We go about our lives how we want but is our subconscious constantly causing or preventing us from doing specific actions?

A Clock Work Orange by Anthony Burgess

A while ago I read this great novel and I'd like to share it with you and some principles from it. The book was 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess which contained something pretty interesting to my mind in it. The book is fictional but it explores something called the Ludovico technique.

It is a dystopian novel revolving around aversion therapy which is a psychological treatment that requires the person to be in a state of discomfort coupled with being exposed to a stimulus such as an energy change. It is a really interesting concept which the more I think about the more I realise how true it is.

This technique is supposed to cause the person to associate the stimulus with a morbid sinister sensation to inhibit a particular behaviour.

The Ludovico Technique

In the book, a speculum is used to hold open the patient's eyes (two metal brackets that force the eye open) as he is pressured to view violent images for extended periods of time while experiencing paralysis, fear-inducing drugs as well as nausea leaving the patient to sit there in pain.

The aim of the therapy was to condition the patient to experience severe nausea when experiencing or even thinking about violence, thus creating an antipathy to the violent behaviour creating a negative association.

The main outcome of this therapy was to condition the patient to undergo intense nausea which thinking about an event like murder and creating this harsh dislike and hatred towards it, conditioning him to not be able to kill another man as he associates it with immense pain and ridicule.

The treatment renders the lead character of the novel, Alex, incapable of violence even in self-defence, and unable to touch a naked woman or think about having sexual intercourse (poor Alex).

Is Conditioning Happening Now?

If you think about it conditioning is in effect right now, in various forms. You're always being conditioned and conditioning yourself. The thoughts you think, to the TV you watch are both manifestations of habitual consistency. You are an entity that places jurisdiction on one's self to try and conform to societies views even though it may be something that you don't agree with.

In other words, sometimes we are conditioned due to habits which act as a constant stimulus that moulds your mental framework into a continuous process, how these stimuli are manipulated is all up to you. However, most of conditioning/habits operate under our subconscious as we never realise but in the back of our mind two specific actions are vividly linked.

Habits create a conditioned person. We are being conditioned whether you like it or not. Conditioning is not a relatively bad thing, but it's like a double edged-sword in my opinion. It can be useful if you condition some good traits like open-mindedness or beliefs like "do unto others as you would like to be done to yourself". However, with this sort of manipulation comes a negative side.

In regards to what Alex experienced in the novel A Clockwork Orange, I think it's very well possible. You can train yourself to become familiar with anything, including pain.

You can increase your pain threshold by exposing yourself to the same stimulus every day, so in the same way, I think you could manipulate someone's familiarity with violence into a nasty reaction such as vomiting and the person may seize to do that one thing ever again but like in the novel this may require some torturous techniques to inflict these devastating psychological effects. All in all the possibility of changing how someone acts is something that happens everyday and we go on with our lives like nothing happened.

Upcoming Giveaway

According to http://steemit.deadfollowers.info/ I've now surpassed 1000 true followers and I plan to do a little giveaway as a token of my appreciation. It won't be something huge with large sums of many but I plan to giveaway a couple of Amazon Gift Card vouchers and maybe some Steem Dollars.