The Subconscious, Unconscious, and Preconscious

[ygolo]

Subconscious - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term subconscious is defined as existing or operating in the mind beneath or beyond conscious awareness. The word was coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet, who credited it with a hidden level of awareness and automatism. In the strict psychological sense, the adjective is defined as "operating or existing outside of consciousness".[1] The term also appears in Sigmund Freud's very early work, to denote the unconscious mind but was soon eliminated due to its ambiguity.[2] It may also be used to describe the preconscious, information contained in the mind, which although not presently in the conscious, may be recalled by "directing attention to them", such as memories not being recalled at present, but still available to be recalled at will. Use of the term "subconscious" is avoided in academic settings[3] despite remaining popular in common use.[4]

Unconscious mind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Through many observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on consciousness from other parts of the mind. These observers differ in the use of related terms, including: unconsciousness as a personal habit; being unaware and intuition. Terms related to semi-consciousness include: awakening, implicit memory, the subconscious, subliminal messages, trance, and hypnosis. Although sleep, sleep walking, delirium and coma may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are not the unconscious mind. Science is also in its infancy in exploring the limits of consciousness.

Preconscious - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the word preconscious is applied to thoughts which are unconscious at the particular moment in question, but which are not repressed and are therefore available for recall and easily capable of becoming conscious.

'Preconscious' thoughts are thus 'unconscious' in a merely 'descriptive' sense, as opposed to a 'dynamic' one.

Classical psychoanalysis therefore permits itself to

"distinguish two kinds of unconscious -- one which is easily, under frequently occurring circumstances, transformed into something conscious, and another with which this transformation is difficult and takes place only subject to a considerable expenditure of effort or possibly never at all. [. . .] We call the unconscious which is only latent, and thus easily becomes conscious, the 'preconscious', and retain the term 'unconscious' for the other". [Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1932)]

As explained by David Stafford-Clark,

"If consciousness is then the sum total of everything of which we are aware, pre-consciousness is the reservoir of everything we can remember, all that is accessible to voluntary recall: the storehouse of memory. This leaves the unconscious area of mental life to contain all the more primitive drives and impulses influencing our actions without our necessarily ever becoming fully aware of them, together with every important constellation of ideas or memories with a strong emotional charge, which have at one time been present in consciousness but have since been repressed so that they are no longer available to it, even through introspection or attempts at memory". [David Stafford-Clark, What Freud Really Said (1965)]

Freud's original German term for the preconscious was das Vorbewusste; the unconscious being das Unbewusste.

Reactions? Thoughts? Feelings?

What do you believe are the limits of consciousness? and how do you conceive of things that are outside it?

 

[LostInNerSpace]

I spent the last half hour typing out a response only to lose it with a press of the back button on my laptop.

 

[ygolo]

That's painful.

An unconscious decision not to save your long post?

 

[LostInNerSpace]

That's painful.

An unconscious decision not to save your long post?

Not really. I find writing to be a painful experience. I rarely set out with the intention of writing a long post. I usually start with a paragraph and keep adding to it.

Often, I start writing only to realize it will take more than a paragraph to answer the post, so I give up and close the browser. I've done that once today already.

If I wind up having written a long post only to lose it, the painful thought of having to reconstruct that post is usually enough to keep me from trying.

 

[mlittrell]

Preconscious seems almost like a shadow function. Not consciously usable but can easily manifest it's self in your decision making, cognitive processes blah blah blah. Unconscious, well, I personally I don't think it's all that different from normal consciousness, then again, I know nothing about the subject.