[vidarh]

Even though it's far from precise, I like Jonathan Haidt's suggestion in The Happiness Hypothesis that our conscious mind is like someone riding an elephant: He can nudge it in this direction or that, and a lot of the time that works. But if the elephant wants to go a different direction, it will, and you're just along for the ride. At which point you can acknowledge you're not in control, or decide where the elephant went is where you really wanted to go all along. Often we choose the latter to retain the illusion of control.