Thread: The character of your subconscious

Hey there,


Before I continue, do note that I actually agree with you on principle. I think we can learn a lot from our unconscious and the way its represented in dreams. The difference is that I think it's more beneficial to take the entire dream as a representation of our unconscious, rather then focus our attention on a single character, which we designate as some sort of 'avatar' of our unconsciousness.

The reason why I think this will get you further is twofold. Firstly, you're taking one element out of the dream, and taking out of its context. When you know the unconscious mind works on the principle of association, this may already mean you 'lose' a lot of meaning. Additionally, I have to wonder in however this dreamguide character remains a representation of your unconsciousness, and in however it becomes a representation of your very conscious desire to have insight into your unconsciousness, if you see the difference? What does the dreamguide really represent? Your unconsciousness, or your wish to understand your unconsciousness?

Let me explain it in a different way, using an analogy.

Your conscious speaks one language, your unconscious speaks another. The dreamguide character is a translator, or an interpretor. He allows your conscious mind to understand what the unconscious is 'saying' (saying is a bad word though cause remember the unconscious is not a person, doesn't behave like a person, and doesn't 'act').

That's not bad. In fact, that'll get you a long way. But listening to something through an intepretor and listening to something in its original language is a lot different. In both cases information is lost, but in the latter case, a lot less information is lost then in the first case. In other words, having to listen to someone via an interpretator is a lot less informative then actually learning the language and being able to understand it without the need for an intermediary.

So, with that in mind, wouldn't it be better for us to learn the language of our dreams, so that we can listen to the full entirety of it (all of which is a representation of the unconscious), then having to go through an interpretor? Or to go back to the original point, learn to pay attention to the dream as a whole, rather then focus solely on this one character? Wouldn't we learn a lot more that way?

I think we would.

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

And in reply to your second question

Firstly remember that like I said in my original reply, I'm assuming a psychoanalytical version of the unconscious. There are other theories on what the subconscious/unconscious is, but I figure why not go for the experts on the matter

Ok, back to the point at hand:

You have to remember the unconscious is not a person. It doesn't react like a person, it doesn't interact like a person. The unconscious is a collection of desires, associations, urges, fears, believes, and so forth.

We often say that the 'unconscious' talks to use in our dreams, but it doesn't. It doesn't actually 'act' at all. We get glimpses of our unconscious in the dream, but using a metaphore, it can be a lot more helpful to think of the unconscious as a massive blueprint of 'who you are'.

Now to continue this analogy, this blueprint is unfinished. it's still being drawn. And things are constantly being added, changed, manipulated. Every single experience in your life, even something as simple as you reading this or you sitting on your chair, is making minute changes to this ever-evolving blueprint.

So yes, the blueprint can be influenced, most certainly. But not like a person. What could you possibly advise it to do (when it doesn't even 'do' anything to begin with)?

"Try and be more kind to others"? The unconscious is neither kind or unkind.

"Don't fear heights so much?" The unconscious doesn't fear, it doesn't love, it doesn't even feel.

"Try and be smarter?" The unconscious is neither smart or dumb.

These are all the attributes of a person. The unconscious operates an entirely different level. That's why you cannot interact with it like you suggest. Sure you can say things to your dreamcharacters in your dreams, and doing that will in fact have some sort of effect on the unconscious (because everything does). But listening and acting on a suggestion implies choice, and choice... is a conscious thing.


And ugh, this is getting highly theoretical now

-Redrivertears-

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

And in reply to your second question

Firstly remember that like I said in my original reply, I'm assuming a psychoanalytical version of the unconscious. There are other theories on what the subconscious/unconscious is, but I figure why not go for the experts on the matter

Ok, back to the point at hand:

You have to remember the unconscious is not a person. It doesn't react like a person, it doesn't interact like a person. The unconscious is a collection of desires, associations, urges, fears, believes, and so forth.

We often say that the 'unconscious' talks to use in our dreams, but it doesn't. It doesn't actually 'act' at all. We get glimpses of our unconscious in the dream, but using a metaphore, it can be a lot more helpful to think of the unconscious as a massive blueprint of 'who you are'.

Now to continue this analogy, this blueprint is unfinished. it's still being drawn. And things are constantly being added, changed, manipulated. Every single experience in your life, even something as simple as you reading this or you sitting on your chair, is making minute changes to this ever-evolving blueprint.

So yes, the blueprint can be influenced, most certainly. But not like a person. What could you possibly advise it to do (when it doesn't even 'do' anything to begin with)?

