The Subconscious (Part 3)

Jung based his ideas of the collective unconscious on the fact that motifs of myths and legends are repeated in identical forms all over the world. He recognized two layers in the unconscious, one personal and one trans-personal, the latter common to humanity.

The personal memory-images are filled out, because they have been experienced by the individual, but the collective layer, being pre-infantile—residues of ancestral life—and not personally experienced are therefore not filled out.

Jung felt that the unconscious was continually occupied in grouping and regrouping its contents, and normally, this activity is coordinated with the conscious mind in a compensatory relationship.

In discussing susceptibility and mental contagion, Jung spoke of man as having a great capacity for imitation. He notes that this is a double-edged capacity— valuable for collective purposes but dangerous from the point of view of developing the individual. Development of the individual involves the compensatory relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, which leads to a widened consciousness and a freer participation in the world.

Dollard and Miller believe that reinforcements of all kinds automatically strengthen responses that immediately precede them. They feel that the primary effect of a reinforcement is always unconscious—but that this unconscious reinforcement is mediated by verbal and other cue-producing responses. Overleaming can render responses unconscious and, as a result, verbalization can be short circuited. Thus automatic (unconscious) habits are formed. But because there was verbalization originally, it is fairly easy to recover the habits from the unconscious after overleaming. A strong drive will intensify the habitual response.

Dr. Bernard Hollander, a lifelong student and practitioner of hypnosis, writes that some psychologists do not accept tie existence of the subconscious but, he points out, regardless of terminology or the degree of unconscious or subconscious activity, there obviously exists a large collection of experiences, thoughts and emotions not present in our consciousness at any given moment. He uses the term subconscious as a working hypothesis to explain the source of the genius' ideas, inspiration and creativity.

We are conscious only of the result of subconscious thinking, which he says, constitutes much of our thinking. The activity itself remains hidden from us. Many learned acts, by virtue of repetition, become subconscious. Selection of one out of many ideas stimulated by association, is a decisive activity of the subconscious. Associative sensory impressions, as we concentrate on a particular subject, are noted by the subconscious, even though we are not consciously aware of them.

Of course, subconscious work is not tiring, as is conscious effort. Writing of the conscious use of the subconscious mind, Robert D. Updegraff notes that we drive ourselves consciously but use only half our minds. By not relaxing, we keep the subconscious from working for us.

He points out, as does Dr. Hollander, that a majority of brilliant men reported that their best discoveries occurred to them when they were not working. Von Helmholtz never got his ideas when he was fatigued or at his work table. Thornton Wilder's inspirations came in the shower or on hikes or in other informal places. Descartes' discoveries came to him in bed in the morning.