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Psychological Skepticism | Nick Wignall
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Psychological skepticism
Psychological skepticism means being neutral toward the contents of your mind.
Most of us are overly trusting of our own minds. But information is not always the truth. Just like the media inundates us with questionable information, our brains do the same thing.
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Your mind is just guessing
Emotions, thoughts, and memories may give us useful information, but they are also likely to be unhelpful, inaccurate, or misleading.
For example, when you hear a rattling noise while out hiking, your fear may make you proceed more cautiously. However, fear of your coworkers who think you're dumb keeps you from participating in important meetings.
The information your mind sends you in the form of emotions, thoughts, memories, desires, etc., relates to simply guesses, which means it's unwise to put blind faith in it.
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Embracing psychological skepticism
Remind yourself that just because you have a thought doesn't make it true. Just because you feel an emotion doesn't make it significant.
When we deal with our thoughts, emotions, and painful memories, we should consider embracing psychological skepticism - the middle road between ignoring the content of your mind or taking it as gospel.
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Fight-or-flight training
One of the areas of the brain that’s most active during dreaming is the amygdala - the part of the brain associated with the survival instinct and the fight-or-flight response.
One theory suggests dreams may be the brain’s way of getting you ready to deal with a threat. Fortunately, the brainstem sends out nerve signals during REM sleep that relax your muscles. That way you don’t try to run or punch in your sleep.
Dreams as your muse
One theory for why we dream is that it helps facilitate our creative tendencies.
Without the logic filter, you might normally use in your waking life that can restrict your creative flow, your thoughts and ideas have no restrictions when you’re sleeping.
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The illusory truth effect
It's our tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure to it.
The illusory truth effect is the reason why advertising and propaganda works.
Why repetition reinforces a belief
The typical explanation is that our brains take shortcuts to save energy:
- Statements presented in as easy-to-read color are judged as more likely to be true.
- Aphorisms that rhyme (like “what sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals") seem more accurate than non-rhyming versions.
Carl Sagan
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. ”
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Keystone habits
They lock all of your other habits in place.
A person might start exercising once per week, and unknowing begins eating better and being more productive at work. All because she starte...
Stephen R. Covey
"Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them."
Benefits of Journaling
- Increases focus;
- Deeper level of learning, order, action, and release;
- Holding thoughts still so they can be changed and integrated;
- Releasing pent-up thoughts and emotions;
- Empowerment;
- Bridging inner thinking with outer events;
- Detaching and letting go of the past;
- Allowing you to re-experience the past with today’s adult mind.