Unconscious Mind: How It Works and Its Impacts

Source- Verywell / Joshua Seong

Well, how many of you are aware of the fact that we only use 10% of our brain which signifies that only 0.1 portion of our brain is functional. 

The brain registers whatever it sees in a different form. Sigmund Freud describes this information digesting part of the brain as the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind. 

The conscious mind is the one that processes all of the thoughts, memories, and feelings or the wishes which we are thinking of or are aware of at any given moment. 

This part of the mind is the one we rationally think about or talk about. It also includes the memories (it might not always be a part of our consciousness) which can be retrieved easily. 

The preconscious state of mind consists of those memories or information which has the potential to be brought into the conscious mind if required.

The unconscious mind is that party of the mind which preserves all the feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories we see even when we are outside our conscious mind. 

 What Is the Unconsciousness of Mind?

According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the unconscious mind is defined as a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness.

It is said that our unconscious mind stores all the unacceptable or unpleasant feelings such as pain, anxiety, or conflicts. Sir Sigmund Freud believed that our unconscious mind continues to influence one’s behaviour even though people are unaware of the underlying influences

How It Work

Sigmund Freud explained his theory of the unconscious mind by comparing the mind with an iceberg. Just like the iceberg whose 1/10th portion is only visible; the conscious mind also shows the 1/10th of the memories it stores. 

Everything below water that is the massive iceberg submerged deep below in the water is the unconscious information. 

Everything we see or do in our daily routine is stored in our brain but only specific details can be recalled. The ones we can remember are stored in the conscious mind whereas the rest is collected in the unconscious mind.

So basically, the things that represent our conscious awareness are simply "the tip of the iceberg" and the rest of the information that is outside our conscious awareness lies below the surface. 

This information in our unconscious mind while might not be accessible consciously still exerts an influence over current behaviour.

Impact of the Unconscious

As previously mentioned, unconscious thoughts, beliefs, and feelings can potentially cause several problems including:

• Anger
• Bias
• Compulsive behaviours
• Difficult social interactions
• Distress
• Relationship problems

Freud believed that our unconscious mind stores many of our feelings, desires, and emotions which are repressed or held out of awareness because they are simply too threatening to remember. 

Freud also believed that sometimes these hidden desires and wishes make themselves known through dreams and slips of the tongue. Not only that, according to Freud, all of our basic instincts and urges are also contained in the unconscious mind.

For example, life and death instincts were found in the unconscious. Life instincts, which are sometimes also known as sexual instincts, are those that are related to survival. 

The death instincts, on the other hand, include things such as thoughts of aggression, trauma, and danger.

Such feelings are kept out of one’s consciousness because our conscious minds often view them as unacceptable or irrational. To keep these urges out of awareness, Freud suggested that people should utilize some different defences to prevent them from rising to awareness.

The Power of the Unconscious Mind

When you put in load in the washing machine and leave it for a spin, you don’t come back, again and again, to check if it is still working or not. Just like that if you have any questions unsolved and want an answer, you should first tell yourself what the question is. 

After giving it a thought and still not coming up with an answer, you should stop stressing about it and continue participating in other time engaging activities. 

If your subconscious mind has an answer to that particular question, it will be transferred to your conscious mind and just like a random pop, you will have what you were looking for.

Sometimes our subconscious mind speaks to us through dreams too. If one has an important event coming up, but one forgot about it, the subconscious mind reminds you of the event through dreams. 

Our subconscious mind has an answer to anything and everything all it requires is time to access the information. 

Written By- Megha Jain