How To Use Your Subconscious Mind like Nikola Tesla
Subconscious mind mastery is not easy, however, it can be learned. To do this let’s look at one of the most influential geniuses of the last 100 years.
Tesla.
No, I’m not talking about the electric cars, but the man in whose honour they were named.
Nikola Tesla was a genius ahead of his time. A man who learned to listen to his subconscious mind, and therefore brought us many inventions and 300 patents. Everything from electric motors and radios to fluorescent lights, lasers, and of course the alternating current which powers our cities.
In this article I will share 3 lessons from Tesla for tapping into the full power of your mind.
Subconscious mind power through solitude
We live in a digital age.
It is an age filled with a staggering amount of distraction (from tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter).
Merchants of dopamine who spend billions of dollars every year in campaigns to steal our attention and occupy our minds.
An age of omnipresent mainstream media equipped with an advanced skillset in mass propaganda.
The average man now has more inputs going into his brain on a regular basis than ever before.
With all of these inputs and never-ending streams of distractions, spending time alone with our thoughts is now seen as a burden.
If you have tried meditating, you will know just how uncomfortable this seemingly fundamental human activity can become.
And yet Tesla tells us,
“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
Tesla, since youth, was known for spending vast amounts of time alone; a trait he took to his death as he was found alone in a New York hotel room by a maid.
Nikola Tesla never married, preferring to be left to his own devices.
We do not have to emulate his drastic measures, but it’s important to understand why he chose solitude.
When we are alone our minds can be set free. When our minds wonder and daydream, we shift into the realm of the subconscious.
It is there where all great ideas are born.
My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration.”
Many great minds have attested to the power of solitude.
Steve Jobs, Einstein, Beethoven, Freud and Darwin are just a sample of the men who incorporated long solitary walks into their daily routines.
Our greatest insights come when the mind is calm, not when it is straining through conscious effort.
A secondary benefit of putting aside time for solitude is reduced anxiety. Cal Newport, author of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, explains it perfectly.
When you start banishing time alone with your thoughts, it short-circuits the brain, so what happens is you get anxious. I think as a culture we have this background type of anxiety that we have just become used to…This brain was not made to be processing inputs from other people all day long right? This is not what our brain evolved for, it’s crossing some wires in there so we are all a little bit frazzled, we are all a little bit anxious.
At the start of your day, set aside at least 20-30 minutes for yourself.
Be alone with no phone, no music, no friends, no partner, no outside inputs – just you and your thoughts.
This can be done through a long walk in nature, taking a longer shower, or just lying in bed before waking up.
Bring a pen and paper because your subconscious will begin to speak to you.
Visualization & The Subconscious Mind
The word imagination is often thought as a past time for children.
Most people believe that only dreamers and eccentric artists who live in their vans use imagination.
Responsible people deal with the tangible real world.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Here is how Tesla explains his process for creating revolutionary inventions which have changed our world.
My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device entirely in my mind.”
Before something can be created in our physical world, it must first be forged through the realm of imagination.
Many geniuses knew this secret.
Max Planck, the founder of Quantum theory, made it a practice to collect interesting advertisements, quotes, cartoons, poetry, and an array of other random items. He would look at them to stimulate his imagination and trigger ideas by association.
Through our imagination we can see possibilities without physical hindrances and unwarranted criticism from the real world.
It’s our private domain.
It’s what allowed Steve Jobs to see a world where everybody would have a computer in their pockets.
It’s what motivated the Wright brothers to successfully fly the first aircraft in 1903, just 8 weeks after The New York Times declared:
“To build a flying machine…would require ‘the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians from one million to ten million years.”
Tesla claimed that he could envision clearly in his mind, in great detail, the inventions he wanted to create.
His ability to visualize was created during his youth where he would engage in controlled daydreams.
For fun he would travel in his mind to new cities and meet new people – a skill that supported him greatly when his interests shifted to inventions.
This ability is similar to Einstein’s thought experiments which started when he, too, was a boy.
Experiments which later led to some of the greatest breakthroughs in physics through the theory of relativity.
Imagination is a gift that allows you to create your world.
To use it effectively you must practice visualizing just like Tesla.
Start small and try to maintain basic shapes in your mind’s eye.
Once the picture becomes real to you, move on to more profound visualizations.
See yourself as the person you want to be.
In the words of Neville Goddard, assume the wish fulfilled.
Regardless of your outside circumstances envision the world you want to live in.
Create a vivid picture in your theatre of the mind.
See through the eyes of the man you want to be; take on his mannerisms, observe his living arrangement, and make the image as clear as your physical world.
If Tesla could use his imagination to help change the world, you can use yours to change yourself.
Be consistent and your subconscious will begin to show you ways to realize this ideal.
Subconscious Intuition
But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibres that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other wilful effort of the brain, is futile.”
Your subconscious mind often speaks to you through intuitive hunches.
Unfortunately, we are not privy to all the information in our minds.
At any given time our conscious awareness focuses only on a handful of things. The other data is subliminal.
Pain tells you that something is wrong in your body.
You don’t need a degree in medicine to know the situation is bad.
The technical diagnosis is irrelevant for inspiring you to take action.
Intuition works in a similar way.
It manifests as a feeling that cannot be explained logically.
A feeling which pushes you in a specific direction.
The mind does not work in a linear fashion; our neurons fire in a divergent and convergent manner.
We compare every experience to the patterns and data points we have seen before.
Look at our world and you will see that it’s dominated by fractals.
In nature, patterns repeat themselves at different scales.
Since birth our minds have become masters of understanding these patterns. Not just the ones in nature, but also social dynamics and situations that seem eerily familiar.
This incredible amount of data is too much for our conscious minds to compute.
For example, Chess Grandmasters are said to be able to recall some 50,000 patterns on the chessboard.
Pattern recognition makes it easy for Grandmasters to play multiple games at once.
They play intuitively through leveraging the immense amounts of data in their minds.
The chess rookies lose because they rely on conscious brute force.
If you don’t have the ability to make these quick decisions based on intuition mostly, confidently, then you will miss out on so many opportunities because you see dangers that aren’t actually real… Sometimes you miss something but it turns out later down the road that it was not important and your intuition told you to make a quick confident decision which was actually right.”
– Magnus Carlsen (World No.1 Chess Grandmaster)
Our intuition becomes stronger when we have more experience in a field.
When dealing with other human beings, your intuition is usually right. This is because every interaction you had with another human being served as a data.
Tesla strongly followed his intuition…at times taking it too far.
The guy had a maniacal fixation with the number 3.
- He would walk around a building three times before entering.
- Requested his hotel room number be divisible by three.
- Required 18 fresh towels to be delivered to his room every morning because 18 was divisible by 3.
He also tried to design a death beam, which supposedly was capable of killing millions of enemy soldiers. I would advise against this.
Get out of your own way and listen to your intuition through being receptive to what your soul is telling you.
To master your mind like Tesla you must:
- Understand the power of solitude
- Master the art of imagination
- Be receptive to your intuition
Do this and I promise you will be one step closer to living and dying well.