Do subliminal messages really work? What you need to know
Want to tap into the power of subliminal messaging? Here's what you need to know to make this technique work for you.
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Key quotes:
- over the years numerous techniques and methods of reaching into the subconscious have been explored and they've included hypnosis meditation and something called subliminal suggestion subliminal simply refers to any sound smell touch taste or visualization which is below the level of awareness but unlike hypnosis or meditation subliminal techniques are really quite natural they don't involve trances and that sort of thing subliminal suggestion is more in tune with our Western culture and our everyday lifestyles let's try an experiment as you're watching this program and concentrating on it chances are that you're unaware of whatever else is going on around you now stop listen now during the past several seconds what did you hear a car passing by a conversation in the next room the neighbor's dog barking now these were all sounds that you physically heard but chose to consciously ignore as you directed your attention to this program do you think if you haven't had this experience before you're driving along in your car and you'll find yourself humming a tune you reach down to turn on the radio only to hear the very song you were just that moment humming now was it mere coincidence
Key quotes:
- Create beautiful graphs like this using Visme Subliminal messages are defined as signals below the absolute threshold level (ATL) of our conscious awareness
- One example that illustrates how supraliminal stimuli influences our behavior through conscious perception is the German wine and French wine experiment
- In this famous experiment conducted with 45,699 moviegoers in a New Jersey theater, James Vicary flashed “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coke” for ⅓ of a millisecond during a movie to see if sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn would increase
- In this experiment, subjects were subliminally primed with a word (quickly flashed) before being presented to above-threshold words
- Taking Vicary’s Coca Cola experiment even further by priming not just subjects’ choice between two drink brands but also their feeling of thirst, Karremans found that “priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant.” 2008, How Apple makes you “Think Different” by Grinne M
- Vicary might have lied about selling more Coca Cola and Popcorn by simply flashing suggestive texts on a movie screen; however, advanced experiments by Karremans and Stroebe did prove that visual priming can be effective in changing the way we feel and subsequently influence us to make purchase decisions based on these emotions.
Key quotes:
- For some, subliminal messages are synonymous with mind control: a form of insidious mental manipulation designed to alter our behavior so that we’ll buy a certain product, vote for a certain political candidate, or become socially re-engineered in some way without our consent or even our knowledge
- Keep reading… People often confuse subliminal messages with supraliminal messages
- In 1999, researchers put these kinds of messages to the test in a British supermarket by changing the store music (the supraliminal stimulus) on alternating days in order to encourage customers to buy either French or German wine
- Subliminal messages, on the other hand, are likewise real and similar to supraliminal messages except that the signal or stimulus is below our threshold of conscious awareness
- Subliminal messages first entered the popular consciousness in 1957 when researchers James Vicary and Frances Thayer conducted an experiment that would influence advertising and media — or at least the way the masses felt about those things — for decades to come
- Vicary and Thayer stated that they’d flashed the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” for just 1/3,000 of a second every five seconds to more than 45,000 people during screenings of the movie Picnic over a six-week period.
Key quotes:
- I continued to listen to the included subliminal message music tracks for months after I finished the initial 30-day program
- I developed a written plan of action and started listening to the two subliminal music tracks related to health and vibrancy in that self-help program written and recorded 25 years ago
- But after five months of losing weight and feeling great, I got sick again… Sick of listening to those two 35-minute subliminal message music tracks day after day through walk after walk
- I loaded up a few hours of my favorite music and two sets of affirmations and listen to it while I’m exercising, walking, riding my bike, doing the dishes or whenever I just need to drown out the shrieks of the TV programs my children are watching in the living room
- I like to listen to the affirmations a few times without the music so that I can hear them and to start thinking consciously about the messages of encouragement
- I was a little shy about sharing my idea for InnerJam at first because I don’t exactly fit the mold most people think of when it comes to self-help through positive affirmations, but she embraced the concept and convinced me that this could be my defining moment.
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