What Is The Unconscious And How Does It Affect Us?
Do you know how your unconscious affects you? 97% of our behavior comes from our unconscious. Discover what the unconscious really is and the impact it has on your life.
He unconscious It is a place in our mind where we find the origin of many of our feelings, thoughts, impulses and memories that we do not understand. So much so that it is that space that we dedicate to house all those contents that are unacceptable or unpleasant, as well as our feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. On many occasions, getting closer to our unconscious can be the key to discovering the origin of some of the problems that affect us in our daily lives.
According to psychoanalytic theory From the personality of Sigmund Freud, our unconscious is defined as a repository of feelings, thoughts, impulses and memories that are outside our consciousness.
Therefore, the unconscious and its meaning It refers to a place in our mind where most of the content that we consider unpleasant or unacceptable for our life is stored. In this way, according to Freudian theory, the unconscious is a part that influences us even though we do not know what is in it.
Freud’s theory of the unconscious
The one known as Freud’s psychoanalytic theory It is what gave the origin of the concept of the unconscious. In it, this psychologist explained that in the mind there are different levels which have their own function and role within our brain.
To be able to explain it in a more visual way, these Freud’s theories They can be visualized through the image of an iceberg. In this way, it was Freud himself who compared the three levels that he determined for the mind with an iceberg. The upper part, that is, what is seen and what we can visualize in ourselves, is the representation of our conscious mind. Instead, the part of the iceberg that is submerged underwater but is still visible is the subconscious. Finally, the part of the iceberg that is hidden under the water and is not visible would be the unconscious.
Looking at it from this perspective, the human mind in psychology consists of these three parts with their functions. The conscious mind contains our thoughts, memories, feelings and desires which we can access at any time. Instead, the unconscious and the subconscious where its excess is limited.
Difference between unconscious, subconscious and conscious
To be able to understand how our unconscious works it is vital to also keep in mind the functions of the other two parts of our mind.
Subconscious
When referring to the subconscious , we are pointing out the part of our mind that is between the conscious and the unconscious. That is, it is information that is stored in our unconscious, but that we can access through the efforts of our conscious. In these cases we control the entry of this information, but by not using it it remains stored in this place in our mind according to Freud’s theory.
Furthermore, in the subconscious we also find data that has been automated. For example, how to use a fork and knife. This automatic memory is in our subconscious, since it is something that we do not need to remember because we use it routinely in our daily lives.
Unconscious
He unconscious It is made up of those data that you do not know and that you are never aware of knowing. A good example of this is that right now, as you read this, you are receiving more than 40,000 neural impulses per second. Our conscious has the capacity to store about 5,000 of these neural impulses, while all the others pass into the unconscious without us realizing it.
According to research the unconscious They can measure such amazing things as barometric pressure, gravity, temperature, and even our blood pressure or the heart rate of the person sitting next to us.
Apart from all these fascinating facts, the unconscious It has an emotional nature. Therefore, within it we find traumas, beliefs and dark aspects of ourselves that we have repressed. Within the unconscious brain we have registered much of the information that our neuronal impulses have captured, but we are not aware of it.
Aware
He conscious and its meaning It refers to everything we are capable of experiencing in the here and now. But although we believe most of this information in the present comes from the conscious, the reality is that our consciousness is mainly made up of 5% presence and 95% memories coming from both the unconscious and the subconscious. This is because there is data that we have learned in the past, but that we use in the present moment.
Many times our unconscious It is capable of making us act or see ourselves developing certain actions that we do not recognize as ours. In this way, the unconscious part can determine our way of viewing life and therefore it is essential to treat psychological problems that may arise from our traumas or bad experiences. Sometimes we are not aware of the importance of everything around us.
