Zenitsu Agatsuma: The Power of the Subconscious

The "Demon Slayer" anime, or "Kimetsu no Yaiba" as it is known in Japan, is an anime series that has rapidly grown in popularity, due to the fast-paced action, childish humor, as well as the series exploring various themes. like compassion, trauma, and the power of your breath.

Characters in the series have the ability to execute powerful elemental moves known as Breath Forms. This power grants those who exercise it the power to defeat beings known as demons. Demons are physically more powerful than the normal human warrior within the series, but through the power of breath, the humans known as Demon Slayers have been able to defeat various demons and can even cast spells and incantations.

Zenitsu Agatsuma, one of the main characters of the series, is known for his cowardice, his whiny nature, and his unhealthy pedestal of women. He is known for running away from battle, constantly complaining during his travels, and even fainting under stress, and at first glance he does not seem like someone with heroic potential.

However, something strange happens every time he falls asleep. Grow in power, tenacity and courage. He acts with nobility and conviction, and is focused and determined. When he falls asleep in the middle of a battle against a demon, he becomes a completely different person. When deeply asleep, he is able to defeat demons using his signature technique "First Form of Thunder Breathing", with relative ease, efficiency and precision. It's almost as if Zenitsu is possessed by a god when he falls asleep.

So we'll explore what happens when Zenitsu falls asleep, why it's significant, and how we can apply the same principles to our subconscious minds:

The power of Zenitsu's unconscious – Kimetsu no Yaiba – Demon Slayer

Zenitsu and the breath of thunder

When Zenitsu falls asleep during battle, he is able to harness the full power of his practiced breathing form 'Thunder Breath'. During battle, his main technique "First Form of Thunder Breath", is capable of defeating enemy demons with power, speed, precision and accuracy.

His Thunder breathing form is significant, as his attacks are efficient and precise, but are also filled with great energy and destructive potential, like thunder and lightning in unison. When asleep, Zenitsu acts purely on his instincts, as he of course cannot consciously choose his movement patterns when asleep. When he is asleep, his movements are automatic and determined, but very instinctive. When attacking his enemies, it's almost as if Zenitsu is acting from a script, as if he doesn't have to think or make any cognitive effort to execute an action.

When awake, Zenitsu is powerless and always in his head. When asleep, Zenitsu is powerful, instinctive, and fearless. When asleep, he is literally unconscious, as he executes his movements without any emotion or impulse. He is like a machine when he is asleep, his actions are aimed at nothing other than defeating the enemy in front of him. His precision in his purposes while he is asleep is like lightning: precise, fast, concentrated.

Unlike the other elemental forms of breathing such as water, fire, stone and wind; all of them with attacks that cover large areas, are not focused, and can be enhanced or hindered by emotion and logic; Thunder is focused on a single area, and its presence is transitory. When you see a flame, or a wave of water, they exist for several seconds, even forever. With thunder, you see it once. If you blink once, you miss the lightning that lights up the sky.

Zenitsu's attacks using thunder are practically the same. Zenitsu only demonstrates his power when pushed by an enemy, and only when he is in a deep sleep due to the fearsome vision of his enemy. Once the threat disappears, so does Zenitsu's thunder breathing elemental power.

The subconscious mind is much like Zenitsu's thunder breathing: purposeful, directed, and goal-oriented. Unlike the conscious mind, which is pulled in many directions at once, the subconscious mind is united in purpose. The precise nature of the First Form of Thunder Breath Attack is a symbol of the precise and devastating power of the subconscious mind.

Zenitsu falling asleep all the time

The fact that Zenitsu falls asleep reinforces the symbolism. Deep sleep accompanied by dreams is the domain of the subconscious. It is when we are asleep that the subconscious is most active and when the subconscious incorporates conscious experience into the person's psyche. The fact that Zenitsu is asleep in battle literally represents that he is under the influence of his subconscious self. Such a state amplifies its power.

