I’ve mentioned in the past the book “The User Illusion.” Much of this book discusses the idea of the unconscious – the part of your mind that wills actions you are not conscious of. This of course, sounds like freaky Freudian voodoo to a lot of people but it’s really just describing a lot of the automatic actions we do every day. For instance, the other day I was driving to a gig. Getting to this particular bar involves going on about four different highways. I was driving along, lost in great thoughts, when I realized I had no idea where I was. Was I on the right highway, had I made the appropriate turns? I had no idea. Finally I got a sense of where I was and realized I was indeed right where I should be. I had driven down several highways, made the correct connections and was perfectly on track, but I had done all this unconsciously!

Today I’m doing a little piano playing and realizing it also involves unconscious action. Most piano pieces require playing two complementary parts – one in each hand. I find I can only consciously direct one hand so what I end up doing is training one hand’s part through repetition then letting it play automatically while I focus on the other. If effect, that first trained hand is running on its own; I’m not consciously controlling it. In fact, I was playing a piece today and realized that my unconscious hand was not playing piano at all but strangling a prostitute who looked like my mother! Fascinating!