Help from Your Brain

Writing down your dreams and aspirations is like hanging up a sign that says, "Open for Business." Or, as my friend Elaine puts it, by writing it down, you declare yourself in the game. Putting it on paper alerts the part of your brain known as the reticular activating system to join you in the play.

At the base of the brain stem, about the size of a little finger, is a group of cells whose job it is to sort and evaluate incoming data. This control center is known as the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS sends the urgent stuff to the active part of your brain, and sends the nonurgent to the subconscious. The RAS awakens the brain to consciousness, and keeps it alert—just as surely as your baby's cry in the night, from all the way down the hall, can waken you from a deep sleep. The RAS evaluates the nonessential nighttime noises—the dripping faucet, the crickets, or neighborhood traffic—and filters out the nonurgent, waking you up only for the urgent. The baby cries, and in a split second you are bolt upright in bed, wide awake and ready to rescue the infant in distress.

The keenest, most familiar example of the reticular activating system at work is an experience all of us have had at one time or another. You are in a packed room; you can barely hear the conversation of the person you are talking to above the din of the crowd. Suddenly, someone clear on the other side of the room mentions your name. And that one word cuts through the sea of sound and your ears immediately perk up. You turn your head toward the speaker, eager now to tune in the rest of what he or she is saying about you, straining to hear if it is good news, ready to defend the bad...

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© Copyright Henriette Anne Klauser, Ph.D. This article was originally published at our website, SoulfulLiving.com,
in April 2000, as part of Soulful Living's "Writing for
Reflection and Intention" Issue.

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