Zenitsu often falls asleep in the middle of battle when he reaches his threshold of stress, anxiety, and fear. This is when your conscious mind is overridden by your subconscious. Have you ever felt fear so intense that you can no longer think clearly and resort to your pure innate survival instinct? You could say that's literally what happens when Zenitsu falls asleep.

The subconscious is much more powerful than the conscious. All actions are dominated by the subconscious. Many have gone so far as to say that the 5% of our actions are determined by our conscious thoughts, while the 95% of our actions are determined by the nature of our subconscious. Zenitsu is an analogy for the power of the subconscious, as he is much more powerful when he acts using his subconscious instincts.

Many times our conscious mind is inactive and idle, but our subconscious is in perpetual motion. It is powered by energy supplied by the brain, and the messages that the subconscious receives from the outside world are transmitted through the mind using electrical impulses. Therefore, it is fitting that Zenitsu's breathing form is thunder, the most elemental and purest form of electricity, much like the electrical energy generated by subconscious processes. It's also fitting that Zenitsu moves faster while asleep, reflecting the way the subconscious operates while we're asleep. While we sleep, the subconscious works faster to restructure our minds so we can fulfill our purpose.

How can we harness the power of the subconscious?

Many people, like Zenitsu and the other warriors of the Demon Slayer Corps, always seek to improve, as they always should, day after day. However, when you try to develop, you always focus on the things that are not giving you the most performance. Most of these things belong to the actions of a fully conscious being and mind.

First understand: any type of journey to improve and surpass yourself always begins in the mind. One must use and train his mind to give himself the drive to change for the better and to maintain his momentum and power on his journey towards his best self.

What does this have to do with our subconscious? Well, our actions are influenced by our thoughts, and our thoughts are influenced by our character and identity. Our identities are shaped by the workings of our minds, and the most powerful psychological force our minds contain is the subconscious.

So to make any changes and improvements in ourselves permanently, we cannot simply attack the problem at hand with brute force with conscious effort. Yes, that is necessary, but for lasting change, we must use our greatest source of power: our subconscious mind.

By changing ourselves for the better, we literally change who we are a lot. In other words, we must change our identities. We change our identities by carrying out small actions that reinforce the identity we want to create in ourselves. The idea is that those small changes are so small that they barely register at the conscious level, and what happens if small actions bypass conscious thought? They go directly to our subconscious.

Our subconscious takes these small actions, processes them, and over time turns them into habits. These habits then indicate to the subconscious mind that your persona has adopted a new identity. Your subconscious mind then works to solidify your new identity so that you can fully manifest it in the world. From this moment on, you don't need to make a conscious effort to demonstrate your new identity; You are already your new identity. Habits become second nature, and as you act out the small actions that created the new identity, the conscious is idle, the subconscious takes control, and you execute the action without really thinking.

For example, if we want to become better empaths, we could use the technique of mirroring ourselves in a conversation. This act may seem to involve a lot of the conscious mind at first, but over time, it becomes a habit, and the conscious mind stops operating to perform the action. The body continues to perform this new skill so many times, and your identity as an empath becomes so reinforced, that eventually those small changes solidify over time within your subconscious. Over time, you end up becoming what you set out to be from the beginning: an empath.

So that's what we need to do: bypass our conscious mind and introduce our ideas into our subconscious. To get the best results, to produce the biggest change, we must reprogram our subconscious.

So what are some tactics we can use to influence and reprogram our subconscious? Some tactics are visualizations, journaling, and reading certain types of books. We can even reprogram our subconscious by changing our external environment. We can reorganize our external environment by rearranging our bedroom to match the new identity we want to assume, and by choosing friends who live by the ideas you want to implant in your subconscious.

Like Zenitsu, we can become an even stronger version of ourselves by turning on our subconscious and letting it take the helm. By changing the messages our subconscious receives, we can change ourselves to be better than we are. Just as Zenitsu falls into a deep sleep in the midst of battle, and then draws his sword in a flash of roaring, controlled power through his Breath of Thunder, we too can unleash the power of the subconscious mind. We must learn what Zenitsu Agatsumi has embodied and symbolized, in a flash of thunder: how powerful the subconscious mind is.