Hidden in your past, could be an experience or an example, that you may have never questioned or even realized that you should.
This experience could have very little impact on your life now, but it could also be something that is detrimental in the here and now.
For example, when I was young, my father would take us on camping trips. We often went over a bridge that had a train trestle next to it. All you could see of that trestle, was the top that had about 8 humps that spanned the river.
Curious, we asked our mother one time, what it was. "That's were the train goes over the river" she said. When I heard that, all I could see in my mind, was the train on top of the humps - without any tracks or means to stay on it - hitting the low point on the hump and falling into the river. When we came back from the trip, I searched the paper everyday for a week, looking for a report of how it had crashed and killed everyone. I never found a story but every time I went over the bridge, that vision of the train falling into the river would come up. I thought, "I'm never going to take train over water"
It was only when I was 17 or so, I was traveling on the freeway and saw the train trestle from the side. Then I realized the train traveled on the tracks below the humps. I told this to my sister and she laughed because she had believed the same thing! But we just accepted it as the truth because we had never said out loud our fears of that trestle to be corrected.
One time I was traveling with my brother-in-law and commented on a farmer's field. "I wonder if that is tomatoes or potatoes that are growing in that field" I said. "That can't be potatoes" he said. I was surprised he said that in such a confident way since he wasn't into gardening. "Why don't you think it's potatoes?" I asked. "Because potatoes don't grow above ground" he replied. "Of course the actual potato doesn't grow above ground, but the green leafy part does" I said. That sparked a long conversation about how potatoes grew and his adamant belief that I was wrong. Why was I wrong? His childhood experience. When you grow potatoes, the potato tubers grow attached to the roots and they are supported by stalks and leaves above ground. At the end of their season, the foliage dies and the potatoes are harvested from the bare ground. And that is what he saw. Bare ground being tilled and potatoes going up the conveyor belt. He had a difficult time believing me.
Just recently, I tried to convince my mom to take a one a day vitamin. She didn't want me to pick her up some until she talked to me. Why? Because in school - some 65 years ago or so - a teacher she liked told her, "you cannot get vitamins or minerals in a pill, it has to go through an animal or vegetable to be any good" I had to give personal examples of how they had benefited me and use a quote from a doctor to finally convince her take them. All because she never thought to question or reevaluate what the teacher said.
There are other funny things I could mention but, the reason I posted about this subject, is that the hidden thoughts like these, can be very serious. Such as "lying in God's name is very bad and the GB would never lie because that would be very bad." That is one thought the WT inculcated into me as a child and was the basis of me never questioning this religion.
The way the WT portrays women as below men - not good enough to teach from the platform or have their ideas valued - affects women as well as men. But at the same time, "women are like fragile vases" something we should treasure. So it makes weakness a valued trait, something women should be happy about, all the time they are looked down on from the Watchtower. How many realize that if they grow up in this religion?
The problem with hidden experiences is that you may not know it is the basis for important decisions. My mother has macular degeneration. Could it have been prevented with the addition of good vitamins? Probably, but she never took them on account of her hidden belief. Could more people leave the JW religion? Yes if the untested hidden reason is exposed.
Everyone probably has a hidden story.