We have always described the human brain with metaphors. It’s too hard to describe, you know, precisely.

In the past, people viewed the brain as a vast and complex set of pipes and hydraulics.

Then the metaphor changed. As soon as telephone exchanges became popular, the brain was like them.

Then, of course, the famous “a brain is like a computer” comparison.

With the Internet, we see a powerful, dynamic, and ever-changing network. Finally an almost decent comparison.

Because the brain is not a computer, a set of circuits, or a bundle of pipes.

If it were something so mechanical, learning would be easy. After all, how does your computer learn a skill? You install new software and…

There is no ‘and’. That is all.

However, with our wet and soft brains, it is not so easy. You may want to learn something and fight. Even if you don’t have problems, it takes much longer to learn a skill than it does to program a computer.

It doesn’t work as it should. Something as simple as remembering someone’s name can elude you. Genius level skills require decades of hard work.

And between those two extremes is everything else that can escape your attention.

This is because learning is not a conscious activity. It happens purely on an unconscious level. A part of your inner mind decides what to learn and what to ignore.

It follows a deep logic of its own: simply ‘wanting’ to learn something is not enough to convince your unconscious.

Not by himself. The logic is complicated.

Everything you learn has to fit with everything you already know. You don’t just add a fact to your brain, that fact is evaluated against every other fact, perspective, and paradigm you have.

This is what prevents you from learning the wrong things. Some things, like “heaven is solid” and “you owe me ten grand,” don’t fit your version of reality.

But sometimes this mechanism goes wrong. You will probably ignore some good advice that scares you, for example.

Unless you are in the habit of engaging your unconscious mind.

With, say, meditation or hypnosis.

The trance state trains your mind (consciously and unconsciously) to be more open to new ideas. “Open” in a good way: he won’t act against your interests, but he will at least consider ideas before rejecting them.

And you will fit them better in your network of memories.

Stories engage your unconscious mind, just like real experiences. Sitting in a classroom? Maybe, maybe not. Our ancestors never learned anything worth knowing through long, boring injections of information.

True learning experiences create their own trance states. The more you practice going into a trance, the more easily this will happen to you.