Whose Thoughts are these Anyway?
Most of our lives we believe our thoughts are not only ours; they are what we are. We also believe our emotions are what we are, and of course we know we are our bodies. When we look to see how thoughts are created we find something quite interesting. All our thoughts appear in what we think of as our minds. We don’t consciously make them; any of them. Some of them seem to obviously come from us, they are familiar, we’ve had them before, or others like them. They are about subjects we think about. While others seem to be unusual, unique, even out of character, and yet others seem to come from some inspired place that is beyond our understanding.
I am suggesting that consciousness is outside of the brain, or the mind; that we are receptacles for thoughts. If you consider some of the thoughts that show up in your mind, particularly the ones that bother you, then you know that if you had a choice you wouldn’t have them. Others appear seemingly out of the blue, and you don’t have an experience of having created them. Where do they come from? What we do know is that we are conscious of them.
Psychology Today; 2019, presents an article entitled Does Consciousness Exist Outside the Brain? Peter Fenwick’s research is discussed in this article. He is a Neuro-psychiatrist that studied what happens to the brain during Near Death experiences (NDE). From this research, he came to believe that consciousness exists outside the brain and is a part of the universe. The brain does not create consciousness, it is a portal for consciousness, and has a filtering function. I would suggest that this filtering is influenced by our conditioning and our patterning.
Fenwick also believes that we are tricked into thinking we are separate from the world, but in fact there is only One.
In Mind Beyond Brain David Presti presents the Dalai Lama’s perspective on Past Life Memories as an example of the continuation of consciousness after death, therefore outside of the brain. He gives examples of people that remember their Past Lives and the research that verifies these lives. In his book, Presti and other scientists explore phenomena such as Near Death Experiences, Past Life Memories, Telepathy, and Clairvoyance, to suggest that consciousness exists outside of the brain.
In an article put out by IONS Institute of Noetic Science from August 2019, Mark Gobar brings up the possibility that the brain does not produce consciousness. Maybe consciousness is like a stream of water and we are all whirlpools in the stream. That we are actually connected yet have the appearance of separation. He suggests that the significance is that if we are all the same at the most basic level, it wouldn’t make sense to hurt someone else because we would essentially be hurting ourselves.
There are many more articles. They all discuss what I discovered through my exploration.
Thoughts from conditioning
This is enormously interesting, suggesting that our thoughts come to us, they are not created within us. In the first category I mentioned, some of our thoughts are familiar. These thoughts come from conditioning and patterning. We are all born with a particular wiring, the Enneagram points to this. I call this wiring our patterning. Our conditioning occurs as soon as we are born, sometimes before we are born. Our family begins to tell us who we are, how to react to things, etc. Then school fills in other pieces, and various events help form the rest. My little granddaughter at around 3 years old began to say “it’s a good thing, various things didn’t happen” like it’s a good thing that didn’t break, or it’s a good thing you remembered that, etc. I wondered where she got that phrase, and then I began to hear myself say that all the time. She picked it up from me; it wasn’t really her thought.
Thought from others
The second group of thoughts are the unusual, out of character type, or thoughts that might actually have been picked up by our minds as the thoughts float around in consciousness. Maybe someone we are close to is having some thoughts like these, maybe someone nearby is having them, and they are floating into our minds This is entirely possible if consciousness exists outside the brain. Also since we know that we are all connected, why wouldn’t I pick up on someone else’s thoughts. A common example of these kinds of thoughts is when you think of someone and they call on the phone.
Inspired Thoughts
The Third category, the ones that are inspired, and beyond our understanding, I consider guidance from beyond; from Consciousness itself, or from other dimensions or beings beyond our world. This may seem far fetched, but my experience with the Light Beings allows for this possibility. While there is only one consciousness and we are all that, there can be other dimensions and beings beyond this physical world. All within the One. An example of this for me is in the section called “Someone is dreaming me”. That thought came into my mind, nothing in my conditioning could have created it, and I don’t know anyone that would have that thought. It came from somewhere, and wound up having a profound effect on my understanding.
There is a lot to ponder here. Bottom line though is that you are not creating your thoughts. Some come from conditioning, some thoughts you are picking up from other people, and still others are coming to you as guidance.
