Abstract
The distinction between the conscious and the unconscious mental state constitutes an ancient background of man’s intellectual history. The line of radical oversimplification finds its expression in the assumption that “communicable experience” corresponds with the reality of consciousness, and that the absence of such a disposition indicates the realm of the unconscious. This assessment is made with a flair of elegant Augustinian distinction as between good and evil: two extreme polarities, two incompatible universes, and yet only the one is assumed to be reality, the other merely an absence of it. A closer examination of the problem, however, reveals many intricacies which eventually prove to be of considerable importance. First, a host of questions emerges: Where is the clear demarcations line dividing these two basic systems? Under what conditions can the conscious process expand its activity over the unconscious, and explain it? What available evidence is there indicating which is the more powerful among them? How does one classify dreams, illusions, hypnotic states, hallucinations, or fantasies?
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References
Bichowski, F. R. “The Mechanisms of Consciousness: The Pre-sensation.” Amer. Jour. Psychol., 1925, 36, pp. 588–600.
Hebb, D. O. The Organization of Behavior. New York: Wiley, 1949, Ch. 2.
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Hayek, F. A. Op. cit., p. 136; Bartlett, Sir Frederick. Remembering. Cambridge University Press, 1961.
“Into this general representational system become associated those regions of the reticular formation, the intralaminar and association nuclei of the thalamus, the hypothalamus and the rhinencephalon which are in a sustained state of activity during the stimulus or which are activated by the stimulus. At the same time, a specific representational system becomes established between structures in the specific sensory system which are activated by the stimulus. As these two representational systems are elaborated, a set of associational links is established whereby activity in the two systems interact. Such interaction may be inhibitory or facilitatory.” John, E. R. in op. cit., p. 95.
That kind of memory, related to the primary stages of the formation of mental processes, will be utilized in centers of higher integration. Not only is there a great variety of new stimuli almost simultaneously processed, but a control is constantly active, taking into account stimuli already registered and responded to. In essence the complexity of higher integrative functions must be understood primarily in terms of an enormous recording of all past facilitations.* And as these encounter less resistence, they are able to form faster and more stable functional assemblies, and are ready to enter into the focal process of consciousness. The more interrelationship among stable neural assemblies facilitated through repetitious activations, the more there will be of functional overlap, i.e., an extended responsiveness and facilitation a long time after a particular group of stimuli has ceased to activate the receptors.**
Cr. W. Grey Walter. The Living Brain. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1953. * Bartlett. Sir Frederick. Op. cit., pp. 200-213, ** Eccles, J. C. The Neurophysiological, Basis of Mind. pp. 28, 88, 109-112.
Although the utmost caution must be applied whenever the neural functions are considered in close connection with psychological dispositions—a certain theoretical specification may be inserted at this point, in order to fully vindicate their position in psychological theory. There is no need to exaggerate the importance of neural and physiological data where psychological constructs are being considered. However, since the so-called intervening variables, i.e. processes which take place within the organism between the initial stimulation and eventual response, are distinctly neural and physiological, there is no logical reason for avoiding these natural data which may support and orient the formation of theoretical constructs in psychology, (Cfr. D. O. Hebb, The Role of Neurological Ideas in Psychology). To theorize means essentially to gather together all available evidence, and if there is in existence a related neural fact it should be used in pertinent connection, if for no other reason than to serve as a potent safety device in the formation of any theory. Obviously, any psychological theory, which by necessity assumes the participation of nervous functioning could not possibly stand in its own if in disagreement with existing neural and physiological data. Here Freud’s position is especially pertinent. Having at his disposal a detailed knowledge of the neurology of his days, he made a strong attempt to use the existing neural evidence in support of his initial psychological theory. (Cfr. S. Freud, A Project of Scientific Psychology). Very soon, however, his penetrating psychological interpretation left behind the existing neural evidence, which did not advance fast enough to support his dynamic model of basic mental processes. More than anyone else he was aware of the danger of isolation of his theories without the supportive or corrective influence of modern neurophysiological facts. Unfortunately, no exhaustive effort was ever made to deal with that situation. On the other hand, Freud was aware of the fact that neurophysiological verification of some of his basic constructs could not originate in the discovery of any exact concomitants of neural and psychological variables since that would amount in an extreme case to a complete reduction of one to the other and therefore contradict the purpose of psychological explanation. The solution appears to point to the use of these known neural variables as evidence of no essential contradiction between existing scientifically derived data and hypothetical constructs. There is no high degree of probability that modern neurophysiological rata will be directly pertinent to psychological data—but there is reason enough to expect that whatever the kind or level of scrutiny, evidence of fundamental incompatibility between them would result in weakening or rejection of that one which is less factually determined.
Freud, S. The Unconscious, S.E. Vol. XIV, p. 175.
Ibid., p. 173.
Ibid., pp. 173-191; Freud, S. The Ego and the Id, S.E. Vol. XIX, pp. 19, 15.
