Three things happened to me when I was 17 that turned out to have a significant effect on my interest in communications, and specifically non-verbal communications, later in life. First, I read a book about the Dalai Lama, and took him on as one of my heroes immediately and forever. Second, I learned my father was gay. And third, I died.
I talked about seeing the Dalai Lama in person in my first post in this series. His effect on me and on the rest of the audience was so powerful, that it forced me to think about the power of non-verbal communications. How could one person transfix me with a look?
In my second post, I described learning that my father was gay in a nanosecond at Christmas. Once again, a look conveyed information powerfully, and changed my understanding of my father’s life completely.
But then came the sequel.
Later that Christmas season, I was tobogganing with a couple of friends, on the other side of town, on a cold, icy afternoon. The first run went smoothly, and so, with 17-year-old bravado, I said, “we didn’t go fast enough.” My friends suggested that perhaps I’d like to try a solo run if I was so full of it, and so I did.
I got a running start, jumped on the toboggan, and crashed headfirst into a tree on the second turn. I fractured my skull, and was taken to Geisinger Medical Center in Hershey, PA, and operated on by neurosurgeons there for a subdural hematoma – a blood clot – that was putting pressure on my brain and causing intense pain.
I was in a coma for a few days, and at some point during that coma, I died briefly – for a total of about 15 minutes. I came back to life, woke up, and asked the nurse “Where am I?” because, despite the cliché, it was what I wanted to know first. I was lost, confused, and had no memory of what had happened to me.
As I gradually regained awareness, I noticed that something odd had happened to my mental processes. I couldn’t figure out affect – intent – in other people. Their words seemed hollow, and the world seemed gray. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking, or feeling. Their mouths moved, and words came out, but without a sense of intent behind them, they didn’t make much sense to me.
So I began to study their gestures and facial expressions consciously, in a deliberate and indeed panicked attempt to figure out what they were feeling, what their intent was, what they actually meant.
I felt cut off and completely alienated from the world. Everyone around me seemed like automatons, robots, without the affect I was used to from before the accident.
After a couple of months, I was able once again to read people’s emotions, and the world once again seemed filled with emotion and attitude and once again made sense. The part of my brain that read other people effortlessly, more or less, switched back on as mysteriously as it had switched off.
But the whole experience awakened in me a lifelong interest in body language, gesture, and the conscious effort to understand what other people took for granted, content to pick up emotion and intent for the most part unconsciously.
And one other thing. The experience allowed me to occasionally tap into my unconscious mental processes and make them conscious. Like moments of insight into how the mind actually understands the world around it – a glimpse behind the scenes.
Over the years I’ve continued to study our unconscious behavior to try to understand how people actually communicate. And more recently, advances in brain science have given us the beginnings of a true understanding of this essential piece of human behavior.
Most of our communication is indeed unconscious. Our conscious brains can handle something like 40 bits of information a second. That sounds like a lot until you know that our unconscious minds can handle 11 million bits of information per second. And so we’ve evolved to push much of our behavior down to our unconscious minds because they can handle the chores so much more powerfully and rapidly.
If something dangerous is thrown at you, and you duck without thinking, getting out of the way a split second before it could hurt you, that’s your unconscious mind at work. If you move at virtually the same instant and with the same gesture as someone you love, that’s your unconscious mind at work. And if you get a suddenly powerful gut feeling that the person across from you is concealing an important feeling or piece of news, that’s your unconscious mind at work.
Precisely because all of this mental activity is unconscious, we’re not aware of it, until it has already started to happen. In fact, we make most decisions unconsciously, and only become aware of them consciously afterward, once we already start acting physically on that decision. The delay can be as long as 9 seconds.
For most of the things that matter, your unconscious mind rules you, not the other way around.
I believe that we humans can unlock enormous communication (and leadership) potential within ourselves by training our conscious minds to understand those unconscious thought processes better, and taking control of them. I’m writing a book right now on how to do exactly that, and in future blog posts I’ll share key points along the way.
Fascinating story… Sounds like you had a (thankfully temporary) dip into a kind of autistic state. Your description sounds like Temple Grandin’s description of her autism and her way of coping with it.
Hi, Colin — Thanks for the comment, and yes — apparently, metaphorically speaking, a wire was jarred loose and then reconnected. There’s so much about the brain that’s still mysterious….
Yes… also your points about the inter play of unconscious and conscious mind reminded me of some of the amazing research described in Dan Wegner’s book “The Illusion of Conscious Will” Highly recommended if you haven’t come across it…
Thanks for the book rec — always glad to hear of a new one….
This made me think of a talented actress I know– who has developed remarkable control over her body language — her “instrument”. She can cry at will, etc..
You know, I never really trusted her reactions–because I knew she was so much in control of her reactions and body language. I think your book might consider this– the subconscious is also how we gauge authenticity (consider Hillary Clinton’s famous tears.)
Hi, Andrew — thanks for the comment. You’re right; authenticity is a huge issue. As soon as people get a sense that a reaction is not ‘real’, their hackles go up. And we’re very good at detecting it. Hence actors’ never-ending quest for a more naturalistic delivery. If you look at acting from even a few years ago, it will often seem ‘stagey’ and unpersuasive.
Nick:
I loved what you shared in this post, both your personal experiences as well as the information about the conscious and the unconscious. I look forward to reading what I know will be an amazing book on training us to unlock the storehouse of information that is available in the unconscious. Another required book to add to the list for my students, I’m sure.
Best,
~ronni
Thanks so much, Ronni, for the comment and the vote of confidence.
Nick, You always write so beautifully. I do a mountain of research and I’m an insatiable learner and can often feel overwhelmed with what I set aside to read and learn. I’m never unsure if I should take time for your email. I can trust to have a reward when I invest in reading your material. Other authors, less so. Thanks for enriching us so often.
Claudine, thanks so much for the kind comments. I’m glad to hear that I’m hitting the mark.
Hi Nick
Very insightful and interesting story.
In regards to body language – I completely agree with you that the process of ‘decoding’ gestures and expressions is mostly subconscious and is hardwired in our brain. Sure, we can train ourselves to become more aware about it, but it’s not a very good idea to try to switch the ‘autopilot’ off and consciously control every little bit of it – it’s just not possible.
Another thing I found very intriguing is that you mentioned that you suffered from a brain injury that prevented you from understanding other people’s feeling. Do you care to elaborate a little more about it? How did it suddenly recover?
I imagine it has something to do with mirror neurons and empathy but I would like to hear the full story (:
Thanks!
Hi, Sinay —
Thanks for your comment. Indeed, yes, you wouldn’t want to consciously control “every little bit of it.” But you WOULD want to control certain important aspects of it, at certain times. That’s the whole point.
As for the brain injury, I can’t tell you how I recovered. Time went by, and I healed. But I have no way of knowing the mechanisms involved. Something was ‘disconnected’ and then ‘connected’ again, but we don’t know any more than that.