Do we REALLY Only use 10-20% of our Brain?
While there is A LOT of truth to the fact we under-utilize our brain power – I believe this oft talked about ‘concept’ leads most of us to a misguided and/or short-cited conclusion.
Continue reading to understand the following:
1. “Understand the Ego & put it on Pause”
2. “What do we really know about what we don’t know?”
3. “Tips & Tricks to Increase Your Mental Aptitude”
4. “One Tool to Change Everything”
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1. “Understand the Ego & put it on Pause”
The Individual & Collective Ego
As individuals, as a society, and as a species – one of the most important explorations and findings in psychology is the role of the “ego”.
We all “feel” the individual ego. The social ego is evident at all times in history (from modern day perception and ‘tension’ demonstrated in everything from sports/Olympics, to wars, to collective ego demonstrated through great triumphs and accomplishments – from the philosophy of the Greece, to the social advancements of Rome via aqueducts/roads/etc., to the ‘war culture’ & collective confidence of the Spartans). As a species, we always think we are at the top of the food chain, and really, any chain.
What does this have to do with the overarching point? We first need to remember that history proves to us time and time again that pretty much everything we think we know ends up being refined and changed overtime. There are some “truths” that ring throughout all civilization, time (and space 🙂 ) — it is the details that become misleading. Can make one consider the phrase, ‘the devil is in the details’, but that’s a whole other topic. Remember though, it’s EASY to pendulum swing once we ‘disprove’ or contend certain aspects of religion – but there is deeper truth that is persistent in pretty much all religions — when you find where those points intersect, you are typically isolating a universal truth that exists beyond any one religion, and far beyond our understanding. I digress.
Start with a Blank Canvass & an Open Mind
To Efficiently & Effectively Increase your Memory & Brain Power, it is important to understand, and manage the ego — which will allow us to remove as much bias as possible, to ensure we are an ‘uncarved block’ that is ready to be developed & used for the first time.
The individual & collective ego can create unnecessary barriers, and even force a mis-prioritization of the importance on a fact or experience we think we know or have had. To ‘achieve anything that few achieve’, it only makes sense to NOT rely on random learnings of the past that may or may not be applicable to the growth journey at all.
In order to maximize one’s potential – in terms of brain power & memory – START WITH AN OPEN MIND. It is the constrained mind that inhibits our ability to effectively increase our ability to utilize the brain to the fullest.
Pause the ego, manage it, in preparation to try to absorb something that may sound far-fetched, because if it wasn’t, then we wouldn’t have the question — because everyone would be doing it and the answers would be easier to find (and execute) via a Google Search or two.
The Ego is not Good or Bad in and of itself!!
While often thought of in a derogatory context, the ego not good or bad in and of itself. It is actually quite good — and quite bad. It is part of an important matrix in our psychology that drives great achievements and courage — and it is also something we over-protect and end up fighting to defend for all the wrong reasons (i.e. when we get in a fight and basically start ‘defending our emotions’ vs. defending a greater cause). So remember – it is important to recognize & understand the ego — but it is not something that should (or can) be ‘destroyed’ entirely.
2. “What do we really know about what we don’t know?”
With the ego put on pause temporarily. Consider the fact that:
Understanding the brain is based on technology designed to measure the brain without an understanding of what that technology should be measuring!!!
What does that mean? It means that we “find” exactly what we are “seeking” – and stumble upon a few questions & design a few tests to answer those subjective questions a long the way (hey, using the scientific method is, at some juncture, the best we can do to explore things we don’t know how to explore).
It’s like exploring a cavern deep within the earth for the first time — we have no clue where we’re going, what we’re looking for, or what we’ll find; but at the same time, we know it probably makes sense to bring a flashlight!
We have made great strides developing tools to ‘measure brain activity’, with EEGs/etc. – but that did little to advance our understanding of ‘brain power’. In fact, “brain” and “memory” (not to mention the pandora’s box of ‘the mind’) are still so decoupled in pretty much every field that – while we can evaluate ‘brain waves’, we have no real clue on where “memory” is actually stored. There are obviously some general ideas – and we definitely try to associate various lobe & cortext activity to various functions – but it is observational at best.
The Rat that Remembered without a brain
One of the more interesting studies on this subject was how a rat was trained to run through a maze or perform some other function (forget what it was), and they slowly removed parts of his brain bit by bit — while other ramifications existed, the rat continued to “remember”. Memory cannot be so decoupled from brain in order to maximize the power of the brain — our experiences is what make us more equipped to apply those past experiences in the future – and important ‘tool’ to leverage as we advance in our capabilities.