"Try and be more kind to others"? The unconscious is neither kind or unkind.

"Don't fear heights so much?" The unconscious doesn't fear, it doesn't love, it doesn't even feel.

"Try and be smarter?" The unconscious is neither smart or dumb.

These are all the attributes of a person. The unconscious operates an entirely different level. That's why you cannot interact with it like you suggest. Sure you can say things to your dreamcharacters in your dreams, and doing that will in fact have some sort of effect on the unconscious (because everything does). But listening and acting on a suggestion implies choice, and choice... is a conscious thing.


And ugh, this is getting highly theoretical now

-Redrivertears-

I believe I must not have been very coherent in my explaination... I'm saying that if I act in symbolism, actually advising a character in my dream designated as my subconscious, it might serve to hammer it into me, which I was previously calling my subconscious because of course my subconscious is me, or part of me.

Now how 'bout I give you an analogy (or maybe not an anology specifically, but an example to clarify what I'm getting at):
you know how we have mantras we live by or meditate on? Well, if wanted to, say, quit eating bacon, you might find yourself constantly thinking "quit eating bacon" when you are eating it or want to eat it and eventually you get sick of pissing yourself off and you slow the bacon intake. Or a better example might be that you are always hearing how unhealthy bacon is from your friend so it has the same effect. It's pounding ideas into your subconscious. And maybe that cliche of pounding things into your subconscious uses the term liberally. Like I have been possibly.

Maybe for illustrating my idea of giving this character in my dream advice, I should ditch the entire "subconscious" term which I might have mistakenly employed. Because something I also probably did not make all to clear was that I only employed the term after the fact, or after the dream. In the dream, I really only understood the character to be that voice inside my head that gives me advice, which I might often so liberally label my "subconscious".

So my bad, but does this clarify my point, which is: might it help us in our daily lives to, in lucid dreaming, give ourselves (in the form of an "avatar" of our conscience, or subconscious, or whatever is projecting our internal dialogue into the forefront of our minds) advice? A dream being a more memorable and subconscious-sensative arena? This is such a convoluted subject, but do you get my point?

Hey there,

Phew, very difficult question there

The thing is, in your 'mantra: quite eating bacon' example, I am wondering what exactly you're influencing. Sure, self-condition and self-suggestion can have definate effects, but are you influencing your unconscious, or your consciousness?

Lets take the bacon example. You want to eat less bacon. My first impulse then would be to ask: why? There's got to be a reason why you want to eat less bacon. And that reason is always implicitly present in your mantra. (You want to eat less bacon, because...). Now the reason for your desire to eat less bacon could be conscious, or unconscious, but the desire itself is obviously conscious (if you can talk about it it is by definition conscious, as the unconscious things are that which are consciousness is not aware of).

Now you start with your mantra or self-suggestion. And what are you truly doing? You're affirming the conscious part of your desire (I want to eat less bacon) to your consciousness! In other words, you're trying to make sure that this idea that you want to eat less bacon is constantly in your conscious awareness, so that you won't forget, and won't find yourself going 'damn, I was supposed to eat less bacon' after the fact is already done.

Does this truly affect the unconsciousness? Not so much, I think. (Although it could be argued that by doing so you're providing new unconscious associations, or altering the strength of unconscious associations. But then again, like I said in a previous mail, everything does )

In short, what you're doing is trying to ensure that whenever you're faced with bacon, something enters your consciousness (I shouldn't eat bacon!)

Now we take the dreamsituation. Sure, you have your 'unconscious translator' there in the form of a dreamguide, but does pronouncing your conscious wish to him/her/it really affect your unconsciousness? I do not see why it would be different in dreams (under psychoanalytic theory, that is. Remember that psychoanalytically speaking, the working of the unconscious remains the same whether dreaming or waking, its only the working of the consciousness that changes).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it won't have an effect. In fact I think if you believe it will it probably will. I'm just saying I think this is mostly a conscious process, rather then an unconscious one.

So to answer your question:

might it help us in our daily lives to, in lucid dreaming, give ourselves (in the form of an "avatar" of our conscience, or subconscious, or whatever is projecting our internal dialogue into the forefront of our minds) advice?

Yes, but ...

A dream being a more memorable and subconscious-sensative arena?

