The Varieties of Unconsicous Experience

Cf: Eagleman The Secret Lives of the Brain

We’ve long sensed that a great deal of what happens in our lives is profoundly influenced by forces that are beyond our control yet seem to emanate from within us. Freud developed his theory of the unconscious, with its id and ego as an attempt to investigate this phenomenon. One key question is to ask how about how social structures developed in pre-Homo Sapiens societies, the history as it were of of the alfa male harem structure, and how it has influenced and shaped several aspects of our unconscious experience.

The unconscious includes the autonomous nervous system, with direct stimulus response circuits. Withdrawal from flame, blushing etc. Embarrassment is a social emotion that triggers this blushing response. If the response comes from triggering mechanisms within the limbic system, this shows how our brains have gradually rewired for socially adaptive reasons within the framework of that pre historic social structure.

One aspect of experience that we tend to put down to the unconscious is within a ‘stimulus-response’ situation when our response is not consciously deliberated and chosen. Whenever we respond to a situation without deliberately choosing our response, it feels like ‘the unconscious’ is acting within us. In fact, this can happen for many reasons.

Habituation (pavlovian) operates at the most simple level, but can soon become a physiological reaction.

Then there is the automatic unconscious, which is easily seen in those repetitive tasks like typing, reading, or driving, which once learned we no longer need consciously to attend to to perform them. Sometimes called performative memory.

The ‘non conscious’ can be understood as that reservoir of self, memories, attitudes, beliefs, scripts, values, expectations that are there to be tapped into or brought to bear when needed. They are the ‘potential’ inherent in our individuality, or character. They can be changed with education and awareness, and contribute in a key way to letting us feel human. These scripts (or what Srimukar Rao calls ‘mental models’ are what most feels like a ‘non conscious’ in the sense that we react predictably to things without having necessarily made a conscious choice to do so, and sort of assume that we do so ‘because that’s who we are’, as if determined.

Biological determinism: Sapolsky has discussed Toxoplasmosis as the first biologically triggered modifier of behaviour. It is supposed to make people more reckless. We can assume that we will find other neurotransmitters and brain chemicals that have a predictable and automatic influence on behaviour, and thus appear as unconscious influences.

Drives and Instincts: range from ancient behavioiural scripts such as the fight or flight response, to long term drives towards dominance within a group. The wide variety of instincts and drives are in my opinion what humans are most affected by and what they largely mean when referring to the unconsious. Most of our emotional life emerges from instincts and drives, either remaining unconscious or emerging into consciousness as fears and desires, then meeting resistance in the world and producing a variety of emotional responses that are largely predictable. This predictability we think of both as ‘who we are’ and as our ‘unconscious’. The fact that we share these responses with most normal people doesn’t diminish our sense that they are personal and unique to us. Understanding, and helping to modulate these flows of emotions, expectations, desires, etc is key to being able to enjoy a fruitful and not too frustrated existence.