Just as technology breeds more technology, and at a faster rate, so does the mind support brain functionality (and vice ver-sa).
3. “Tips & Tricks to Increase Your Mental Aptitude”
measuring aptitude versus neural activity
Let’s talk about how to improve “aptitude” (brain power or not – like i said – I do not inherently assume that ‘brain region activity’ is an effective measure of “brain power” — it is a question of correlation vs. causation, and one that can better be answered by avoiding that measurement, because we don’t need it). Honestly, what does knowing “what parts of the brain light up” during different times & functions REALLY tell us about aptitude & potential?
We focus most of our time exploring brain capacity and effectiveness, and in my opinion, could spend more time focusing on “efficiency”.
There are obviously people that make their lives out of discovering, testing, and writing about this topic. While I do know more than the average bear on the subject because of an unusual affinity for cognative psychology, I’ve already made a really long post, so will table most of my thoughts for another one if there is interest. What I will say is there is a GREAT opportunity for ANYONE to start improving their APTITUDE at an incredible rate.
Quick Tricks & Tips to Increase Mental Aptitude
I will provide my ‘off the wall’ recommendation in the next section – but one should consider several concepts to build a really strong foundation to get the most out of that ‘off the wall’ recommendation.
1. Learn how you learn — And how you don’t!
Take advantage of how you learn, but also work on the other facets (it’s what many of us fail to do). Utilize ALL YOUR SENSES whenever possible, and understand which ones are stronger, which are weaker. Audible, Visual — SMELL (remember it’s association to memory too!)… TOUCH. This is about “DATA IN” — utilize all the resources we have ‘at our fingertips’ to take it in, and you can more readily retrieve the information down the road
2. Learn by understanding — not by knowing!
In the age of ADD and Google Search, when we have a question, we readily leverage our resources to find the answer. It is SMART to do at times but it is also a major inhibitor to our personal growth!! When we learn something – understand it. If you “understand it” – you will be able to recall it better. I had an example of this the other day — I used to learn in school by “forcing subject matter” down my throat, now I learn much, much more intuitively (and it takes WAY less effort & energy).
For some reason the question ‘what to do if your having a heart-attack’ came up, and I recalled an old chain-letter email my mom sent to my whole family. The reason I recalled it was not because I remember emails like that — it was because WHEN I LEARNED what to do, I QUESTIONED it, I THOUGHT about it, I did not try to remember it by brute force or repetition — I tried to “UNDERSTAND it”. The recommendation was to “Cough” in short/quick patterns. At first I thought the reverse — like hey, if someone is having a panic attack, they try to slow down – take long deep breaths/etc. — isn’t this fast breathing counter-intuitive? Wouldn’t it increase stress & blood-pressure, only perpetuating the issue? I thought about it a little further – and ‘understood’ (for right or wrong, who knows if this method is 100% accurate, like i said everything gets refined/disproved at some juncture — but as far as ‘how i remembered by understanding’ – its a good example).
What I “accepted” after thinking about it for a while is that it would be similar to self-compression basically — coughing vigorously would help stabilize your heart rate & pattern, coughing contracts all the right muscles to basically get as close as an individual can to ‘help get their heart back on track’ when no one else is available to help them. Again – I understood, at least for myself — it made sense — and when it makes sense, it becomes MUCH more easy to retain & recall.
3. embrace the inter-connectivity of all things & subject matters
For me, the most profound ‘trigger’ I had to better appreciate the inter-connectivity of things, was the concept of “the mental lexicon”. Basically how our minds store information and associate concepts — essentially creating a web of relationships — or more simply put, a file structure like you would find on your computer, with parent/child relationships (think species –> animals –> birds –> blue birds –> feathers –> etc.). It’s all a series of information, all inter-connected with various levels of granularity & attributes. All things have been connected since the moment of creation – embrace that idea, and with no additional effort, you’ve already significantly increased your ability to utilize information that seems unrelated and apply it to new concepts which may not be so intuitively grasped.
You can use understanding of religion to understand philosophy, philosophy to understand sociology, sociology to understand history, history to understand economics, economics to understand stats, stats to understand math, etc. To incorporate a math reference, through a little ‘transitive theory’ (a = b = c, then a = c), what I am really saying in this example is that use religion to understand math, and vice ver-sa. You can utilize all the other subject matters to reinforce your understanding of anything. Frankly, while I typed that example on the fly — using religion to understand math — just look at some ancient religious texts & scriptures and it will be really easy to see the connections and the importance placed in “numbers”, across all time (and space 🙂 ).