Freud, S. The Unconscious, p. 193.
Ibid., p. 174.
Ibid., p. 201.
Ibid., p. 201.
No doubt one of the most urgent tasks of modern neuro-psychological research is the determination of the basic physical characteristics of the memory trace, its location and changes that accompany its development. Here is offered a selection of works dealing with the most recent stages of investigation: Penfield, W. and Roberts, L. Speech and Brain Mechanisms. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959, Ch. III, “The Recording of Conscious ness and the Function of Interpretive Cortex.”; Burns, B. D. The Mammalian Cerebral cortex. London: Edward Arnold, 1958, Ch. V. “The Problem of Memory.”; Sperry, R. W. “Cerebral Organization and Behavior,” Science, Vol. 133, 1961, pp. 192-94; Lorente de No. R., “Circulation of Impulses and Memory,” in Macro-molecular Specificity and Biological Memory, ed. by F. O. Schmitt, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1962,pp.89-90; Gerard,R.W., “The Fixation of Experience,” in Brain Mechanisms and Learning, ed. by Fessard, Gerard, Ko-norski, and Delafresnaye, Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1961, pp. 21-36; Konorski, J.’ “The Physiological Approach to the Problem of Recent Memory,” in Brain Mechanism and Learning, cit. supra, pp. 115-132.
Cf. McCulloch, W. S., “Cybernetics: Circular, Causal and Feedback Mechanisms,” in Biological and Social Problems. New York: J. Macy Jr. Found., Ferster, H. V. (ed.), 1949.
Kubie, L. S. Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process. The Noonday Press, 1961, p. 31.
Kris, E. Psychoanalytic Exploration in Art. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1953, Ch. 14; Kris, E. “On Preconscious Mental Processes,” Psychoanal. Qtly., 1950, p. 342.
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This process is sometimes referred to in literature as “selective in-attention.” It is a psycho-physiological process restricting the perceptual input and working as a protective device against anxiety. Reed: Tauber, E. S. and Green. Prelogical Experience. New York: Basic Books, 1959, pp. 90-91: Naylor, J. C. and C. H. Lawche, “An Analytical Review of the Experimental Basis of Subception,” Jour. Psychol. XLVI, pp. 75-96.
The importance of this state is emphasized by Kubie in his Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process, p. 137: “It has been my thesis that a type of mental function, which we call technically “the Preconscious system,” is the essential implement of all creative activity; and that unless preconscious processes can flow freely there can be no true creativity. Preconscious processes, however, never operate alone. They are under the continuous and often conflicting and distorting or obstructing influence of two other concurrent systems of symbolic functions, each of which is relatively anchored and rigid. Together the three systems constitute a spectrum with certain continuities, and at least one partial but critical discontinuity. At the other pole are the symbolic processes which we call unconscious, by which we mean that although the symbol is conscious, most of what it stands for is both unknown and inaccessible except by special methods of exploration.”
Cf. Ehrenzweig, A. The Psychoanalysis of Artistic Vision and Hearing, 1953.
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Hartmann, H., Kris, E. and Loewenstein, R. M. “Comments on the formation of Psychic structure” in The Psychoanalytic Study of Child, II, New York: Internat. Universit. Press, 1946, pp. 11–38.
Here in Rilke’s poem one detects a poetical allusion on a process similar to the one just described. The emphasis is laid on the interrelated quality of sensory modalities with resulting expansion of a limited sensory experience: “Voller Apfel, Birne und Banane, …” Translated: “Banana, Full round apple, orange, pear, gooseberry. There’s something here that speaks death and life into the mouth; … I swear … Read it on a child’s face, when its cheeks pop with relish. What infinity! Can’t you feel inside your mouth a growing anonymousness, and, where words were, a flowing of suddenly released discovery? Dare to say all that apple has implied! This sweetness, concentrating, self-repressing, slowly yielding to the tongue’s caressing, growing awake, transparent, clarified, double-meaning’d, sunny, earthy, ours, — bursting into joy that overpowers!” Rilke, R. M. Sonnets to Orpheus, I, XIII, Translation by J. B. Leishman, London: Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1936.
Maritain, J. Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. Meridian Books, 1954, Gh. III, pp. 51–75.
Cf. Read, H. “The Dynamics of Art,” in The Forms of Things Unknown. Read, H. (ed.), New York, 1960.
Hebb, D. O. “Emotion in man and animal: an analysis of the intuitive processes of recognition,” Psychol. Rev., 53, 1946, pp. 88–106; Weber, A. O. and Rapaport, D. “Teleology and the emotions,” Phil, of Science, 8, pp. 69-82.
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Ibid., p. 92 and seq.
Valéry, P. Art of Poetry, Vintage Books, p. 74.
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© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Havelka, J. (1968). On the Preconscious. In: The Nature of the Creative Process in Art. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9512-6_4
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