About a week ago, I was going through my medical records of when I was first admitted to the hospital following the rupture of my aneurysm. Something caught my attention that has led me to a new conversation… or perhaps just digging deeper into the complexity of life. This was on my neuro checks at the section where they had to record my level of consciousness. At one point, it was indicated that I was unconscious and the other times, it was indicated that I was semi-conscious. It got me thinking…what is the difference/relationship between brain and mind, alert and conscious? Does the brain control the mind? If you are alert, can we assume that you are also conscious?

In Biology, we are told that the brain is part of the tangible and visible world of the body. You can see it and you can feel it. The mind, however, is the part of the invisible, transcendent world of thought, feeling, imagination, and attitude. In other words, the mind is the devil’s right hand. It is responsible for all the negativity, laziness, restlessness, doubtfulness…etc. The mind cannot manipulate the brain but the brain can manipulate the mind by what we commonly refer to as intuition. Intuition can only be successful at influencing the brain if the person if fully conscious.

From the healthcare standpoint, to be alert, you only need to be awake and responsive. To be conscious, you need to be: alert, attentive, able to follow commands and be aware of your surroundings.

Doctor Jacob Sage, a neurologist and one of the well-known bloggers, defines conscious as nothing more than the ability of our brain to acquire information (which is the state of being awake)  AND all the content that the information contains AND the ability to get all that information into and out of memory. The key word is “ALL”. If you have all that, you are conscious of the blue sky and the red sun. Nothing more is needed to be conscious of that beautiful sky.