The Subconscious (Part 2)

While discussing unconscious activity in terms of the dream-process, Freud makes an interesting observation which may explain some aspects of the capacity to learn during sleep.

He points out that dreams substitute for many daytime thoughts and once investigated and understood, fit together with logic—indicating that the thoughts originate in normal mental life and that the complicated processes of conscious thinking are repeated in dream thoughts.

He saw a continuous process from the first stimulus (often not consciously noted, but occurring during waking hours) to its completion at the onset of sleep.

Freud considered this proof that extremely complex mental operations were possible without the cooperation of consciousness.

Freud later made clear that the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious thought development was not a matter of psychic topography. Eventually he concluded that the essential character of a preconscious idea was its connection with the residue of verbal ideas. He asserted that consciousness was overestimated by the psychologists of his day, describing the unconscious as the larger circle which included the smaller circle of the conscious.

Further he wrote that everything conscious has a preliminary unconscious stage, although the reverse is not true. The unconscious, he said, is the "true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the reports of our sense organs."

Intellectual achievement during sleep (completion of daytime mental work) is part of the same psychic forces operating intellectually during waking hours. Unconscious activity is related to the "inspiration" experienced by creative thinkers. There is in these moments a concerted effort of the unconscious becoming aware and joining with conscious activity.

Freud developed his concept of the unconscious, preconscious and conscious into the theory of a personality organization of the id, the ego and the super-ego. He did not consider the ego synonymous with consciousness, nor could he separate the preconscious and the unconscious completely, for they revealed certain characteristics in common.

The general qualities of the original distinctions were retained, with the id representing the entirely unconscious aspect of mental activity, without organization or will or awareness of the passage of time; the ego is part of the id and is its agent, more affected by the external world, and the seat of intelligence and reason; and separating itself from the ego, in a self-observing and self-critical function, representing the demands of the external world, is the super-ego.

Jung believed that a knowledge greater than man's own lies in the depths of the unconscious. He felt that this knowledge is a collective psyche of the ages as well as the forgotten or unrecognized aspects of individual experience.

He taught that the greater the harmony and coordination of the conscious and unconscious, the healthier the individual will be. He spoke of joint activity between the two. He also described the unconscious as continually active. The individual's direction is indicated by the combination of materials in the unconscious—infinitely superior to those in the conscious mind—and thus an "unparalleled guide" for mankind.