What's up with your RAS?

Have you had the experience of desperately looking to find your keys, only to “find” them in your hand? Most likely, I would say yes you have. Everybody has had experiences similar to this, but why?



Most likely you’ve heard of incidents where an eye witness to a crime has been placed under hypnosis to reveal needed information to solve a hideous crime. For example, there was a witness to the kidnapping of a young child by two accomplices in a car. This eye witness saw the car, but in the panic of the moment does think to gather relevant information that would be needed to solve the crime.


Under routine questioning, this witness provides next to nothing and is of little help to the investigators. The case appears to be unsolvable, until someone suggests using hypnosis to help the eye witness recall more information.


A hypnotist is brought in and brings the eyewitness back to the “scene of the crime.” Now the eyewitness seems to be able to describe the crime in great detail. The witness carefully describes the two accomplices, what they were wearing, giving their physical description and of the car they were driving. The witness even gives the investigator the license plate number.

How is any of this possible?

The human brain is an incredible tool. Your mind is absolutely miraculous in the manner in which it operates. At the base of your brain, where it connects to the spinal cord, you will find a small part, about the size of your little finger. This is called the Reticular Activating System or RAS for short.


The RAS acts as switchboard system that filters the flood of information you receive every second after second. Your conscious mind is only able to process about 2,000 bits of information per second. Your subconscious mind, however, can manage what seems to be an unlimited amount of information simultaneously.


Consider your field of vision, for example. You are consciously aware of only a small percentage of what your eyes actually capture. The remainder of this information is not lost. It is simply filtered out by your RAS and sent directly to your unconscious mind. Your total vision goes into memory, however you are only able to consciously recall that which you were consciously aware of at the time.


The same goes for all your other senses. In any given moment you are inundated with more information than your conscious mind can handle. For this reason, it is the job of the RAS to bring to your conscious awareness only that information which is important to your conscious mind. In the case of looking for your keys, you might say this is important to my conscious mind. What gives?


Beliefs. The RAS determines what is important by your beliefs. It always seeks to reinforce your current beliefs. If you believe you had lost your keys, your RAS will help you out in your belief by causing you to over look them, even when they are right there in front of you! Did you understand what I just said? Bow think about this in regards to your beliefs concerning the world around you. Do you consider the world a friendly place that is out to help you achieve your goals in the fastest easiest way?


Chances are, due to your past programming, you believe the life is a struggle. Now when you were just a baby, everything you needed was provided for you. You definitely did not have to struggle. But what were the feelings and words of the people around you? “Money doesn’t grow on trees” “I’m not made of money.” “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” And so on it went.


You were likely programmed that achieving your goals was going to be a difficult, if not impossible task. Once programmed, your RAS took over to show you all the evidence you needed to “prove” that your beliefs were correct. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Now here you are years later, and you’re hearing all this talk about The Secret, and life is abundance, and all the positive self talk you are expected to do to be happy. How can I be positive when everything around me screams of negativity?


Understand why it screams of negativity and how it got that way, and you’ve made a quantum leap toward making the change you desire. Is it easy to change a belief? Yes, and no. Beliefs are habits. Habits can be overridden by your conscious mind, but only while you are putting forth a conscious effort. The problem is your conscious mind is only capable of focusing on one thing at a time.


You cannot remain conscious of this desire to see more positive 24-7. You need to concentrate on others things throughout your day as well. So how do you make this change. Here’s a little secret that can help you do wonders in your quest.


Don’t worry about trying to see the positive in everything every minute of every day. Remember, your mind is a tool that you can use or you can let IT use YOU. By bringing to your conscious awareness “proof” of the negativity around you, your mind is doing what it was programmed to do. Your mind is working fine. Your job is to USE your mind to change your mind’s programming.


Take some time every evening before you go to sleep and again when you first wake up to meditate on the your goal of training your mind to look for positive inspiration, but also to let YOU know when it has brought something negative to your attention. Think about this. You are going through your day and all of a sudden, you are struck with a negative thought or observation.


Rather than feeling bad about not seeing more positively, you feel good that you are aware of the fact that you noticed something negative. Congratulate your mind for doing what you asked of it. And with your newfound positive energy, shift your awareness to this positive. Voila. You’ve just made another great step toward becoming more positive.

Now I realize this space is quite limited to get into great detail, but this technique really does work miracles. If you’d like to gain a greater, more detailed understanding of exactly how your mind works, and how you can develop a more positive, goal-oriented mindset, please consider getting a copy of my newest book, Manifest By Design Now, available now as a downloadable ebook at my website.


You really can achieve your goals in an easy manner, once you understand how to better use your mind. If you have any questions, leave me a comment or contact me through Facebook.



To your Infinite Abundance,

Jeffrey Brandt

Author of Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way: A Guide to Discovering Your Higher Self.








All writings here are copyrighted by Jeffrey Brandt. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. If you enjoy the content of this blog, you can find more by Jeffrey Brandt by visiting Jeffrey Brandt Products.