A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS IN
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS¹

(1912)

I wis to expound in a few words and as plainly as
possible what the term “ unconscious ' has come to
mean in psycho-analysis and in psycho-analysis
alone.

A conception—or any other mental element—
which is now present to my consciousness may become
absent the next moment, and may become present
again, after an interval, unchanged, and, as we say,
from memory, not as a result of a fresh perception by
our senses. It is this fact which we are accustomed
to account for by the supposition that during the
interval the conception has been present in our mind,
although latent in consciousness. In what shape it
may have existed while present in the mind and
latent in consciousness we have no means of guessing.

At this very point we may be prepared to meet
with the philosophical objection that the latent con-
ception did not exist as an object of psychology, but
as a physical disposition for the recurrence of the
same psychical phenomenon, i.e. of the said concep-
tion. But we may reply that this is a theory far over-
stepping the domain of psychology proper; that it
simply begs the question by asserting “ conscious “ to
be an identical term with ` mental", and that it is

¹ Written (in English) at the request of the Society for
Psychical Research and first published in a Special
Medical Supplement of their Proceedings, Part Ixvi,
Vol. xxvi, 1912. <. i, 117-123; G.S. v, 433-442; S.k.S.N.
iv, 157-167; С.Р. iv, 22-29.

54

1912 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 55

clearly at fault in denying psychology the right to
account for its most common facts, such as memory,
by its own means.

Now let us call * conscious ’ the conception which
is present to our consciousness and of which we are
aware, and let this be the only meaning of the term
* conscious". As for latent conceptions, if we have
any reason to suppose that they exist in the mind—as
we had in the case of memory 一 let them be denoted
by the term ` unconscious ”.

Thus an unconscious conception is one of which we
are not aware, but the existence of which we are
nevertheless ready to admit on account of other
proofs or signs.

This might be considered an uninteresting piece of
descriptive or classificatory work if no experience
appealed to our judgment other than the facts of
memory, or the cases of association by unconscious
links. The well-known experiment, however, of
` post-hypnotic suggestion “ teaches us to insist upon
the importance of the distinction between conscious
and unconscious and seems to increase its value.

In this experiment, as performed by Bernheim, a
person is put into a hypnotic state and is subsequently
aroused. While he was in the hypnotic state, under
the influence of the physician, he was ordered to
execute a certain action at a certain fixed moment
after his awakening, say half an hour later. He
awakes, and seems fully conscious and in his ordinary
condition; he has no recollection of his hypnotic
state, and yet at the pre-arranged moment there
rushes into his mind the impulse to do such and such
a thing, and he does it consciously, though not know-
ing why. It seems impossible to give any other
description of the phenomenon than to say that the

E

56 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 1912

order had been present in the mind of the person in a
condition of latency, or had been present uncon-
sciously, until the given moment came, and then had
become conscious. But not the whole of it emerged
into consciousness: only the conception of the act to
be executed. All the other ideas associated with this
conception—the order, the influence of the physician,
the recollection of the hypnotic state—remained
unconscious even then.

But we have more to learn from such an experi-
ment. We are led from the purely descriptive to a
dynamic view of the phenomenon. The idea of the
action ordered in hypnosis not only became an object
of consciousness at a certain moment, but the more
striking aspect of the fact is that this idea grew active:
it was translated into action as soon as consciousness
became aware of its presence. The real stimulus to
the action being the order of the physician, it is hard
not to concede that the idea of the physician's order
became active too. Yet this last idea did not reveal
itself to consciousness, as did its outcome, the idea of
the action; it remained unconscious, and so it was
active and unconscious at the same time.

A post-hypnotic suggestion is a laboratory produc-
tion, an artificial fact. But if we adopt the theory of
hysterical phenomena first put forward by Pierre
Janet and elaborated by Breuer and myself, we shall
not be at a loss for plenty of natural facts showing the
psychological character of the post-hypnotic sugges-
tion even more clearly and distinctly.

