Pay attention, or else

"Sleepnosis" is a way of doing hypnosis where the hypnotist simply repeats suggestions over and over while the subject is asleep. There's some discussion about just how effective this really is, but for the most part, people studying this seem to agree that there is some effect. They also show that the more often the suggestions are repeated, and the more nights they are presented, the more effective they can be.

This makes me wonder about the people who go to sleep with a TV on.

If you don't actively pay attention to the information and opinions that are being presented to you, then those "facts" and opinions get to sneak in past your filters and take up residence in your brain.

As we wander through our day, our senses report an incredible amount of information to our brains. So much information, in fact, that we can't actively process all of it. Our brains just don't have the bandwidth available to consciously sort through it all. So we end up tending to ignore most of what's going on in the background around us... consciously, anyway.

But the subsconscious part of our minds is always listening and always paying attention to everything that our senses report. Part of it's job is to alert our conscious to things of interest that we might not be actively paying attention to. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night because you heard a weird, out of place noise, even though you were sleeping when you heard it? Ever been in a crowded room, carrying on a conversation, and suddenly picked out someone saying your name through all of the background chatter?

That's your subconscious, doing it's job. It's perfectly capable of taking in massive amounts of sensory input, making sense of it, and sorting it, all without the slightest bit of input from your conscious. It's always on and always listening, even if you're not paying attention. And that's where the problem starts.

The conscious part of your mind is what you use to "pay attention" to something, and is the part of your mind where your logic exists. It's the part where you'd think something like "That guy is certainly passionate about this topic, but if you actually listen to what he's saying, he's full of shit." When you do that, your subconscious can classify that information as "fulla shit" and file it appropriately. Things can get more interesting if you're not actually paying attention to what's being presented.

When that happens, your subconscious gets to make the classification decisions on its own, and it doesn't have access to logic. All it has to make judgements with are your memories and your emotions. Without access to logic, it can only judge the validity of incoming information by comparing it to your past experiences and the emotional states you were in at those times. It's the part of your mind that might think "That guy is certainly passionate about this topic. The last time I felt like that, it was something that was pretty important, so this information must be pretty important too!"

So suddenly, anyone on TV, from douchebags on the news spouting hate and bile, to the advertizers trying desperately to get you to buy something, have a way to get their messages into your head unfiltered and unedited. And that's not a Good Thing.

It's also works to a certain extent if you're awake, but not paying direct attention. Again, repetition and repeated exposure reinforce the message.

So if you're going to watch TV, watch it and then turn it off. Don't just leave the thing on in the background, and whatever you do, don't fall asleep in front of it.