I don't think so. I think it would help because of the amount of effort needed and the speciality of this sort of mantra would further help your determination and sharpen your will to do this

I don't think it will have an effect because you're influencing your unconscious in some special way

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

Phew, very difficult question there

The thing is, in your 'mantra: quite eating bacon' example, I am wondering what exactly you're influencing. Sure, self-condition and self-suggestion can have definate effects, but are you influencing your unconscious, or your consciousness?

Lets take the bacon example. You want to eat less bacon. My first impulse then would be to ask: why? There's got to be a reason why you want to eat less bacon. And that reason is always implicitly present in your mantra. (You want to eat less bacon, because...). Now the reason for your desire to eat less bacon could be conscious, or unconscious, but the desire itself is obviously conscious (if you can talk about it it is by definition conscious, as the unconscious things are that which are consciousness is not aware of).

Now you start with your mantra or self-suggestion. And what are you truly doing? You're affirming the conscious part of your desire (I want to eat less bacon) to your consciousness! In other words, you're trying to make sure that this idea that you want to eat less bacon is constantly in your conscious awareness, so that you won't forget, and won't find yourself going 'damn, I was supposed to eat less bacon' after the fact is already done.

Does this truly affect the unconsciousness? Not so much, I think. (Although it could be argued that by doing so you're providing new unconscious associations, or altering the strength of unconscious associations. But then again, like I said in a previous mail, everything does )

In short, what you're doing is trying to ensure that whenever you're faced with bacon, something enters your consciousness (I shouldn't eat bacon!)

Now we take the dreamsituation. Sure, you have your 'unconscious translator' there in the form of a dreamguide, but does pronouncing your conscious wish to him/her/it really affect your unconsciousness? I do not see why it would be different in dreams (under psychoanalytic theory, that is. Remember that psychoanalytically speaking, the working of the unconscious remains the same whether dreaming or waking, its only the working of the consciousness that changes).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it won't have an effect. In fact I think if you believe it will it probably will. I'm just saying I think this is mostly a conscious process, rather then an unconscious one.

So to answer your question:

might it help us in our daily lives to, in lucid dreaming, give ourselves (in the form of an "avatar" of our conscience, or subconscious, or whatever is projecting our internal dialogue into the forefront of our minds) advice?

Yes, but ...

A dream being a more memorable and subconscious-sensative arena?

I don't think so. I think it would help because of the amount of effort needed and the speciality of this sort of mantra would further help your determination and sharpen your will to do this

I don't think it will have an effect because you're influencing your unconscious in some special way

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

haha, I feel foolish... I tend to think in very broad terms, very right-brained. What you're saying makes absolute sense.

but, setting my dream aside, this is just a thought I had in reading your take on the bacon bit {pardon my pun}:
"Now you start with your mantra or self-suggestion. And what are you truly doing? You're affirming the conscious part of your desire (I want to eat less bacon) to your consciousness! In other words, you're trying to make sure that this idea that you want to eat less bacon is constantly in your conscious awareness, so that you won't forget, and won't find yourself going 'damn, I was supposed to eat less bacon' after the fact is already done."
who is 'you' though? Maybe that isn't relevant at all, but this is: are ideals [and other characteristics that aren't ideal] set in the subconscious and by making up little mantras we create a bridge between the conscious mind and sub-?

Heya there,

"who is 'you' though?

This is a very difficult question. Psychologists all over the world have been and still are in rabid debate over exactly this question. Even in psychoanalytical theories, which I've given you a few examples of, the answer to this question varies enourmously based on which particular variant of psychoanalytic theory you ask.

Personally I'm most enamored by Lacan's psychoanalytical theory, who simply claims there's no such thing as a "me" or "you", insofar that there is no such thing as a core personality or core individual. Rather, to Lacan, we all have series of key-signifiers (things which are very significant to us for one reason or another), which all relate to each other via the proces of association (some of which is conscious, most of which is unconscious), and which in itself is constantly in flux. To Lacan, we 'are not anyone', rather we are constantly 'becoming someone'. ("Become who you are"). But that in itself is an entirely different, difficult and lenghty discussion, which will have very little to do with dreaming, so probably not so suited here

Maybe that isn't relevant at all, but this is: are ideals [and other characteristics that aren't ideal] set in the subconscious and by making up little mantras we create a bridge between the conscious mind and sub-?"

Are ideals set in the unconscious? I would say yes and no. An ideal implies a form of choice, I think. Something is 'ideal' because it is the best possible solution from a number of solutions to a given problem. An 'ideal' way of behaving, the 'ideal' that all humans have intrinsic value and should have instrinsic rights, the 'ideal' way to drive to your work. All of these imply a choice out of different options. So in effect any 'ideal' is in part very conscious.

