Subliminal Messages Can be Used to Make Serious and Lasting Change in Our Lives

Subliminal is defined as: communication existing or functioning below the threshold of consciousness. Subliminal messages are messages displayed for such a short period of time or recorded at such a frequency that your conscious mind does not register what it sees or hears. Instead your mind registers it subconsciously. This means that your conscious mind cannot build and use arguments against the ideas revealed and therefore your subconscious mind can be more susceptible to the unconscious idea.

The general public first became aware of subliminal messages in 1957 when James Vicary, a market researcher claimed that over a six-week period, 45,699 patrons at a movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey were shown two advertising messages, "Eat Popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola", while they watched the movie Picnic. Vicary claimed that over that period sales of popcorn rose 57.7% and the sales of Coca-Cola rose 18.1%. Vicary's claims are often accepted as established facts. However, Vicary never released a detailed description of his study and there has never been any independent evidence to support his claims. Also, in an interview with Advertising Age in 1962, Vicary stated that the original study was a fabrication.

Since that time, there has been much controversy over the effectiveness of subliminal messages. There have been camps which swear to their success with subliminal messages and those that claim they are worthless. What is amusing to me is that it seems everyone is willing to believe that subliminals can have an affect on us in advertising but are hesitant to believe they can affect our personal development. You can't believe one without accepting the other.

It has been demonstrated that subliminal messages are most effective when the message is related to a goal. What this means is that if you don't want to quit smoking you can listen to subliminal messages for months and it is unlikely to get you to quit. So choose messages that support your desires.

In the book Empirical Perspectives on the Psychoanalytic Unconscious, edited by Robert Bornstein and Joseph Masling, the Editors write, "Early in the twentieth century, research focused on establishing the existence of unconscious mental processes and on demonstrating that these processes could produce measurable effect on motivation, emotion, cognition and behavior. Controversies surrounded the measurement of unconscious mental processes (By 1992) these investigations demonstrated unequivocally that not only do stimuli perceived or remembered without awareness influence behavior, but they also produce effects on responding that are qualitatively different than those produced by stimuli consciously perceived and remembered".

Eldon Taylor in his article Health and Longevity: Changing My Mind the Subliminal Way states "Perhaps there will still be those people who firmly oppose subliminal communication ten years from now, but if there are, it will probably be for reasons other than science. The science is in."

For us to make a change in our life we need to change the way we think. We need to replace negative programs with positive programs. Speaking directly to the subconscious mind with messages that reinforce your desires can do just that. All of a sudden one day you will realize that you are more positive than negative and that old unwanted thoughts and habits are gone. Almost like magic your goals, ideals and ambitions are yours.

Review these articles for more information:

• Essential Subliminal Learning Tips
• The Advantages Of Subliminal Learning