Subliminal messages are said to be messages or signals that surpass the conscious mind and directly goes to the unconscious mind of human beings. What makes some people doubt the effectiveness of subliminals is that they don’t really “feel” or “experience” the detection and interpretation of the subliminals.

But what can they expect from messages that are meant to target the unconscious, right? Do subliminals work? What are the proofs that they do or they don’t?

Several debates and controversies have risen in lieu of the power of subliminals messages. Some would say that they were just duped by subliminal messages and nothing really happened to them when they listened to the subliminals. Some would even go to the extent of saying that subliminals are one of the greatest rip-offs of all time.

On the other hand, a number of people also claim that subliminals have played a big part in their success in life and that they wouldn’t mind receiving future subliminal “treatments” for further success and increased optimum performance.

Subliminal Suggestions: More Powerful Than Ordinary Suggestions?

Subliminal messages expand their latent power/influence from the belief that they may be able to get round the crucial functions of the conscious psyche. It has also been repeatedly discussed and argued that subliminal suggestions are generally more influential than common suggestions.

This road to persuasion or influence would be similar to hypnosis or auto-suggestion wherein the subject is suggested or somehow encouraged to be calm and relaxed so that suggestions can be aimed to deeper parts of the human mind. Some observers have proposed that the unconscious mind is unable of critical rejection of subliminal or hypnotic suggestions. Numerous studies and research findings do not maintain the conclusion that subliminal messages are markedly influential.

Some researchers even contend that several psychological studies on subliminal influence and suggestions may be inadequate or flawed due to certain limitations brought about by inevitable internal and external factors. Researchers don’t really approve of studies or experiments which only make use of a short period of time; they give subliminal influence or suggestions to subjects and then go on with the experiment immediately after.

What researchers would like to happen is that the subjects be given more time to absorb the subliminal messages and suggestions and maybe come back after several weeks or months.

Proponents of the power of subliminal influence and suggestions have repeatedly stated that the effect of the subliminals may require some time before it can generate specific, desired behaviours or changes.

Why Use Subliminals If It’s Possible That They Don’t Work?

As of now, there has been no certain research that can prove the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of subliminal messages and suggestions. We are only left with puzzle pieces that would somehow and eventually lead us to a conclusion on the future whether subliminals work or not.

Although we know that there are some things that can actually circumvent the conscious mind of human beings and go directly to the unconscious, we still have no hard proof that they really go to the unconscious and bring forth certain effects and changes to the behaviours of humans.

It is quite hard to measure the unconscious mind, since from its name itself, it is unconscious. It is quite difficult for humans to blurt out what is going on in their unconscious mind, right?

We are left with the question “do subliminals work?” but perhaps in the future, we will get some real and concrete answers to our question.