But every choice is determined by unconscious drives, so therefor there's an unconscious element to an ideal as well (like there's an unconscious element to absolutely everything we do).

However, I think in this case, the "bridge" that you speak off between the unconscious and the conscious is already (partially) made. The mantra's, I think, reinforce and strengthen that bridge by keeping your conscious attention on it and keeping you as aware as possible of it. So again, I would say those mantra's operate mostly on a conscious level. (which in itself is a good thing. Once more, I'm not trying to devaluate self-suggestion or self-reinforcement).

Anyways, just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Heya there,

"who is 'you' though?

This is a very difficult question. Psychologists all over the world have been and still are in rabid debate over exactly this question. Even in psychoanalytical theories, which I've given you a few examples of, the answer to this question varies enourmously based on which particular variant of psychoanalytic theory you ask.

Personally I'm most enamored by Lacan's psychoanalytical theory, who simply claims there's no such thing as a "me" or "you", insofar that there is no such thing as a core personality or core individual. Rather, to Lacan, we all have series of key-signifiers (things which are very significant to us for one reason or another), which all relate to each other via the proces of association (some of which is conscious, most of which is unconscious), and which in itself is constantly in flux. To Lacan, we 'are not anyone', rather we are constantly 'becoming someone'. ("Become who you are"). But that in itself is an entirely different, difficult and lenghty discussion, which will have very little to do with dreaming, so probably not so suited here

Maybe that isn't relevant at all, but this is: are ideals [and other characteristics that aren't ideal] set in the subconscious and by making up little mantras we create a bridge between the conscious mind and sub-?"

Are ideals set in the unconscious? I would say yes and no. An ideal implies a form of choice, I think. Something is 'ideal' because it is the best possible solution from a number of solutions to a given problem. An 'ideal' way of behaving, the 'ideal' that all humans have intrinsic value and should have instrinsic rights, the 'ideal' way to drive to your work. All of these imply a choice out of different options. So in effect any 'ideal' is in part very conscious.

But every choice is determined by unconscious drives, so therefor there's an unconscious element to an ideal as well (like there's an unconscious element to absolutely everything we do).

However, I think in this case, the "bridge" that you speak off between the unconscious and the conscious is already (partially) made. The mantra's, I think, reinforce and strengthen that bridge by keeping your conscious attention on it and keeping you as aware as possible of it. So again, I would say those mantra's operate mostly on a conscious level. (which in itself is a good thing. Once more, I'm not trying to devaluate self-suggestion or self-reinforcement).

Anyways, just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

yeah, I see what our saying. I don't really have anything further to say at this point.

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,


Before I continue, do note that I actually agree with you on principle. I think we can learn a lot from our unconscious and the way its represented in dreams. The difference is that I think it's more beneficial to take the entire dream as a representation of our unconscious, rather then focus our attention on a single character, which we designate as some sort of 'avatar' of our unconsciousness.

The reason why I think this will get you further is twofold. Firstly, you're taking one element out of the dream, and taking out of its context. When you know the unconscious mind works on the principle of association, this may already mean you 'lose' a lot of meaning. Additionally, I have to wonder in however this dreamguide character remains a representation of your unconsciousness, and in however it becomes a representation of your very conscious desire to have insight into your unconsciousness, if you see the difference? What does the dreamguide really represent? Your unconsciousness, or your wish to understand your unconsciousness?

Let me explain it in a different way, using an analogy.

Your conscious speaks one language, your unconscious speaks another. The dreamguide character is a translator, or an interpretor. He allows your conscious mind to understand what the unconscious is 'saying' (saying is a bad word though cause remember the unconscious is not a person, doesn't behave like a person, and doesn't 'act').

That's not bad. In fact, that'll get you a long way. But listening to something through an intepretor and listening to something in its original language is a lot different. In both cases information is lost, but in the latter case, a lot less information is lost then in the first case. In other words, having to listen to someone via an interpretator is a lot less informative then actually learning the language and being able to understand it without the need for an intermediary.

So, with that in mind, wouldn't it be better for us to learn the language of our dreams, so that we can listen to the full entirety of it (all of which is a representation of the unconscious), then having to go through an interpretor? Or to go back to the original point, learn to pay attention to the dream as a whole, rather then focus solely on this one character? Wouldn't we learn a lot more that way?

I think we would.

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

I agree with all of this ^