How’s your list?  Here’s mine, your mileage my vary - 2 ruptured ear drums, broken arm, two broken wrists, kidney stones, ruptured appendix, finger tip cut off, gall bladder surgery, ruptured patella tendon broken leg—and more!  Wow! I have endured my fair share of pain!  Good thing I have a pretty high pain threshold!A new study suggests how you perceive pain may actually be influenced by learning that takes place outside of your conscious awareness.   United Press International reports that researchers from Sweden showed 49 participants pictures, sometimes so fast that they didn’t even have time to consciously register them. As each picture was shown, participants were also given a pain cue of either high or low intensity. So, just who signs up for this!?

Here’s the weird part.  Later, when participants were shown the images but not given a pain cue, all of them reported feeling the high or low pain cue they’d been given previously when shown the image the first time!

Study leaders say these results demonstrate that pain responses can be shaped by learning that takes place outside conscious awareness.  Our brains are amazing!  If pain responses can be learned unconsciously, what else can we learn when we don’t know we are learning it?  Researchers say that unconscious learning may have an extensive effect

DRK/ullstein bild via Getty Images
DRK/ullstein bild via Getty Images
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on higher cognitive processes in general.  Who knew?  (UPI)

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