Thinking, Metaphysiology, and Consciousness
At the risk of tremendously oversimplifying a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary perspective on human consciousness, please allow the proposition of a simple, yet potentially profound, point of view. Human consciousness operates at three levels, Ordinary Consciousness, the Subconscious, and the Supraconscious.
In this case, Supraconsciousness is defined simply as something “above and beyond the ordinary;” and meaning neither more nor less than that. We ask you, the reader, to take this idea at face value or to imbue it with whatever superstructure of spirituality, religion, or morality you might deem appropriate or desirable.
For our purpose, staying with the concept of Supraconsciousness in its simplistic understanding makes the conversation more viable and generally more acceptable regardless of your cultural context; and that makes it part
Ordinary Consciousness and Subconsciousness
Here’s how we see this consciousness conversation playing out. Ordinary Consciousness is the way we perceive our common experience. The truth is that we can’t be certain whether this perception is, in fact, of a separate stand-alone universal reality.
It is equally possible that “reality” only extends as far as our reality; personal, individual, cosmically subjective – or not. No one has ever conclusively resolved the difference between perception and reality.
It’s really anybody’s guess, but without ordinary consciousness we would not be able to experience nor interact with any “others out there.” As a matter of necessity and convenience, we generally accept that what we perceive to be reality… must be reality.
In the case of subconsciousness, what we have to work with is our impressions of reality. That is to say, it has more to do with how we feel and react to things than it does about what we actually experience. Consequently, our subconscious mind is defined to emotions and feelings such as fear, anger, resentment… along with their positive counterparts; the largely intellectual constructs that drive our values, attitudes, and behaviors.
The field of psychology is the product of inquiries into the subconscious; how it comes to be, how it can affect our lives, and how we can consciously alter the impact of the subconscious… or not. Both ordinary consciousness and subconsciousness are largely reflexive in nature. They are responses to our minds (more so than merely our brains) at work.
Supraconsciousness
Then there is the matter of getting to Supraconsciousness. The prefix “supra” comes from the Latin root and means “above and beyond.” Supraconsciousness, as we said earlier, can be thought of as a state above and beyond the other two levels. That is because it is here that we are somehow able to perceive and visualize the nature and shape of otherwise unapparent connections between things.
You know you have entered into supraconsciousness when something, usually quite suddenly, transforms itself (more on that later) from the complex and uncertain into the crystallization of wholeness in utter simplicity.
Achieving Supraconsciousness is at once an exhilarating, sometimes slightly frightening, and equally humbling moment; not to mention a uniquely creative and productive one as well.
As the creator and host of THE TWILIGHT ZONE television show of the 1960’s might have described this moment: “[it is] … a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind….” Which brings us back to the understanding that the third, and highest, form of consciousness embraces more than the brain and extends our thinking and ideation a whole another capability.
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