from the author to all personal development lovers 🙂 : 30-Day Growth Mindset Challenge – April 2021 – Free & Open to Join NOW!
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