Is subconscious response greater than conscious?

Question

I sometimes believe when it comes to creative art, tapping into subconscious, especially in painting and poetry, reveals a startling wealth of creativity and unexplorered potentiality. In other arts however, it requires much more analyzing and conscious thought to define specifically what you are trying to express. So as far as creative arts are concerned, I see some advantages in subconscious response, and some advantage in conscious response. Of course, it's always hard to draw the line between the two, and determine where subconscious specifically become conscious and vice versa.

Answer 1

"Our two minds .... One is an act of the emotional
mind, the other of the rational mind. In a very real
sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that
feels" (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence,
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 1996, page 8). This
rational mind is also called the faculty of logic and
reason - it is the conscious component of mind.
The emotional mind is the sub-conscious component
of mind.

The Upanishads describe five components of mind.
The emotional mind is called Chitta and the rational
mind is called Manas.

Chitta is the seat of the element Water. It controls
the processing of liquids in the body and interaction
of the body with the liquids out side the body. This
center is connected with instincts, urges, impulses,
desires, imagination, sentiments, intuition, passions,
caring, pleasure, exploration, unconventional ideas,
moods, insight, superstitions, immodesty, immorality,
analysis of details, concern about particular features,
ability to find novel relationships, unrestrained
expressions connected with body or mind, molding of
experiences into new constellations of meanings,
creation of artistic, poetic and musical works and the
like. Art is based on intuition, which is a direct
apprehension of reality un-mediated by thought. Thus
art cuts through conventional symbols and beliefs about
people, life and society, and confronts one with
reality itself. Seeing a good work of painting or
reading a novel sets waves of emotion in Chitta center.
As romantic literature everywhere developed, intuition
was praised over reason, and emotions over logic making
way for a vast body of literature of great sensibility
and passion. Some youths variously describe sex as that
which meets the requirements of pleasure urge,
emotional fulfillment, passionate craving, instinctive
motive, subconscious desire, lustful feeling, or
release of pent-up desires. Men of wisdom wrote that
likings and desires connected with sex are shrouded in
darkness beyond reason. Dictionaries connect the word
"desire" with thirst, craving, dream, fancy, feel like,
impulse, lust, passion, and urge. They give the meaning
of words "crave" and "lust" as "thirst" indicating the
connection with the center governed by element Water.
Sentiments are described as tender emotions, romantic
feelings, preconceived ideas or preconceptions.
Passions are known to be connected with subconscious
feelings like emotionality, irrational motive, sexual
desire, wildness and zeal. Chitta center stores Papa
(vice) of a person which affects the present life. The
urge to have sex will be higher on Friday than any
other day of week. The Sanskrit word for Venus is Sukra
which also means semen. Like the semen, Chitta
represents an extraordinary spontaneous creative energy
which is an independent primordial essence. This center
has seeds of past memories and can access Jnaana center
for more details of each memory. It may be noted that
the expression "sensory indulgence" refers to sexual
activity. This center controls the sensitivity of the
sense-organs. If the vitality of this center gets
reduced due to any reason, the sensitivity of the
sense-organs also gets reduced. For example, the
sense-organs feel sleepy after an ejaculation in man.
Even if the man has very high artistic talents, they
also will not respond normally soon after ejaculation.
It takes about 40 minutes before some recovery is felt.
Even a man of high rationality needs about 20 minutes
to become normal and to do complex mathematical
calculations after seeing an erotic movie. This center
can be compared to a convex lens - it provides insight
for the subtle. Its working is similar to
Differentiation in mathematics. It helps to observe all
the minor details, and each minor detail is given very
high importance. In the fallen object case that we are
studying, Chitta will help to observe the individual
parts of the fallen body as if they are seen through a
convex lens. The first phase of the pattern recognition
takes place here. It will pass on the original signal
along with its pattern recognition report to its higher
center, the Manas.

A creative person is usually very intelligent in the
ordinary sense of the term, but often he refuses to let
intellect rule; he relies strongly on intuition, and he
respects the irrational in himself and others. An
artist is said to go to the extremes to divorce himself
from environmental constraints. Aristotle wondered "Why
is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy,
poetry, or the arts are melancholic?" Many other
thinkers over many centuries observed the association
of mood swings and intense emotional pain with creative
artists. They are the same symptoms described for
love-sick persons in romantic literature of ancient
India. Psychological studies of highly creative people
have observed some tension in terms of such dualities
as logic and intuition, the conscious and the
subconscious, mental health and mental disorder, the
conventional and the unconventional, and complexity and
simplicity. Many creative people show a strong interest
in apparent disorder, contradiction, and imbalance;
they often seem to consider asymmetry and disorder a
challenge. At times creative persons give an impression
of psychological imbalance, but immature personality
traits may beam extension of a generalized receptivity
to a wider-than-normal range of experience and
behaviour patterns. Such individuals may possess an
exceptionally deep, broad, and flexible awareness of
themselves. Modern research showed that as adolescents,
between 29 and 34 percent of eminent-artists-to-be
exhibited psychiatric symptoms compared with 3 to 9
percent of future achievers in the sciences and law.
Many artists attested that persons who are mildly
maniac can uncover areas of thinking which are normally
shrouded in darkness. Modern psychology says that a
creative thinker, whether artist, writer, or a
designer, is trying to create something new, or a
conventional thing with a novelty. Whatever be the area
of specialization, creative thinking involver a
considerable amount of subconscious re-arrangement of
symbols and images. Nishida Kitaro, after a long
struggle with something that was impenetrable to his
logic, wrote that pure mental activity - the unity of
conscious thought and intuition - ultimately finds
itself in the abyss of darkness that envelopes every
light of self-consciousness. Even though this darkness
is like dazzling obscurity, Kitaro observed that it
gives the self some unfathomable depth of meaning and
being.

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Answer 2

Yes - I would imagine that it is. Body language usually comes first and it is a response from the subconsious. A subconscious response is a natural response and a conscious response is a thought out response, so it would seem as though the natural response would be greater, although I don't know that 'greater' is the right word. I would say that it is the response which is most likely picked up on, of the two.

Answer 3

our subconscious is so much smarter then I am always seams to out smart us not very nice either, doesn’t know so much about the creative forces seams mine is always stealing ideas. Tries to come up with an original and the subconscious always seam to land us in a well traveled rut. I have to consciously force the path some times. And we don’t like having to resort to that.

Answer 4

I'm sure that it is sometimes--not always. Have you ever blurted out something that you really do think is true, but consciously, for one reason or another, would not have said out loud and then wondered what on earth made you say it? Probably because subconsciously that was what you thought--- consciously, you new it wasn't the time or place to say it.