But this alarm system is more ancient than our faculty of speech and reason. Below our awareness, the eyes and ears and primitive parts of the brain are always scanning for danger, just as a deer or a cat does. Even in sleep, the senses keep watch. The body uses these clues to possible danger to test every circumstance at every moment. These clues are not stored in the part of the brain that works with words.
Words are too slow.
Thinking with words is an arduous process, too slow to get you away from a charging animal or a knife. The brain stores danger clues in primitive centers that activate not thought but action, in the form of hormone washes that prepare one for fight, flight, or freezing. Think of when you hear a noise in your house at night. First the noise, but almost before you consciously register it, the body is alert. Adrenaline tingles, your heart beats fast, you sit up in bed quickly.