Where do thoughts come from?
Self-exploration into the mysteries of the mind, thinking and memory
This evening I was with a friend and conversations meandered along to fall upon this topic of “where do our thoughts come from?”. Have you ever had thoughts appear in your mind as if from nowhere and had you sit back in wonder and amazement, perhaps even shock, with slight tingles.
A number of times in my life this has happened to me in quite a conscious way. Sometimes it was for good, thoughts of creativity, popping into my mind like an explosion from the aether; other times they were more fear-based thoughts that I never thought I would have of my own accord. Those inner voices we all hold, of the multitude personas we hold within our ego, within our psyche, are they all from us, from within? Have you ever asked yourself: “How did that thought get in my head? That’s not like me at all!”.
I had tentatively mentioned this to my friend, after all it’s not something that makes you look particularly sane, so admitting to this is always hard. My friend sprung into action to grab a book he’d been reading and once settled back down he too shared moments where this too had happened. Recent years seemed to have heightened this experience and indeed what came forth was an exchange of other friends’ stories, similar observations, almost as if something had come over them and taken control of their thoughts and actions, and before they knew, they’d done the unthinkable, whatever that meant to them.
We know that the media manipulate how the information is presented so as to have maximum effect on us, but do we all realise the subliminal messaging also taking place? I’m currently putting together a business plan for my emerging business and one aspect of it is The Voice. We spoke at length on this, how The Voice is crucial in how we communicate, how we connect, how we can influence others, reassure others, get others to do what we want sometimes and can in fact be a powerful tool. I’m interested in the voice from a perspective of creativity, musicality and healing, but there is this too - the power of The Voice. How many politicians and world leaders have had voice coaches? Margaret Thatcher is renowned to have had a coach to help lower her voice to fit into a more male-dominated environment where her previously shrill female voice was ultimately grating on their nerves. The King’s Speech is a film which is based entirely around this concept, of helping the future King George VI overcome a terrible stammer. Tender, endearing, raw, honest. Any work on our imperfections deserves respect and for our hats to be well and truly off. But what if this ability to change our voice, to mould our voice is to have a certain effect on others in order to manipulate and control in some way? What then?
I’ve worked in Voiceovers and I know what it’s like to mould my voice to fit a certain emotion, target audience, product, music or mood. Like a chameleon or a snake changing skin. At a certain point when I was auditioning for VO jobs I would ask myself if I truly knew what the job was actually for? More and more medical recordings were being requested and I just couldn’t bring myself to record so blindly. Who am I trying to convince and of what? What’s the context? The ultimate goal? As a freelance VO artist you aren’t given the luxury of understanding this on most jobs. You respond to a job posting, audition and then either get it or not and if you do, there’s often little time to reflect on any of this.
For someone like me, wanting to embrace my work with The Voice and bring this to more people, it’s something I contemplate on and don’t take lightly. Our voice; air passing through us in vibrations to land upon someone’s ears. So powerful, so intimate. I believe we owe it to ourselves to contemplate these voices, both inner and without. What voices do you have in your head and are you sure they are all from within? How shrouded are they in unmet emotions? Eckhart Tolle speaks of the “pain body” being a kind of negative entity of sorts, stemming from repressed trauma and negative emotions, which gather to then unleash itself on our unsuspecting partner in relationships or other connections we have in our life. With conscious awareness we can work to recognise when it is our “pain body” coming through us to be seen and heard, so we don’t have to react to our partner, or whoever it may be. Hold fast, hold tight, don’t take flight, don’t panic…
So if we can be influenced by our own “pain body” perhaps we can also be influenced by other external forces, be it subliminal or otherwise? Perhaps the next time a thought lands in your mind seemingly from nowhere and takes even you by surprise, perhaps just cast a gaze within and see what your wise heart tells you. Is there something you need to know about this inner voice? Is there something between the lines you’re missing?
In the words of Sigmund Freud,
“Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?”
Where indeed. Memory, like an elusive, slippery fish can be crystal clear or hazy like purple, but if it eludes us and manages to dive back into the vast ocean whence it came, how do we know if it still exists and are we tapping into it without even realising it, just our ego mind won’t allow it to come through to us?
So many questions.
So many thoughts.