The mind of the hysterical patient is full of active
yet unconscious ideas; all her symptoms proceed
from such ideas. Itisin fact the most striking charac-
ter of the hysterical mind to be ruled by them. If the
hysterical woman vomits, she may do so from the

1912 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 57

idea of being pregnant. She has, however, no know-
ledge of this idea, although it can easily be detected
in her mind, and made conscious to her, by one of the
technical procedures of psycho-analysis. If she is
executing the jerks and movements constituting her
“fit”, she does not even consciously represent to her-
self the intended actions, and she may perceive those
actions with the detached feelings of an onlooker.
Nevertheless analysis will show that she was acting
her part in the dramatic reproduction of some inci-
dent in her life, the memory of which was uncon-
sciously active during the attack. The same pre-
ponderance of active unconscious ideas is revealed by
analysis as the essential fact in the psychology of all
other forms of neurosis.

We learn therefore by the analysis of neurotic
phenomena that a latent or unconscious idea is not
necessarily a weak one, and that the presence of such
an idea in the mind admits of indirect proofs of the
most cogent king are equivalent to the direct
proof furnished h busness. We feel justified in
agree with this addition to
ing a fundamental dis-
tinction between different Kinds of latent or uncon-
scious ideas. We were accustomed to think that every
latent idea was so because it was weak and that it
grew conscious as soon as it became strong. We have
now gained the conviction that there are some latent
ideas which do not penetrate into consciousness,
however strong they may have become. Therefore
we may call the latent ideas of the first type pre-
conscious, while we reserve the term unconscious
(proper) for the latter type which we came to study
in the neuroses. The term unconscious, which was
used in the purely descriptive sense before, now

58 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 1912

comes to imply something more. It designates not
only latent ideas in general, but especially ideas with
a certain dynamic character, ideas keeping apart
from consciousness in spite of their intensity and
activity.

Before continuing my exposition I will refer to two
objections which are likely to be raised at this point.
The first of these may be stated thus: instead of sub-
scribing to the hypothesis of unconscious ideas of
which we know nothing, we had better assume that
consciousness can be split up, so that certain ideas or
other psychical acts may constitute a consciousness
apart, which has become detached and estranged
from the bulk of conscious psychical activity. Well-
known pathological cases like that of Dr. Azam seem
to go far to show that the splitting up of conscious-
ness is no fanciful imagination.

I venture to urge against this theory that it is a
gratuitous assumption, based on the abuse of the
word ` conscious’. We have no right to extend the
meaning of this word so far as to make it include a
consciousness of which its owner himself is not
aware. If philosophers find difficulty in accepting
the existence of unconscious ideas, the existence of an
unconscious consciousness seems to me even more
objectionable. The cases described as splitting of
consciousness, like Dr. Azam’s, might better be
denoted as shifting of consciousness—that function—
or whatever it be—oscillating between two different
psychical complexes which become conscious and
unconscious in alternation.

The other objection that may probably be raised
would be that we apply to normal psychology con-
clusions which are drawn chiefly from the study of
pathological conditions. We are enabled to answer it

1912 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 59

by another fact, the knowledge of which we owe to
psycho-analysis. Certain deficiencies of function of
most frequent occurrence among healthy people, e.g.
lapsus linguae, errors in memory and speech, for-
getting of names, etc., may easily be shown to
depend on the action of strong unconscious ideas in
the same way as neurotic symptoms. We shall meet
with another still more convincing argument at a
later stage of this discussion.

By the differentiation of preconscious and un-
conscious ideas, we are led on to leave the field of
classification and to form an opinion about func-
tional and dynamical relations in the action of the
mind. We have found a preconscious activity passing
into consciousness with no difficulty, and an uncon-
scious activity which remains so and seems to be cut
off from consciousness.

Now we do not know whether these two modes of
psychical activity are identical or essentially diver-
gent from their beginning, but we may ask why they
should become different in the course of mental
action. To this last question psycho-analysis gives
a clear and unhesitating answer. It is by no means
impossible for the product of unconscious activity to
pierce into consciousness, but a certain amount of
exertion is needed for this task. When we try to do it
in ourselves, we become aware of a distinct feeling of
repulsion which must be overcome, and when we
produce it in a patient we get the most unquestion-
able signs of what we call his resistance to it. So we
learn that the unconscious idea is excluded from
consciousness by living forces which oppose them-
selves to its reception, while they do not object to
other ideas, the preconscious ones. Psycho-analysis
leaves no room for doubt that the repulsion from

