The nature of the unconscious - what do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Philco on August 12, 2008 at 6:45am

Okay -- take it easy...one at a time. Don't all answer at once :)

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Irvine on August 12, 2008 at 12:46pm

Dude this is a great topic!!!
And because of both of my own personal experiances with hypnosis and mental health, I am thrilled to see someone finally ask this question.... I actually spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's real and what's not, and the differences and simularities of the conscious/subconscious, reality and perception.
My belief is that the unconsciousness exsist, not with in but outside of ourselves. It's the ability of preception from an outside veiw. The unconsious is not critical but rather it observes. The unconsious exsists outside of everyone and is a medium of observation... Now as a patient with in the mental health system for 6 years and a hypnotist for 3 I am a strong believer in the powers of the sub conscious mind. Having suffered with a disociative disorder in where my sub conscious would take over putting me into states of amnesia and sometimes age regression, my doctor and I came to realize that my sub conscious was reacting to things I had suppressed in my conscious mind...... The whole theroy of what exsists if it exsist and how it exsists is a concept of the mind. We as humans have manifested things such as time (Tool In Measuring Exsistance) and have come to accept it as our realities. And I feel that this points Freud's claim as unconscious being a constructed thing" As if you believe, feel, and except something that is real to you then it's real to you. This might not be the same for me but then again No two realities, lives, or experiances are the same...
HOpe that gives some insight on to my "realities"
Amanda

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Permalink Reply by Philco on August 12, 2008 at 2:46pm

Interesting, the notion of the unconscious being somehow external.

Jung suggested that each of us has a personal unconscious, which feeds into a collective unconscious - hence the universal importance of symbols, etc., and the theory of archetypes (which Jung took from Plato's eidos & forma).

You have clearly taken much wisdom from your personal suffering, which is a trait I admire greatly.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Irvine on August 12, 2008 at 2:56pm

Thank you.....

And on Jung, yes but this still goes with my understanding of accepting what we know as truth, therefore it's a common or collective reality

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Permalink Reply by Philco on August 13, 2008 at 4:46pm

Very interesting, Conrad - and comprehensive.

In answer to your question, I'm not looking to "do" anything - just interested in people's take on the unconscious.

I'm not so sure about localising the conscious/unconscious at discrete brain sites, though I cetainly don't dismiss the idea. Your points about self/other and language are important, I think. Clearly our subjective position in relation to the desire of the other is grounded in seperation from the (m)other, and the world of symbols we inhabit is fundamentally a world of signification. In a sense we are immersed in language and constituted in the discourse. Even our relationship with our own body is a linguistic relationship. I'm fairly certain that this is less about speech centres of the brain and more about the manner in which each one of us enters into speech, from a cultural perspective.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Willhite on August 13, 2008 at 5:15pm

I would have to say that most of our existence is unconscious, think if you were conscious of every hair on your head growing, or every skin cell being replaced...that would be sensory overload.

Some have stated that they believe that the body itself is the unconscious...interesting to ponder. I myself believe that the unconscious is more of a storage place for information that is no longer directly relevant to our daily lives, which is why when we are examining the causative reasons for syndromes or behavior, we need to be able to access these areas of the mind. Through practice however, we can access more and more of this information, whether it is through cognitive therapies, hypnosis, or even meditation.

Where is the unconscious? I'm not quite sure, but I know I left it somewhere.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Irvine on August 13, 2008 at 5:45pm

okay then what is the difference between the sub-conscious and unconscious?

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Permalink Reply by bruce on August 13, 2008 at 7:37pm

If I'm not mistaken, the words are sometimes used synonymously; however, for the meaning that we are generally using in this forum, subconscious is more accurate, because unconscious can mean knocked-out, or drugged into sleep etc.

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Permalink Reply by Philco on August 14, 2008 at 12:15am

Hmmm...Robert, I had never considered the nature of the body itself in relation to the unconscious. The idea that the body is the unconscious is one I shall have to think about (i.e. Google). Thought-provoking stuff...

Amanda & Bruce - I think the terms are often used interchangably, though psychoanalysts tend to say "unconscious" whilst hypnotists talk about the "subconscious." And even though Freud does use the term a few times (early on in his work), psychoanalysts tend to be a bit uncomfortable with it. Not sure why.

Some regard the subconscious as the information which is available to us but not in our thoughts at this particular moment, whilst the content of the unconscious is unavailable (due to repression and the defence-mechanisms) except through slips, jokes, free-association, dreams, hypnosis, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Willhite on August 14, 2008 at 12:31pm

As far as I know they are both names for the same thing...a state of not being aware.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Irvine on August 14, 2008 at 1:42pm

I somewhat agree with you Robert but don't......
I still see the three as being seperate.....
As the sub-conscious is a sub part of our consciousness alone, while unconscious suggest something outside of our consciousness.

Something that resides in our sub-conscious can be surfaced into our consciousness because to two are directly conected, However if a person is unconscious they are dissconected with the conscious mind which is a part of the sub-conscious.....

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Permalink Reply by Philco on August 14, 2008 at 5:00pm

Hehehe... I love the foreign taxi-driver idea.

I think we need to be really careful when deciding how various parts of our neuroanatomy communicate/network/etc. Although great progress has been made in the past 20 years our understanding is very very primitive and generalisations tend to be revealed as simplistic and incomplete quite rapidly.

And the problems associated with self-report research into cognition are manifold, so I wouldn't put too much faith in such research.

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