Uncover Your Unconscious

I remember reading about an experience Freud had that convinced him of the power of the unconscious; but I cannot find the story or its source. The essence of what I remember is as follows.

Freud was at the Salpetriere School and witnessed Charcot hypnotise a man and give him the instruction to stand up each time he heard a certain word. Once the man was released from the hypnosis he did indeed stand up each time he heard the word. When quizzed as to why he was standing up the man was immediately able to give an apparently rational reason. What impressed Freud was the man’s ability to justify an action he was taking because of an unconscious suggestion made under hypnosis. He realised that this is what everyone does all the time; they invent apparently rational explanations and reasons for actions that are actually governed by the individual’s unconscious.

Whether the story is true or not (Freud certainly worked with Charcot at the Salpetriere School), it does illustrate the power of the unconscious – and the ability of the conscious mind to invent spurious justifications for its influence.  It has been my observation that almost everyone underestimates the degree to which they are run by their unconscious. Furthermore because they are unaware of its role in their life, they do not do much to try to bring the unconscious into consciousness. Even worse, some people imagine that because they have uncovered a number of childhood traumas, that they have uncovered all there is to know about their unconscious. In short the lack of attempts to uncover unconscious drives, behaviours and assumptions is, in my view, the greatest obstacle to an individual’s development emotionally, morally and relationally.

The most profound direct experience I have had is that “I am the one who chooses”.” I cannot choose what happens, but I can and do choose how to take meaning from whatever happens and how to react to my choice of meaning. On the Intensive I saw, in my mind, an image of me being beaten by my mother. The first meaning I took was “poor me, cruel woman”. The second was of seeing my mother as at the end of her tether and unable to cope. The third meaning I took was that she was doing to me what had been done to her. A fourth meaning was that this toughened me to the hardships of life. It became obvious that I could choose which meaning to go with – and each evoked a completely different reaction within me. I understood that I had this sort of choice moment by moment, but that most of the time I was making these choices unconsciously. I resolved then to do whatever I could to make more choices consciously, which required me to find ways of bringing more of my unconscious into consciousness. This is the source of my determination to address my unconscious; to be able to make more choices consciously.

One of the simplest, yet most effective tools for showing me when I am acting unconsciously is the criticalness exercise. This states that whenever I am critical of another person this is showing me something about myself of which I am currently unconscious. Many people know about this exercise, they have heard about it and maybe used it a couple of times. But quite quickly they will come across a situation in which they are critical of another person and certain that it has nothing whatsoever to do with them or their unconscious. At that point they will cease using this as a tool – and cease believing that it is illuminating their unconscious. They will have erected a defence against it – and lost the chance of bringing unconscious material into their awareness. This is how the unconscious works and enables an individual to avoid confronting stuff.

There is another exercise that I have both used and taught others to use. It is known as Immunity to Change. It is a five step logical process that inexorably leads you to discover a fundamental belief that conditions much of your behaviour. The first time people use this exercise, which takes about 30 minutes to complete, they are amazed that something so logical could illuminate such a profound layer of unconsciousness. Yet I do not know anyone who then proceeds to use it the next time they are finding it difficult to make a change in their life. Once is enough!

Both the above processes are appropriate for all the phases of personal growth. In the discovery phase I made extensive use of regression processes in which I allowed my feelings full expression and discovered the issues that lay beneath. In the early years they were all connected to my abysmal childhood; later I was surprised to find some adult traumas – often associated with relationships.

It was also in the discovery phase that I started to use mind altering drugs, particularly hallucinogens, to uncover aspects of my unconscious (see The Conscious use of Drugs). I was influenced by the work of Stanislav Grof and others who used hallucinogens in scientific studies of the unconscious. Here the key to discovering unconscious material was to have a clear intention of what it was I wished to understand. Nowadays there are many groups of people who regularly take drugs, such as ayahuasca or mescaline, in order to have new experiences. Sometimes these people gain insights into their psyche or their behaviour. But unless they set a clear intention to uncover aspects of their unconscious, it would be unlikely to arise. The trouble is that many aspects of the unconscious do not yield pleasant experiences. Some of the buried anti-social feelings are embarrassing and extremely unpleasant to own. Nevertheless this is what one must be prepared for if one is serious about discovering more of one’s unconscious.

Another process that can be used to illuminate the unconscious is meditation. Meditation can be used for a wide variety of purposes, for example reducing stress, becoming more present and accessing aspects of the Divine. The basic process, of sitting quietly and focussing on something simple, like one’s breath or a candle flame, is the same in all cases. What is different is the intention. A meditator will only discover anything about their unconscious if they are both open to, and have set a clear intention to uncover, their unconscious. This has become an important tool for me and seems to suit the maturation phase of growth. Here is a recent example.

A few years ago I fell out with some long term friends. It was an upsetting time for everyone involved. I anticipated having to explain to a large number of mutual friends what had transpired and decided that the easiest way to do this was to write an account of the separation.  However another close friend challenged the very idea of sending such a document to a significant number of people. I decided to use this as the focus of my meditation to find out whether it was, or was not, a good idea. What emerged over the next few days was that my primary motive for using such a document was to avoid being vulnerable and showing my upset when explaining to mutual friends what had happened. Once this unconscious motive was clear I abandoned the document and allowed myself to be vulnerable and upset many times over the next year.

All the tools mentioned in this section are covered in detail in the Tools section of the website. I encourage you to try any that appeal to you and to continue to explore until you find tools that really work for you in exposing how your unconscious is affecting what you say and do. Whilst you think it is not, you are deluding yourself. The key to making any tool work for you is your intention: you have to really want to know and be prepared to be embarrassed, even ashamed.