Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has posited that it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice — and some talent — to master the practice of any discipline. He says this is because the human mind is primed to function on autopilot, and minimum mental effort is required after this “level” of mastery is achieved. The long hours put in can be thought of as a threshold or barrier to be pushed past before a person is in the zone. This level of functioning is largely attributed to theta brain waves, when enough conscious hours of practice filtrate into the subconscious. The result is a subconscious dream-field or a breakthrough into conscious reality from a storehouse of effort and practice, with the best possible work we are capable of doing being channelled through an instrument or the movement of a body. Theta wave emissions have been observed, one of which is linked to the hippocampus. The activity of these waves has been recorded in humans during memory formation, navigation and ra...

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