4. “One Tool to Change Everything”
Again – there are sooo many tools and tactics that I could write a post a day for a year and still only scratch the surface. However, just to go for broke here, I will provide a more ‘off-the-wall’ recommendation that will, if embraced and committed to, CHANGE EVERYTHING for you and unlock your mental capacity AND problem solving skills at a very very fast rate.
UNDERSTAND & LEVERAGE YOUR DREAMS!
We undermine the importance of our dreams in modern day civilization — interesting that pretty much all “golden periods”, indigenous tribes, and religious movements put MUCH significance in dream-time. Yes – we use it in part to deal with our subconscious ‘problems’ and emotional issues — but they can be utilized as a tool to increase your ability in ANYTHING.
I have had a unique ‘relationship’ with my dreams since I was little. I will expand on that some other time – but in short, because of severe dream terrors & recurring nightmares as a kid, I was eventually able to ‘know when i was dreaming’, and eventually able to lucid dream on a nightly basis.
What I DIDN’T appreciate until the last couple years was the power of utilizing your dreams. Many great people throughout history utilized their dreams for inspiration, answers, problem solving, even more esoteric ‘connections & communications to the otherside’. Heck, even Stephen King is claimed to have written many of his novels based on his dreams (yikes…).
How to leverage your dreams more effectively?
1. Get Better at remembering them
2. keep a dream journal/use a note pad as a simple aid to do so
Consider keeping a note pad to write down a few keywords at night or first thing in the morning to help you remember them — normally a simple word or concept can ‘trigger’ the rest of your dream-time story.
3. Learn how to lucid dream – it comes naturally overtime!!
Learn how to lucid dream (it will become natural as you remember your dreams more) – eventually this can become a REALLY effective tool for ‘learning via your dream’. Your subconscious skills which you absorb throughout your whole lifetime are much more readily available/accessible in dream-time — and when you connect it with your ‘conscious desire’ to learn/achieve something – dreams can literally become the Matrix-like ‘main-frame loading’ program. You could even, if so inclined, put certain programs on the TV to ‘force your subconscious & conscious mind to connect and come back to that subject matter”. I do not recommend this as an ongoing solution because I believe we actually undermine our own potential when keying off external stimulus like the TV or some audio recording — but its a good first test for someone ‘new to working with their dreams’.
4. right before sleep – think about what you want to learn.
Even before you can lucid dream – just go to bed with the ‘intent’ of learning through your dream. If you want to learn the guitar — buy a guitar, play a few strings, listen to the notes on your own – don’t even bother with a youtube video at first, and you will eventually be able to “piece it together” (because in a world without time you already have). After all – music “makes sense” — yes it is an art and a skill – but the relationship between notes which are ‘in tune’ and ‘in time’ is just as objective as certain musical tastes/genres are subjective.
5. Understanding “Alpha mode”
In a world without time, is there ANYTHING you would say you cannot do? In dream time, and as we progress through the stages of sleep and our brain waves slow, our minds actually begin to slip into a TIMELESS STATE! Characteristics associated to the stages brain frequency from Beta -> Alpha -> Delta -> Theta actually include TIMELESSNESS! As we progress through the stages of sleep – our brain frequency changes, slows, and our mental capacity INCREASES — we become more efficient in processing, synthesizing, interpreting and UNDERSTANDING information. It is why a 2 minute dream can seem like it lasted for 2 days — it is why that point right before you fall asleep and right after you wake up can be a very “otherworldly” experience at times (many accounts of ‘seeing ghosts’, ‘hearing something’, etc. happens when we are in the Alpha mode). Interestingly, our brain frequency is ALIGNED with the earth’s frequency resonance in Alpha mode — something like 7-8 cycles per second I believe, just a random fact not pertinent to this post, but I do think it is telling.
Believe in it & Keep Your Intent Altruistic – or Stifle your Growth 🙂
If you utilize that tip – you can unlock the power of your brain quite quickly AND with minimal effort. Literally – just ‘thinking about it’ – you’ll slowly get there — the important part is truly believing in it though, makes it very difficult for your subconscious to WORK WITH your conscious when your conscious mind doubt’s the promise of their ability to work together successfully.
As with all things – it is smart to have a ‘pure intent’ at the end of the day. This stuff is no joke – and can take people to a really dark place eventually if used for the wrong reasons –FORTUNATELY, however, there are universal systems of checks-and-balances which inhibit dark souls from reaching very light points on their road to understanding.
Learn from the past, Live for the moment, Love for an eternity.
Peace!
