Hypnopaedia Is Real

    If you'd rather watch this article, click this link: https://youtu.be/k9vZr6WbmcU Otherwise enjoy the article!

    Last year I read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World for leisure. A significant concept in the book is Hypnopaedia in which people learn moral education while sleeping. This is done throughout the entirety of the person's growth with each phase of their life introducing new types of moral education. There's a lot more detail to this, but it's irrelevant to the point of this article: I think it happens to us daily. It is definitely not in our sleep, but in the environments, we grow up in through stories, social media, and general interaction with other people. 

    The result is that we pick up on the morals and values of those around us. This is a good thing in any given society as this is the major way people are taught that they want to be strong and helpful to others. But what happens when this indoctrination is contradictory to our personality? An easy example of this in my life is my feelings toward college and corporate/office work. I called it about 8 years ago that I wouldn't like office work. I was a freshman in high school but for some reason, I thought I'd hate it, I felt like I knew myself enough.

    Instead, over the course of 4 years, I was fed the idea that I wanted corporate work, that I wanted college, and that it was the answer to everything that I'd want - that it was the ultimate goal to work for some prestigious company and work my way up to be King of that company. It'd solve all my problems and make me comfortable. And my dumbass? I bought into the shit. I thought "oh well, maybe I'm just being immature, surely college and an office job aren't that bad, I have the grades for it anyway!". "Yeah! I want to work 60-70 hours a week for some company and make millions and millions of dollars! It'll get me girls, confidence, and friends! I'll be able to help my community!". 

    While I still do want wealth, girls, more confidence, and general attention, I never seriously considered if it was what I wanted. Anytime I challenged the idea in my head with thoughts of getting straight into work, joining the military (in my household my father made it very clear he'd disown us if we enlisted), or just having time to think about what it is that I wanted to do, I shut the idea out. My thought process was "all these people grew up and did this! Surely they know what's best! I want what they have!". 

    If I just questioned the hypnopaedia rather than constantly dreaming and getting myself psyched up for what turned out to be the largest mental hazing scheme I've ever done to myself, I maybe would have made the decision to trust my gut and get straight into fitness, self-improvement, and mental wellbeing immediately like I am doing now. Now, I was a teenager at the time, and it's never really too late to wake up. So my hope with this article is that you will wake up to the hypnopaedia that exists in our society that tells you what you want. 

    To further emphasize this, self-improvement is about figuring out what it is that's wrong with your life by your definition, then ameliorating that to make for a better future. It's an individual journey for each and every single one of us. The beautiful part is that we can share in this journey together and encourage each other to try different things that worked for us. The moment society starts telling you what you want, stop and think long and hard about your true values because you could end up being buried in bullshit for years like it happened to me. 

    For fun, I'm going to list out some of these hypnopaedic lessons I received growing up that turned out to be a load of malarky. All of these will be article ideas in the future since I have a lot more to say about them.

• A college degree will solve all your financial problems later in life
• Getting good grades means you're smart and you'll do better in life
• You're skinny, that means you're healthy
• Always be the hardest worker, no matter the task
• You should be nice to everybody
• Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me
• Girls will like you if you have a degree and a nice job
• Don't worry about bettering yourself, you're fine the way you are

    These are just some that I thought of in like 10 minutes. I want you to think about some of your values and pick out the ones that don't sit quite right with you and figure out where they came from. Remember, the idea here isn't that all ideas from society are bad, it's recognizing which ones are simply not a realistic view of your life that has resulted in a negative outcome. All of these beliefs I listed below have either been outright wrong in my personal experience or have resulted in me mentally trapping myself in a place I didn't want to be for far too long. My goal is to not let that be you as well.

    List out in the comments below your experience with Hypnopaedia - I want to know them.  Until next time!