60 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 1912

unconscious ideas is only provoked by the tendencies
embodied in their contents. The next and most
probable theory which can be formulated at this
stage of our knowledge is the following. Uncon-
sciousness is a regular and inevitable phase in the
processes constituting our mental activity; every
mental act begins as an unconscious one, and it may
either remain so or go on developing into conscious-
ness, according as it meets with resistance or not.
The distinction between preconscious and uncon-
scious activity is not a primary one, but comes to be
established after repulsion has sprung up. Only then
the difference between preconscious ideas, which can
appear in consciousness and reappear at any
moment, and unconscious ideas which cannot do so
gains a theoretical as well as a practical value. A
rough but not inadequate analogy to this supposed
relation of conscious to unconscious activity might be
drawn from the field of ordinary photography. The
first stage of the photograph is the * negative ”; every
photographic picture has to pass through the

“ negative process’, and some of these negatives
which have held good in examination are admitted
to the * positive process “ ending in the picture.

But the distinction between preconscious and un-
conscious activity, and the recognition of the barrier
which keeps them asunder, is not the last or the most
important result of the psycho-analytic investigation
of mental life. There is one mental product to be met
with in the most normal persons, which yet presents
a very striking analogy to the wildest productions of
insanity, and was no more intelligible to philosophers
than insanity itself. I refer to dreams. Psycho-
analysis is founded upon the analysis of dreams; the
interpretation of dreams is the most complete piece of

1912 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 61

work the young science has done up to the present.
One of the most common types of dream-formation
may be described as follows: a train of thoughts has
been aroused by the working of the mind in the day-
time, and retained some of its activity, escaping from
the general inhibition of interests which introduces
sleep and constitutes the mental preparation for
sleeping. During the night this train of thoughts
succeeds in finding connections with one of the un-
conscious tendencies present ever since his childhood
in the mind of the dreamer, but ordinarily repressed
and excluded from his conscious life. By the bor-
rowed force of this unconscious help, the thoughts,
the residue of the day’s mental work, now become
active again, and emerge into consciousness in the

shape of the dream. Now three things have hap-
pened:

(1) The thoughts have undergone a change, a dis-
guise and a distortion, which represents the
part of the unconscious helpmate.

(2) The thoughts have occupied consciousness at a
time when they ought not.

(3) Some part of the unconscious, which could not

otherwise have done so, has emerged into
consciousness.

We have learnt the art of finding out the * residual
thoughts ”, the latent thoughts of the dream, and, by
comparing them with the manifest dream, we are able
to form a judgment on the changes they underwent
and the manner in which these were brought about.

The latent thoughts of the dream differ in no
respect from the products of our regular conscious
activity; they deserve the name of preconscious
thoughts, and may indeed have been conscious at

62 A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS 1912

some moment of waking life. But by entering into
connection with the unconscious tendencies during
the night they have become assimilated to the latter,
degraded as it were to the condition of unconscious
thoughts, and subjected to the laws by which un-
conscious activity is governed. And here is the
opportunity to learn what we could not have guessed
from speculation, or from another source of empirical
information—that the laws of unconscious activity
differ widely from those of the conscious. We gather
in detail what the peculiarities of the Unconscious are,
and we may hope to learn still more about them by a
profounder investigation of the processes of dream-
formation.

This inquiry is not yet half finished, and an exposi-
tion of the results obtained hitherto is scarcely
possible without entering into the most intricate
problems of dream-analysis. But I would not break
off this discussion without indicating the change and
progress in our comprehension of the Unconscious
which are due to our psycho-analytic study of
dreams.

Unconsciousness seemed to us at first only an
enigmatical characteristic of a definite mental act.
Now it means more for us. It is a sign that this act
partakes of the nature of a certain mental category
known to us by other and more important features,
and that it belongs to a system of mental activity
which is deserving of our fullest attention. The index-
value of the unconscious has far outgrown its
importance as a property. The system revealed by
the sign that the single acts forming parts of it are
unconscious we designate by the name “ The Un-
conscious ”, for want of a better and less ambiguous
term...