I’ve done some reading about how the mind works and discovered the difference between the subconscious and the unconscious, but I haven’t been able to apply this new knowledge to the curious phenomena that is best described as ‘starting to shit as soon as you know you’re on the way to the toilet.’
This sense of wonder emerged once again recently as I was walking home from the station after a day’s work needing a poo. (Perhaps I should have restructured that sentence so that you don’t think my job is to need a poo.) It’s a 23 minute walk. I’d wanted a poo since leaving work, a 30 minute train journey and 15 minute walk the other end previous to this walk. So you can imagine how long it was patiently resting in the tube. However, once I started towards home from St Albans station, the unconscious or subconscious part of my mind - I’m desperate to know which - sent a message to my bum to the effect that a visit to the toilet was imminent. It wasn’t. It was still at least 20 minutes away; but, you know, the tug of war team starting pulling too early, the eager athlete was out of the blocks before the gun, the tortoise stuck his head out before hibernation was up, the guests arrived for the party before the dips were on the table. It kind of slowed me down clenching that in as I walked.
This sub or un conscious part of the brain has always fascinated me, ever since I was old enough to get blind drunk and discover that it was possible to find your way home no matter how dysfunctional your conscious mind was. It’s not completely fool-proof though. The subliminal message that jerks your drunken body into action as you approach your stop on the night bus or late train home is pretty reliable except perhaps when you’ve just moved house. This happened on my first night out in London after moving to Borehamwood, when I was completely let down by a uselessly dormant (or maybe, more kindly, untrained) subconsciousness, and I woke up in Bedford, no return train due and only one mini cab outside, which charged me £40 (a ransom in 1997) to which I very consciously responded with an indignant ‘fuck off’ before apologising and accepting the offer, only semi-consciously aware of some poor sod from my carriage who had suffered the same misfortune and who I should have shared the cab with. My brain let us both down there.
I’m assuming the conscious feeds information into the unconscious and the subconscious retrieves it when it feels like it’s needed. For instance, my conscious mind has decided that people who barge in front of others to get on a train deserve some kind of retribution or at least a message to the effect that they are being selfish and impolite. So every time it happens, my foot automatically flicks out to kick or trip the perpetrator, dangerously just before my conscious mind has had a chance to ascertain my chances of avoiding physical harm in the event of a violent response from the aforementioned rude bastard. I’ve no idea how I’ve escaped ever being punched.
This intriguing part of the brain might be linked to intuition, but my intuition isn’t particularly useful. Now that I reflect on it, I can only think of two things that I ever have a strong premonition about. Playing darts, I know as each dart leaves my hand whether it’s going where I want it to or not. That’s one example of successful intuition. The other is when I fart and think to myself, ‘that’s going to smell’ or not. (Though to be fair, a hot sensation between the cheeks usually gives it away.)
Anyway, I’m not sure I’ve provided the sort of intellectual and comprehensive psychological analysis that Freud did in his lifetime, but perhaps he would have been even more useful if, rather than pervily banging on about how sex unconsciously impacts on all our conscious thoughts, he provided a solution to that more pertinent question of why a poo starts coming out when you know you’re not far from a toilet.
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