How can you tell when a person is afraid?
When they make a point of telling you that they are not afraid.
So many people have this idea that their day-to-day waking consciousness is superior to, and can override their own subconscious. But they are their subconscious every bit as much as they are their normal consciousness.
(We are referring to the puppet-thing here. The truest Self Knows that it is neither.)
However, it is the subconscious or dream-world that wields the power to override the conscious ego. For example, staying awake for days at a time will bring on hallucinations that you will not be able to tell apart from reality.
Your subconscious mind can have a different agenda than your conscious one. Ask anyone who suffers from an addiction.
The distinction between conscious and subconscious seems somewhat arbitrary. This is because you are playing both “characters”. Not because you must but because you want to.
When you fall “asleep”, you do not lose consciousness. You do however lose your memory of that moment. In truth, your attention becomes fixed on the reality or story-telling that plays continually beneath your regular “awake” experience. You are just as conscious when you sleep as you are when you are not. Try staying awake as you drift off. It is very instructive to pass from your regular reality into a lucid dream directly.
Freedom and slavery create each other. The more oppressed you tell yourself that you are, the more your yearning to escape will squeeze up from your “subconscious”.
The more sensitive you are to your environment (both inner and outer), the more pain you will feel. This type of suffering is the very font of creativity. Note how often an artist’s creations reflect just the opposite of what they try to express.
Just as an aside – If someone tells you they are a very stable genius, you might not want them to be in control of anything important.